• THE UNSAFE ASYLUM: STORIES OF PARTITION AND MADNESS (Speaking Tiger, Rs 350) by Anirudh Kala is premised on an oft-explored topic. Years after the actual event, Partition continues to dominate the geopolitical discourse, inspire art - like Satish Gujral's Despair (picture) - and have an impact on the lives of citizens in both India and Pakistan. Kala, a psychiatrist by trade, investigates the mental scars that Partition left in people. Psychiatric afflictions that were a by-product of the event have been explored in fiction before - at times brilliantly, as in "Toba Tek Singh" by Saadat Hasan Manto.

Kala is no Manto - far from it, given his stilted prose - but his stories do manage to question the labels of madness and sanity. The losses he catalogues - of memories, of a sense of belonging, of roots and of sanity - are more ephemeral than land and property, and hence are rarely accounted for in history. Kala's experience as a psychiatrist came in handy in fleshing his characters. It is a pity that sloppy editing leaves his sentences verbose and his narrative full of unimportant details.

• TWELVE GREAT SHORT STORIES FROM BENGAL: RABINDRANATH TO SAMARESH BASU (Towards Freedom, Rs 350) by Phalguni Matilal offers a carefully curated collection of tales that trace the arc of evolution of modern short fiction in Bengali. Rabindranath Tagore gave Bengali short stories its present shape, but the form flourished under Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Premendra Mitra and other stalwarts, some of whom are featured in this book. The merit of a translation lies in communicating to the reader a sense of the original. The author succeeds in this task, although some of the passages seem too literal, thus affecting the cadence of the story. The collection is timely given the battle vernacular languages are fighting against English hegemony. Unfortunately, the book is shoddily edited - incorrect punctuation, inconsistent spellings and typographical errors mar the text.

• HEART: A HISTORY (Penguin, Rs 599) by Sandeep Jauhar charts a dual path. On the one hand, it is about the heart as science understands it and about the evolution of cardiac medicine. On the other, it is about the metaphysical heart, more accurately the author's heart. Jauhar, an intern when he wrote this book, discusses important medical developments that have made it possible for surgeons to perform cutting-edge procedures to save lives. At the same time, he recalls personal experiences with heart diseases. It is fascinating and moving in equal parts. One wishes Jauhar had left the offering of medical advice for another book.