ISBN: 9780143330905    Publisher: Penguin Year of publishing: 2012     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 288        Language: English

It all began with the fall of a meteorite and the crater it made. In its centre was a red notebook, sticking out of the ground--the first (or was it really the last?) of Professor Shonku's diaries.Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku, eccentric genius and scientist, disappeared without a trace after he shot off into space in a rocket from his backyard in Giridih, accompanied by his loyal but not-too-intelligent servant Prahlad, his cat Newton, and Bidhushekhar, his robot with an attitude.What has become of the professor? Has he decided to stay on in Mars, his original destination? Or has he found his way to some other planet and is living there with strange companions? His last diary tells an incredible story...Other diaries unearthed from his abandoned laboratory reveal stranger and even more exciting adventures involving a ferocious sadhu, a revengeful mummy and a mad scientist in Norway who turns famous men into six-inch statues.Exciting, imaginative and funny, the stories in this collection capture the sheer magic of Ray's lucid language, elegant style, graphic descriptions and absurd humour. The indomitable Professor Shonku has returned, to win himself over a whole new band of followers!
Read less

Satyajit Ray (1921-92) was one of the greatest film-makers of his time. In 1992, he was awarded the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the same year he was also honoured with the Bharat Ratna.Ray was also a writer of repute, and his short stories, novellas, poems and articles, written in Bengali, have been immensely popular. He has published several books in Bengali, most of which became bestselle He is also the author of the famous Feluda stories, the translations of which are available in Penguin.Subhadra Sen Gupta was born in Delhi and holds a master's degree in history. She has been writing since college and has worked as a copywriter in many advertising agencies. She specializes in historical fiction and non-fiction, travel writing, detectives and ghost stories as well as comic strips. She has published over twenty-five books for children and adults, with Puffin, Rupa, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Pratham, India Book House and Ratna Sagar. Three of her books--A Clown for Tenali Rama, Jodh Bai and Twelve O'Clock Ghost Stories (Scholastic)--have won the White Raven Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.Tapas Guha is a well-known illustrator who loves dreaming up comic strips. As a kid he taught himself to draw by studying the illustrations of comics like Tintin, Phantom, Mandrake and of course Satyajit Ray. You can see samples of his work at www.tapasguha.com.
Read less