A slice of calcutta: An unlikely name has sprung up with a bagful of stories. New Market Tales [Pan Macmillan, Rs 299] by actor-director Jayant Kripalani is a surprise read that takes one into the heart of Calcutta of the 1960s. Weaving together stories surrounding New Market — of bakers, jewellers and crockery store owners — and also of New Kenilworth Hotel and the golfing greens of Tolly Club, each is a short, crisp piece of nostalgia. The Jadavpur University graduate has drawn deeply from his student days in the city, he said at the Calcutta launch of New Market Tales recently. With a beautifully illustrated cover, the book holds 11 short stories that have open but feel-good endings. The collection goes beyond just the baker boy Francis becoming a jewellery maker or Ganguly Gainjeewala’s activist-daughter Gopa. The tales are also about Harish, the successful corporate man who suddenly goes underground before reappearing, as well as about unfulfilled love, regrets and the bejewelled Sati G. But the Ji Mantriji actor saves the best for the last — Mesho.

A rickety ride down the lives of people we seldom bother to know about, New Market Tales is a colourful canvas from Kripalani.

500 books of summer: Bookworm just couldn’t help but chuckle at the artwork of the Penguin Summer Reads website (http://penguinsummerreads.com). And what is the little B&W bird recommending this season? Take your pick from the hilarious Fifty Shelves of Grey, where the aptly named Vanessa Parody retells everything from Jane Eyre to kitchen goddess Nigella Lawson with an erotic twist, Ian Jack’s railway saga Mofussil Junction, the international bestselling love story The Fault in Our Stars to Mage’s Blood to the first in David Hair’s ambitious The Moontide Quartet... and more.

Jai jugaad: Jugaad — a colloquial term in India implying an innovative yet simple solution for a daily problem. But what when that simple solution offers a multi-million-dollar answer to biz giants?

In Jugaad Innovation — Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth [Random House India, Rs 499], authors Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja have used their experiences in business and management to research jugaad innovations across India through case studies like Mansukh Prajapati’s MittiCool clay fridge, Harish Hande’s SELCO solar lighting company and Dr V. Mohan’s mobile clinic for diabetics. The book describes how firms like Apple, Renault-Nissan, Facebook, GE, Google, IBM, Siemens, Suzlon, Tata Group and PepsiCo have already adopted jugaad principles to better their products and systems.

What has brought the book back in the spotlight a year after its publication is the film Fukrey, which created a stir when producer Farhan Akhtar went searching for jugaadus across the country as part of the film’s launch. In response to Farhan’s search, Somaiya College students in Mumbai came up with Jugaad 13, a car that runs 300km on one litre of fuel! One of the students who designed the car said, “In our library was a book named Jugaad Innovation. We were inspired by it. That’s why we thought the name Jugaad would be apt for this car.”

A book that powers a car that powers a Bollywood film? Now that’s what Bookworm calls the power of the pen!