Khushwant Singh, one of India's most famous and internationally-acclaimed authors, began his writing career in Ottawa where he was a junior diplomat so out of favour with the ambassador that he was given nothing to do. Bored, he started to write stories and his earliest publications were in Canadian lit mags. Six decades later, as eminence grise, he has written a savvy Introduction for a beautiful book of photographs of his native land: India: The Definitive Images 1858 to the Present. Included in this visual anthology are the works of such globally-applauded stars as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Margaret Bourke-White, as well as photos by many Indians who are not well-known outside the subcontinent. Most of the pictures are in colour, and each is accompanied by two or three paragraphs about the shooter and the image. No one book can reflect all of a country, but this one would seem to come close: Bollywood, Ghandi, the Raj, the poor, the wars, the millions-and the beauty-are all captured powerfully on film.