BOOKS WE RECOMMEND THIS WEEK

Compiled by: Chirdeep Malhotra

1) “Love Marriage” by Monica Ali

(Contemporary Fiction| Format: Paperback/Kindle | MRP: 670 INR)

BLURB: Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine, and a charming, handsome fiancé, fellow doctor Joe Sangster.
But as the wedding day draws closer and Yasmin's parents get to know Joe's firebrand feminist mother, both families must confront the unravelling of long-held secrets, lies and betrayals.
As Yasmin dismantles her own assumptions about the people she holds most dear, she's also forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means.
“Love Marriage” is a story about who we are and how we love in today's Britain - with all the complications and contradictions of life, desire, marriage and family. What starts as a captivating social comedy develops into a heart-breaking and gripping story of two cultures, two families and two people trying to understand one another.



2) “My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future” by Indra Nooyi

(Memoir | Format: Hardcover/Kindle | MRP: 448 INR)

BLURB: For a dozen years as one of the world's most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman of colour and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company – and one of the foremost strategic thinkers of our time – she transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence, and a deep sense of purpose. Now, in a rich memoir brimming with grace, grit, and good humour, “My Life in Full” offers a first-hand view of Nooyi's legendary career and the sacrifices it so often demanded.
Nooyi takes us through the events that shaped her, from her childhood and early education in 1960s India, to the Yale School of Management, to her rise as a corporate consultant and strategist who soon ascended into the most senior executive ranks. The book offers an inside look at PepsiCo, and Nooyi's thinking as she steered the iconic American company toward healthier products and reinvented its environmental profile, despite resistance at every turn. For the first time and in raw detail, Nooyi also lays bare the difficulties that came with managing her demanding job with a growing family, and what she learned along the way. She makes a clear, actionable, urgent call for business and government to prioritize the care ecosystem, paid leave and work flexibility, and a convincing argument for how improving company and community support for young family builders will unleash the economy's full potential.
Generous, authoritative, and grounded in lived experience, “My Life in Full” is the story of an extraordinary leader's life, a moving tribute to the relationships that created it, and a blueprint for 21st century prosperity.



3) “Planning Democracy: How a Professor, an Institute, and an Idea Shaped India” by Nikhil Menon

(Non-Fiction | Format: Hardcover/Kindle | MRP: 622 INR)

BLURB: India's Five-Year Plans were one of the developing world's most ambitious experiments. After nearly two centuries of colonial rule, planning the economy was meant to be independent India's route from poverty to prosperity. Planning Democracy explores how India married liberal democracy to a socialist economy. Planning not only built India's data systems, it even shaped the nature of its democracy. The Five-Year Plans loomed so large that they linked surprisingly far-flung contexts – from computers to Bollywood to Hindutva.
In this compelling history, Nikhil Menon brings the world of planning to life through the intriguing story of a gifted scientist known as the Professor, a trail-blazing research institute in Calcutta, and the alluring idea of 'democratic planning'. Set amidst global conflicts and international debates, Menon reveals how India walked a tightrope between capitalism and communism. “Planning Democracy” recasts our understanding of the Indian republic, uncovering how planning came to define the nation and revealing the ways in which it continues to shape our world today.



4) “The Age of AI: And Our Human Future” by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher

(Non-Fiction | Format: Hardcover/Kindle | MRP: 610 INR)

BLURB: An AI learned to win chess by making moves human grand masters had never conceived. Another AI discovered a new antibiotic by analysing molecular properties human scientists did not understand. Now, AI-powered jets are defeating experienced human pilots in simulated dogfights. AI is coming online in searching, streaming, medicine, education, and many other fields and, in so doing, transforming how humans are experiencing reality.
In this book, three leading thinkers have come together to consider how AI will change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live. “The Age of AI” is an essential roadmap to our present and our future, an era unlike any that has come before.