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Maths prodigy

Rumi Vasi is ten years, two months, thirteen days, two hours, forty-two minutes and six seconds-old. The probability of her walking home from school with John Kemble is 0.2142, a probability severely reduced by the lacy frock and thick woollen tights she is forced to wear by her father.

Numbers have filled Rumi’s world since she first learned to count. It was on a trip to India at the age of eight that her mathematical powers acquired their almost supernatural significance. When she returned home to Cardiff, her destiny was sealed: she was now the town’s ‘maths prodigy’. But as Rumi grows up, numbers no longer occupy her every waking moment: she abandons her homework to seek out friendship and replaces equations with stories from Malory Towers.

And, as the family’s stark isolation intensifies, so too does Rumi’s desire for love. A dazzling novel of high aspirations and deep longing, Nikita Lalwani’s debut captures brilliantly the battle to come of age in an emotional and comic hinterland where history, arithmetic and cumin seeds all play a part.

Gifted

by Nikita Lalwani Cover Price: Rs 395.00

Penguin Books India

Years after September 11, we are still looking for answers. Internationally renowned Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed knew that this question could not be answered until Islam and the West found a way past the hatred and mistrust intensified by the war on terror and the forces of globalisation. Seeking to establish dialogue and understanding between these cultures, Ahmed led a team of dedicated young Americans on a daring and unprecedented tour of the Muslim world.

The book is a riveting story of their search for common ground.

From the mosques of Damascus to the madrassahs of Karachi and Deoband to the homes of Jakarta, Ahmed and his companions met with Muslims from all walks of life.

Rejecting stereotypes and ‘conventional wisdom’ about Islam and its encounter with globalisation, this important book offers a new framework for understanding the Muslim world.

Journey into Islam makes a powerful case for forming bonds across religion, race and tradition to create lasting harmony between Islam and the West.

It is essential reading in an era of mistrust and misunderstanding.

Journey into Islam: The crisis of globalisation

By Akbar Ahmed Cover Price: Rs 525

Penguin Viking

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