Kink, Einstein, NRIs, mazes, John and Yoko

The golden section (Vintage, £3.95) by Pernille Rygg is a sophisticated Norwegian thriller, translated by Don Bartlett, whose opening sentences take the reader straight to the heart of the book’s arty, dark and kinky world: “It is a declaration of love of the most insistent, brutal kind that no-one would want or wish for. Look at me, it says, Love me, however awful I am.” Rygg’s unconventional heroine, psychologist Igi Heitmann, is holding her daughter’s hand and reading a huge graffito spray-painted on her house-front. Heitmann lives in an Oslo suburb with her daughter and her cross-dressing husband. The next one reads “HEITMANN=CHILD KILLER”. She is soon on the trail of this writer. This leads her to the exhibition of an avant-garde artist whose use of violent sexual imagery has caused great controversy. Moving between the world of pornographic art and the “golden homeliness” she shares with her family, Igi must follow a dangerous and shocking path to the truth.

Albert Einstein: selected writings (LeftWord, Rs 85) edited by Jim Green collects an extraordinary range of writings by “the real Albert Einstein” — left-wing, pacifist, internationalist, anti-Nazi, anti-Franco, antiracist, freethinking and Jewish. The writings are grouped under the following sections: pacifism, nationalism, militarism and fascism; toward a world government; weapons of mass destruction; human rights and civil rights; Jews and humanism; capitalism and socialism. There is a well-researched chronology and a helpful list of print and internet resources.

Suburban sahibs: three immigrant families and their passage from India to America (Penguin, Rs 250) by S. Mitra Kalita is an account of the lives of three NRI families in the suburbs of New Jersey — the Kotharis, the Patels and the Sarmas. Kalita — a reporter with the Washington Post and the daughter of immigrants from Assam — puts a human face on India’s massive diaspora, and shows how varied its experience can be even in one American locality.

Slouching towards Ayodhya: from Congress to hindutva in indian politics (Three Essays, Rs 175) by Radhika Desai discusses the structural basis, historical roots and political entrenchment of Hindutva putting it in international, national and regional perspectives. After a “field guide” to “right politics”, Desai focuses on the contemporary Indian bourgeoisie and on Gujarat to assess the size of the task before the forces that oppose Hindutva.

Mindstretch: stories about numbers, maths puzzles and games (Penguin, Rs 250) by Deb- kumar Mitra sets out to persuade the mathophobe that playing with numbers can actually be fun. It collects brainteasers, whodunits, mystery and logic games that will entertain as well as challenge, interspersed with curious facts about numbers, magic squares, riddles on chess, a special crossword and a fascinating section showing how to draw one’s own maze.

The Beatles at no.1 (Pimlico, £2.40) by Ian MacDonald is a wonderfully informative and readable little book (by the author of Revolution in the Head), which tells the story behind every Beatles song that went to No.1 in the UK and US charts. MacDonald writes about such immortals as “Love Me Do”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Hey Jude” and “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. His introduction provides an excellent account of the evolution of the band’s musical identity: “when one listens to their No.1s in chronological order, one hears a social narrative of the Sixties in musical form”.