{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1646222792?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1646222792","authors":["Aatish Taseer"],"book_id":"9781646222797","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/a-return-to-self-9781646222797","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781646222797.jpg?v=45a2b212eb07af84","description":"Longlisted for the NBCC Award for Nonfiction A blend of travelog and memoir spanning from Turkey to Mexico, exploring Aatish Taseer’s uniquely blended identity and asking: Why do certain cities become epicenters of great historical shifts and sites of unpredictable communities? In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Narenda Modi revoked Aatish Taseer’s Indian citizenship, thereby exiling him from the country where he grew up and lived for thirty years. This loss, both practical and spiritual, sent him on a journey of revisiting the places that formed his identity, and asking broader questions about the complex forces that make a culture and a nationality, in the process. In Istanbul, he confronts the hopes and ambitions of his former self. In Uzbekistan, he sees how what was once the majestic portal of the Silk Road is now a tourist façade. In India, he explores why Buddhism, which originated there, is so little practiced. Everywhere he goes, the ancient world mixes intimately with the contemporary: with the influences of the pandemic, the rise of new food cultures, and the ongoing cultural battles of regions around the world. How do centuries of cultures evolving and overlapping, often violently, shape the people that subsequently emerge from them? In thoughtful prose that combines reportage with romanticism, Taseer casts an incisive eye at what it means to belong to a place that becomes an unstable, politicized vessel for ideas defined by exclusion and prejudice, and gets to the human heart of the shifts and migrations that define our multicultural world.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781646222797","publication_date":"20250715","publisher":"Catapult","slug":"a-return-to-self","subtitle":"Excursions in Exile","title":"A Return to Self"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"TRV026090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Literary Travel","score":0.7457,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV003040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"India & South Asia Travel","score":0.7406,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7189,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"TRV026090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Literary Travel","score":0.7457,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRV003040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"India & South Asia Travel","score":0.7406,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7189,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"BIO031000","confidence_band":"high","label":"LGBTQ+ Lives","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"SOC007000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Immigration & Emigration","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRV015030","confidence_band":"high","label":"Travel in Turkey","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Literary Travel","score":0.7457,"slug":"literary-travel"},{"label":"India & South Asia Travel","score":0.7406,"slug":"india-south-asia-travel"},{"label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7189,"slug":"how-cultures-work"}],"reader_fit":["Readers of travelogues and memoirs about identity and place","Good for readers interested in cultural history, migration, and belonging"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Ghaith Abdul-Ahad"],"book_id":"9780593536889","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593536889.jpg?v=1646645453873eb9","score":0.6759,"title":"A Stranger in Your Own City","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593536889"},{"authors":["Priyanka Mattoo"],"book_id":"9780593314586","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593314586.jpg?v=6ddae21e1032baec","score":0.6739,"title":"Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593314586"},{"authors":["Steve Coll"],"book_id":"9780143115199","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780143115199.jpg?v=763475a57a6e8bd6","score":0.6736,"title":"On the Grand Trunk Road","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780143115199"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:history"],"label":"History","score":0.4536,"slug":"history"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:travel gifts"],"label":"Travel","score":0.0878,"slug":"travel"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:biography"],"label":"Biography","score":0.0744,"slug":"biography"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:biographies"],"label":"Biographies","score":0.0616,"slug":"biographies"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Identity and exile, Cultural change and migration, Belonging and exclusion.","Pacing: reflective, voice-and-character forward.","Themes: History, Travel, Biography."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.91,"pacing":"reflective","reader_fit":["Readers of travelogues and memoirs about identity and place","Readers interested in cultural history, migration, and belonging"],"themes":["Identity and exile","Cultural change and migration","Belonging and exclusion"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":9,"goodreads_ratings_count":51,"goodreads_reviews_count":11,"quality_score":0.8661}}