Love conquers almost all

♦ FELUDA @ 50 (HarperCollins, Rs 299) curated and edited by Boria Majumdar is a delightful collection of essays, interviews and illustrations centred on Bengal's favourite literary sleuth. The book deconstructs the 'Feluda phenomenon' and charts out new ways of thinking about the detective. For Indrajit Hazra, Feluda is the perfect antidote to both the elitist 'bhadralok' and the populist 'chhotolok' stereotypes. Conceived during the Naxal years, Feluda was probably Ray's way of escaping the existing political chaos. Rochona Majumdar explores Topshe, Feluda's assistant, from the point of view of the female reader. She argues that the absence of "gender-specific" characteristics of Topshe serves as a common point of identification for boys and girls. At the end of the book, Majumdar suggests that perhaps it is Feluda's 'apolitical' nature and deep-rooted 'Bengaliness' that makes him so endearing to the Bengali middle class, which no longer seems to care much about political ideologies.

♦ THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER (Penguin, Rs 299) by Sakshama Puri Dhariwal turns the familiar story of boy meets girl into a light-hearted tale filled with witty dialogues, lovable characters and dramatic twists. When the flight seat of Page-3 journalist, Risha Kohli, is upgraded, she is forced to spend the rest of her travel time sitting beside a handsome real-estate magnet, Arjun Khanna. Conversation flows and sparks fly as Arjun discovers that Risha, who is also a wedding photographer, is covering her sister's wedding. Their romance unfolds over the next couple of days, amidst a big fat Punjabi wedding. After a silly misunderstanding that threatens to foil the happily-ever-after end, the couple is reunited. The book bears unmistakable traces of the Mills and Boon series. But Dhariwal, a first-time writer, has a knack for creating warm romantic moments and funny situations.

♦THOSE IMMIGRANTS! INDIANS IN AMERICA: A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF ACHIEVEMENT (Fingerprint, Rs 350) by Scott Haas is a rather banal account of 30 Indians who seem to be living out the 'American dream' as successful professionals or entrepreneurs. For a book that claims to be a "resounding tale of immigrants", there is very little psychological exploration of the issues of migration. What could have been an interesting account of the problems of assimilation or racial discrimination ends up reading like an unanalysed list of achievers. This is strange, coming from an award-winning clinical psychologist.