BMW Audiobooks

India’s economy is growing at a tremendous clip with its expanding, highly educated workforce competing for jobs with Western economies. Pakistan, whose President-General is allied with the U.S., in many ways has become a crucial partner (and some say a liability) in America’s adventures and misadventures overseas since 9/11. Both countries have made the world nervous with nuclear posturing over the last decade or so. So it is natural that on the sixtieth anniversary of both countries’ creation via bloody partition, a number of books have recently been published chronicling this pivotal moment in recent history. I’ve listed five of these books on the birth of Pakistan below (Please use the comments to let us know about any I’ve missed.)Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex Von Tunzelmann – New Yorker review; excerptIndia After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha – San Francisco Chronicle reviewThe Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future by Martha C. Nussbaum – NYRB review; excerpt (pdf)Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India by Stanley Wolpert – Times of India reviewThe Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan – The Economist review; excerptThe Great Partition and Indian Summer seem to be getting the most press, with both being discussed in a recent Slate article.

I spend so much time talking about serious (grown up) books that I sometimes forget that books had a completely different hold on me when I was a little fella. These days I like to read something that will challenge me, and I seek people out who will discuss a particular book with me. We turn the book around in our heads poking it and prodding it, making this or that judgment, and then we set the book carefully aside and rush onward to the next one. It really doesn’t bear much resemblance to the way my five year old self felt about books. Back then it was the purest escape. I could open a book and be utterly immersed within its confines. Such is the boundlessness of the young imagination that I could dwell in the same book almost endlessly. I gave no thought to picking up the same book day after day for weeks on end. As we grow older, our imaginations atrophy and it becomes difficult to immerse ourselves in a story and pictures in the same way. There are, however, a special handful of books that are powerful enough to remind you of what it was like to be five again. The Olivia series by Ian Falconer is able to do this. Something about the dreamy illustrations and the antics of a stubborn pig can make you forget yourself for a few minutes. The third Olivia book comes out today. It’s called Olivia . . . and the Missing Toy, and if you are at a bookstore today and you want a bit of merriment, take a look, you won’t be disappointed.