The past two decades have seen two potent but disparate movements - those of gender and participation. Each has generated writings and major implications for each other. Yet, ironically, as Robert Chambers (widely recognised as one of the main driving forces behind the great surge of interest in the use of participatory rural appraisals the globe over) contends, this is perhaps the first book to thoroughly explore the overlaps, linkages, contradictions and synergies between the two, says Subir Ghosh

Written when the homes of the Sikhs were still smouldering, some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence and the extent to which its fiery arms reach under the guise of fighting for freedom. Ghosh's treatment of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka is valid even today, more than ten years after its publication, writes Chandra Holm

For writers of fiction intent on publishing, there is no better resource than the annual Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. Each update of the guide, which lists over 2,000 places to publish fiction (including magazines literary and otherwise, zines, and book publishers large and small), acts as a kind of annual industry checkup. What publications are out there? What are they publishing? What kinds of fiction are hot, and not? This year's edition tells us that freshness, short shorts, originality, neatness, simple fonts, risk taking, good endings, and humour are all in, says Amazon.com

nspired by the emerging sculpture of the famous Sioux warrior, Crazy Horse, in Thunderhead Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Larry McMurtry wrote a biography of this mysterious loner. Crazy Horse was a mystery because he was a loner who kept to himself and did his own thing. Many others have tried to write about him, but there is really no information about his early life. However, the older he got, the more there was to write about him, says Cynthia Arbuthnot

n this fast-paced memoir, Ken Alibek combines cutting-edge science with the narrative techniques of a thriller to describe some of the most awful weapons imaginable. The result will remind readers of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston's smart bestseller about the Ebola virus. That book focuses on the dangers of a freak accident; Biohazard shows how disease can become a deliberate tool of war. Alibek, once a top scientist in the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, describes putting anthrax on a warhead and targeting a city on the other side of the world. Book description