~ Alternate Side, by Anna Quindlen ~ Is a book only interesting if the characters have problems? Or, conversely, does it make a book uninteresting if the characters live lives of extreme privilege with few crosses to bear? Anna Quindlen’s...
~ How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid ~ I am left curiously pleased and yet discontented by Mohsin Hamid’s third novel. Hamid seems to have come to fame as a result of his 2nd novel. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which...
~ The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert ~ Eat Pray Love, and its sequel, Committed, made Elizabeth Gilbert a celebrated author. Those were pleasant enough reads: warm and sincere, if a trifle too gushing; lively and entertaining, if...
~ Video, by Meera Nair ~ It’s hard to browse a bookstore these days without coming across a book of short stories from India or the diaspora. Some such collections may therefore not get all the attention they deserve, and...
~ Madras on Rainy Days, by Samina Ali ~ In her first novel, Samina Ali has fallen prey to that common problem of first-time novelists: the temptation to stuff every possible ‘issue’ into a single story. Which is a pity;...
~ Atlas of Unknowns, by Tania James ~ Tania James’ first novel has a vivid and powerful beginning: two sisters, Linno and Anju, in a small town in Kerala, whose father buys them fireworks for a celebration only to see...
~ No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women. By Shahla Haeri ~ Disconcerted by the invisibility of Muslim professional women in academic and cultural literature, Shahla Haeri decided to fill this gap. As she says, they may...
~ Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert ~ Emotional tourism has its allure; who among us does not find it fascinating to get a peek into another person’s soul? Emotional tourism by Westerners in the third world is less appealing,...
~ The Space Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar ~ Umrigar’s love for Bombay, her intimacy with the city, comes through verystrongly in her third novel, as in her earlier two. And once again, Umrigar introduces and familiarises her reader to...
~ Family Life, by Akhil Sharma ~ Unlike Sharma’s first novel, An Obedient Father, which was set in India, Family Life is a story of Indian immigrants to America. The Mishras, a middle-class Delhi family, migrate to New York in...
~ The Village Bride of Beverley Hills, by Kavita Daswani ~ The Village Bride of Beverly Hills operates on the pleasant conceit that in the cut-throat world of Hollywood journalism, nice girls finish first. And more, even a girl whose...
~ Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, by Meera Syal ~ Is there anything Meera Syal can’t do? She wrote and starred in a phenomenally successful TV serial. She writes screenplays for plays and film. She acts and sings....
~ The End of Innocence, by Moni Mohsin ~ This novel is yet another example of very high quality fiction in English from Pakistani women writers. Mohsin joins an elite group comprising the likes of Sidhwa, Suleri, Shamsie, who have...
~ Once was Bombay, by Pinki Virani ~ Pinki Virani is outspoken, courageous, opinionated, and forthright. In the preface to Once was Bombay, she lays it on the line. Who killed Bombay? We did. Each of us who thought ourselves...
~ Song of the Cuckoo Bird, by Amulya Malladi ~ In 1961, an 11-year-old girl called Kokila arrived at an ashram in a small town in Andhra Pradesh. Girls were married young in those days, but only moved into their...
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