The Habit of Love Collection of stories offering a profound insight into the female mind!. The Habit of Love is a collection of stories about the inner lives of women. Some of these women inhabit the ancient past, some the present day but they share the whimsical humour with which they speak of themselves. Journalist Madhu Sinha strikes up a friendship with a young man the same age as her indifferent children; a messenger swan relates the story of the doomed lovers Nala and Damayanti; Vatsala Vidyarthi suspects her one night stand of stealing her money. Delicately poised between irony and grief, The Habit of Love is both elegant and acute, arch and melancholic. In these moving stories she displays both sympathy and understanding as she unveils the workings of a woman's heart.

Namita Gokhale is a writer, publisher and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival. Her books include the novels Priya: In Incredible Indyaa, A Himalayan Love Story, Gods, Graves and Grandmother, The Book of Shadows, Shakuntala: The Play of Memory and Paro, and the non-fiction works The Book of Shiva and Mountain Echoes: Reminiscences of Kumaoni Women. She has also retold the Mahabharata for young readers and co-edited In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology with Dr Malashri Lal.