{"title":"Bill Aitken","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"sri-sathya-sai-baba-book-bill-aitken-9780144000616","title":"Sri Sathya Sai Baba","description":"Acclaimed travel writer and self-described 'spiritual nomad', Bill Aitken tells us why so many - royalty, wealthy industrialists, influential politicians, as well as the poor - flock to Puttaparthi. Sai Baba's message, he reveals, can be summed up in one word: love. It is as simple as it is profound, not unlike how his devotees see the Sai himself - the embodiment of deep spirituality wedded to simplicity, elegance and grace. Yet, the Sai phenomenon is less about producing vibhuti from thin air and more about modern-day miracles - miracles like free schools and universities, super-speciality hospitals which provide free treatment to all and revolutionary projects like the one which has brought drinking water to a million villagers in drought-prone Rayalseema. Aitken's study is neither a hagiographic exercise in myth-making nor a dry, objective account of the Sai's life. While never shy of expressing his deep love and reverence for Sai Baba, he squarely confronts the controversies and criticisms which inevitably dog those who claim acquaintance with the holy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49566553014545,"sku":"GOR006958150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52102578536721,"sku":"CIN014400061XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/014400061X.jpg?v=1750737356"},{"product_id":"exploring-indian-railways-book-bill-aitken-9780195637618","title":"Exploring Indian Railways","description":"This amusing personal account of the Indian Railways focuses on the experience of the passenger and is packed with lively ancedotes. But it goes much beyond that taking in every imaginable aspect of the railways' history and current practices. Little escapes the author's fond,acerbic, and searching eye, as it ranges from station bookshops and ministry bureaucracy to locomotive types and tracks, from the technical aspects of railway administration to the broader issues of the effects of the railways upon Indian culture and their vital contribution to the economy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49622430089489,"sku":"GOR005853850","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50114626945297,"sku":"GOR001396528","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195637615.jpg?v=1750972642"},{"product_id":"machine-code-programming-on-the-psion-organizer-ii-book-bill-aitken-9780745701387","title":"Machine Code Programming on the Psion Organizer II","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49623365386513,"sku":"GOR004938347","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49770701717777,"sku":"GOR001176179","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49809241374993,"sku":"GOR013788451","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0745701388.jpg?v=1751042561"},{"product_id":"nanda-devi-affair-book-bill-aitken-9780140240450","title":"The Nanda Devi Affair","description":"There is a kind of brotherhood between man and mountains.... The inescapable logic of desire leaves the mountain traveller no choice but to plan his next expedition to the very peak that may have just rejected vociferously the most singleminded of advances.' In his thirty-year sojourn in India, Bill Aitken has had two serious affairsone, essentially spiritual in nature, with the country's rivers, the other more earthy and passionate, with her mountains. In this sequel to his first book for Penguin, Seven Sacred Rivers, he talks of his second great obsessionNanda Devi, patron Goddess of Kumaon and Garhwal. Spanning more than a decade, from the Seventies to the Eighties, Aitken's attempts to explore the sanctuary of this most beautiful of Himalayan peaks were not, he admits, those of a professional mountaineer, but of a romantic. Accordingly, what he gives us is, in his own words, -neither a book about Himalayan climbing nor a treatise on hill theology but a diary of mountain relish.' Aitken's deep-seated study of the cult of the Goddess and the folklore and customs of the Kumaon Himalayas is chequered with deliciously acerbic asides on bumptious bureaucrats, the bane of Indian mountaineering, while the true nature lover's concern for the environment is manifest in his anger over the destruction wrought by political motivations and the ambitions of so-called professional mountaineers.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50624027164945,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50624027492625,"sku":"GOR002556611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0140240454.jpg?v=1751164295"},{"product_id":"blackest-of-lies-book-bill-aitken-9781511498135","title":"Blackest of Lies","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51031735959825,"sku":"NIN9781511498135","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1511498137.jpg?v=1751054640"},{"product_id":"seven-sacred-rivers-book-bill-aitken-9780140154733","title":"Seven Sacred Rivers","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51747261317393,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51747262628113,"sku":"CIN0140154736VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51891787989265,"sku":"GOR001763441","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780140154733.jpg?v=1750997596"},{"product_id":"bernie-the-most-influential-producer-you-ve-never-heard-of-book-bill-aitken-9798871967997","title":"BERNIE: The most influential producer you've never heard of","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53107351748881,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53107351814417,"sku":"GOR014745276","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9798871967997.jpg?v=1770482285"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-bill-aitken.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}