Indica
was gifted to my naturalist father by the author Pranay Lal. It took a long
time to reach me. And was I happy to lay my paws on this utterly spectacular
tome!
The
scope of Indica, from the time earth’s day was 6 hours long to the evolution of
gargantuan mammals to the arrival of sapiens on the bank of Indus, is breathtaking. While
reading it, I could picture the vivacious Pranay stopping his car on a highway
to check out a forgotten stone or explaining a virus as if it were a friend.
Although
you won’t remember every nugget of knowledge, you’ll emerge an enriched and
humbled person who knows 10 million years in evolution is a very short time
and that 99% of the species that ever lived on earth are extinct today. Indica
is not a book. It is a milestone.
Did you know that the exquisite caves of Ellora were hewn from rock formed in the greatest lava floods the world has known-eruptions so enormous that they may well have obliterated dinosaurs? Or that Bengaluru owes its unique climate to a tectonic event that took place 88 million years ago? That the Ganga and Brahmaputra sequester nearly 20 per cent of global carbon, and their sediments over millions of years have etched submarine canyons in the Bay of Bengal that are larger than the Grand Canyon?Ever heard of Rajasaurus, an Indian dinosaur which was perhaps more ferocious than T rex?…
I
met Sálim Ali sahib, the legend and paradigm of ornithology, as a tiny
tot. My naturalist father had taken me to meet him at his home. The two things
I remember from that visit are the roof-high shelves of books lining his study and the hard, orange toffee his secretary gave me.
Sálim
Ali for Childrenis not just for children. It is for all of us. Zai Whitaker,
the grandniece, who is a celebrated conservationist, has brought to the fore his
less-known personal life as well as his times as a trailblazer.
As an author
who has written several books for children on wildlife and nature, I feel this book is a must-have in schools and personal libraries. The
book is an inspiration and adventure if you ever need one.
My partner found this book covered in a
layer of dust and cobwebs in an abandoned cottage on an island in Sri Lanka. I
eyed him skeptically as he picked it up. Later, I started reading it only to
champion his cause of saving a book…but what a find it turned out to be!
The year is 2025. A
disillusioned, old “eco-terrorist” is managing a private zoo, and the ecological
apocalypse is on his (flooded) doorstep. Boyle’s cutting satire, dark humor, surreal plot, and marvelous writing make it one of the most poignant works
of fiction on climate change and the destruction of the wild.
What were we doing on that island? Well,
that’s another story.
_______________________
'A comedy with teeth ... razor sharp and darkly funny' (TIMES)
'Boyle's prose is so good and his imagination so fertile that after a while you just sit back and are swept along' (TELEGRAPH)
'Surreal, daring and compassionate. Easily one of the best books of the year' (MAIL)
'Superb ... if Boyle was from this side of the pond, this is the book they'd all have to beat for the Booker Prize' (SUNDAY TIMES)
It's 2025, and 75-year-old environmentalist and retired eco-terrorist Ty Tierwater is eking out a bleak living managing a pop star's private zoo.
It is the…
Iora overhears sinister whispering coming from her well and is attacked by a strange creature. She knows her father is in mortal danger, but no one will listen.
She sneaks out to search the enchanted Wacky Wilderness for him, but Beetle isn’t about to let her go alone. Among the jungle denizens, they encounter wild animals, hidden tribes, secretive lands, and strange and magical creatures: some friendly and some not.
After finding one of the guiding angels of the jungle, the search for her father becomes a quest to save the jungle. They only have 17 days to find the other four forest Angels and the elusive Spirit of the Jungle. But the dark forces aren’t going to sit by and let that happen…
