Before you begin The Watch, allow me to offer a few details about Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya's writerly preparations you won't find in the book. Although his ending "Acknowledgements" includes candid gratitude to numerous members of the U.S. military, the interview attached to the press materials sent with his title...
Reading four novels, each set in a major Indian city, one after another over a single week or so, has made the stories feel as if they might overlap, dovetail, conflate, creating quite the enriching literary experience. In the midst of A Fine Balance, I...
Confession: I started Wave stuck in the ears, but didn't get very far because the narrator seems to have a lisp – which is not a judgment about the reader herself, but my little ears had too challenging a time comprehending each sentence. This is a...
* STARRED REVIEW As in Ru Freeman’s absorbing 2009 debut, A Disobedient Girl, the intricate lives of young children also take center stage in this latest work. In 1979, the titular Sal Mal Lane is a cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s largest city and former...
Allow me to start with the simple end: Ru Freeman's On Sal Mal Lane is stupendous. I'll even embellish that verdict and add that it is actually fan-huththa-tastic...
Let's go back about seven years. So a writer walks into a bar. It's dark, but thankfully not smoky. The majority of the people there are more bookish (including Booker-ish!) than biker brutish. The writer finds a drink, and is standing slightly off the side with...
Of the debut novels by non-Asian men writing about Asia and Asian characters that I've read thus far this year, three stand out: Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master’s Son, Brandon Jones' All Woman and Springtime, and most recently this title by Virginia attorney Corban Addison. The one...
Not being much of a mystery aficionado, I admit my grumbling tummy is what initially drew me to this toothsome series. Earlier this year, one of my various listservs announced the July 2012 publication of this very title, and I diligently decided I had better read Vish...
Winner of this year's South Asian Book Award from the South Asia National Outreach Consortium [SANOC], Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw's latest is a whimsical, delightful exploration of friendship, family, and cultures ...
Self-made Mumbai real estate mogul Dharmen Shah is determined to build his iconic structure, the Shanghai, a "super-luxury" residential skyscraper, named to reflect his admiration for "all the will power in the world" he associates with the rising global power of the Chinese. In order...
I always feel a twinge of guilt chuckling over murder mysteries – how can I be laughing in the midst of grisly, graphic slashings and shootings? But Vish Puri – "India’s Most Private Investigator" – is, for all his quirky habits (sneaking food when the wife's not looking, spouting centuries-old...
While I do enjoy a clever mystery now and then, I confess the real reason I randomly picked up the Vish Puri – "India's Most Private Investigator" series – is because I was so taken with the title for #3: The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken, which hit...
Most of the time, I love stories that require fitting together seemingly disjointed pieces; my brain feels delightfully tickled with the challenge. And, of Hari Kunzru's novels – Gods being his fourth and latest – I much appreciated both The Impressionist and Transmission [no, I've not yet read My...
Ack! Taxes are due today! Already! For those filing extensions, this one's for you (and me, ahem!) ...
How silly of me for waiting so long to read this, the venerable Anita Desai's latest, when I've had the galley for almost a year (it pubbed last December). Instead, I've slogged through too many disappointing, tedious, nightmare-inducing titles when I could have been celebrating...
I've been working through numerous 'should-have-read-earlier'-titles lately, and Salman Rushdie's books always loom large as objects of fascination. After four attempts to read his The Enchantress of Florence (twice on the page, twice stuck in the ears narrated by Firdous Bamji whose recordings can make me choose a book...
Although both of these colorful books are fine standalone titles, pairing them makes for a much richer introductory experience to the boundless diversity of India: first read I is for India (part of Frances Lincoln Children's Books' peripatetic "World Alphabet" series) for a country overview, then...
Ah, this day of mislaid Hallmark hearts ...
Allow me to start with two immediate thoughts about content and delivery. Content: Today's Mexican narcos, the Colombian cartels, the Afghan/Pakistani smuggling rings utterly pale in comparison to the British and American opium runners demanding access to 19th-century China. You might have studied the distant...
Get to know these characters well – they will surely prove to be worth every page of their three-book investment: Deeti, the young wife of a detached opium addict whose startling grey eyes see well beyond her vision; Zachary Reid, a mixed-race freeman from Baltimore...
