Indian Classics

"Since time immemorial, India has been an ocean bed over which numerous stories have flowed and enriched the world. Storytellers from Tulsidas to Rohinton Mistry have added their magic to this magnificent repository. Inspired in part by Somadeva’s Kathasaritasagara, William Radice collects...

"Since time immemorial, India has been an ocean bed over which numerous stories have flowed and enriched the world. Storytellers from Tulsidas to Rohinton Mistry have added their magic to this magnificent repository. Inspired in part by Somadeva’s Kathasaritasagara, William Radice collects...

As Michael maneuvers through his working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the school yard and street corner violence of local thugs. With the 1967 Arab-Israeli War fresh in public memory, he passes for Greek or Italian...

When his father dies, Prince Jauna Khan succeeds to the throne of Delhi as Muhammad bin Tughlaq. His reign will prove to be epic and bloody, but unsurpassed in splendour, innovation and defeat. A formidable strategist and remarkable scholar, the Sultan will go down in history for his brutality...

First published in 1907, Old Indian Days is a collection of stories about the Sioux of the Upper Midwest. Charles A. Eastman writes about the traditional life of his people, their culture, customs, family relations, and struggle for survival in stories like The Love of Antelope, The Madness of Bald Eagle, and The Singing Spirit.

The author of the bestselling Leonardo’s Swans traverses the centuries into the hearts of two extraordinary women to reveal the passions, ambitions, and controversies surrounding the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles have been displayed in the British Museum for nearly two hundred years, and...

Devdutt Pattanaik is the author of over twenty-five books and 500 articles on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Trained in medicine (MBBSfrom Grant Medical College, Mumbai University), he worked in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries for fifteen years before devoting all his...

Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages and towns, they lead lives that are touched by natural beauty as...

An enchanting collection of stories from the heartland of India Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages...

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

"Good people can be crashing bores. Evil men who combine evil-doing with drunkenness, debauchery and making illicit money make more interesting characters because they pack their lives with action. They do what most of us would like to do but do not have the guts to.'-Khushwant SinghMalice. The...

Following his runaway best seller, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie gives us a delightful new tale of East meets West: an adventure both wry and uplifting about a love of dreams and the dream of love, and the power of reading to sustain and inspire the spirit. After years of...

At the height of China’s Cultural Revolution a powerful general fathered two sons. Tan was born to the general’s wife and into a life of comfort and luxury. His half brother, Shento, was born to the general’s mistress, who threw herself off a cliff in the mountains of Balan only moments...

Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with a spiritual journey of self-discovery during the time of the Gautam Buddha. Throughtout the story, Hesse conveys a profound message for everyone who seeks meaning in their lives. The setting is India, but the concerns of Siddhartha are about the connection between mind, body, and spirit as universal. He goes through many changes during the course of the book, and each new life experience brings a new awakening, and brings him closer to the truth.

Unabridged narration with soundtrack consisting of ambient sounds and music. Hermann Hesse's great story brilliantly narrated by Sean Pratt and Susan Hanfield. With an accompanying ambient soundtrack by Kate Hopkins and the Emmy, Golden Reel, and BAFTA winning team at Wounded Buffalo, sound designers for the David Attenborough BBC series Planet Earth, Blue Planet, and Dynasties; with music by Jane Harbour.

Robert Benjamin Lewis (1802 - 1858) was an African American and Native American author, inventor, and entrepreneur. In the ethnological work Light and Truth, Lewis claims that Adam and Eve were people of color, as were the Egyptians and many great figures of the ancient world, including Julius Caesar and Plato. Denouncing notions of white superiority, he asserts that all humans have a common origin, and pointed to a shared cultural history between Africans and Native Americans.

Didier is an elephant, but he isn't sure if he likes being an elephant all that much, with his big, awkward body and boring life of carrying and lifting things for his human owner, Mr. Rahol. He lives in Mumbai with his mother, who tells fantastic tales about living in the wild before humans captured her and turned her into a domestic animal. Neither she nor the rest of Mr. Rahol's herd of elephants, however understand why Didier would rather be some other kind of animal instead.

Wynema Harjo is an idealistic young Muscogee woman who finds meaning as a teacher for the young people of her village. After the Wounded Knee Massacre and the subsequent Ghost Dance movement, Wynema feels a need to take further action, and she and her husband adopt a Lakota girl. As the years roll by and injustices mount, Wynema and a fellow teacher, Genevieve Weir, consider the repercussions of the oppression that surrounds them—and wonder how their society might eventually be improved.

One of the giants of Hindi literature, Jainendra introduced the ‘psychological’ in Hindi fiction. Questions of love, marriage and relationships occupy much of Jainendra’s works, taking them into the realm of the internal and the intimate. In The Resignation, Jainendra tells the story of...

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak (1469–1539), who drew upon the teachings of Muslim, Sufis and Hindu Bhaktas. In its purest form Sikhism is about unity, simplicity, equality and surrender (to God) and the verses of the Sikh Gurus—most of them included in the Granth...