The World Book Fair at New Delhi is about to begin, and INDIAreads will be there.

Do visit the INDIAreads stalls – we can’t wait to have you paw our brand new merchandise even as you struggle to manage a cheap sandwich with one hand, and a screaming brat with the other.

It’s always a pleasure to hear you gossip about the authors in hushed tones (“Amartya Sen – isn’t he the guy that invented Amul..?”), and it really makes our day when you ask us 50 painfully mundane questions and end up buying nothing. We live for those moments!

The theme at this year’s fair shall be ‘Indian Cinema’.

Cinema and Literature – Really…?

As long as the cinematic medium has existed, the movie industry has looked to literature for both inspiration and content.

But when turning a literary masterpiece into a movie, do the two mediums share enough commonalities so as to enable a smooth transition…?

The filmwallahs would answer ‘yes’. From ‘About A Boy’ to ‘Wuthering Heights’, the conversion of popular books to big screen pictures has been a recurring theme in film, particularly in recent years with the success of huge franchises like Harry Potter and the Twilight saga.

While much discussion centers around adaptations that aren’t seen as having lived up to the literature on which they are based, there are many adaptations that actually enhance an existing story; or completely supersede it.

Example: Fight Club – a brilliant movie, stemming from an okay novel.

Or Clueless, which takes a novel from 1815 and makes it relevant to the modern day by setting the story of Jane Austen’s Emma in the context of a Beverly Hills high school.

But all faffing aside – the tendency to make film adaptations of books stems largely from the desire for a guaranteed audience, and is not quite the ‘natural progression’ for a book as advocated by some filmmakers.

Flipside? Stories are abridged, scenes are added, movie-only fans (newbies, resented by the hard core lit enthusiasts) are born, and those who followed the series from its inception are often left feeling a little disappointed at the end product.

The greatest difference between movies and novels is that cinemagoers share a much more social, passive experience than bookworms – who enjoy an active, solitary read. This means that while those reading the book have their own visions of characters and events, film audiences are forced to share a single vision of what these aspects of the story look like.

This alienates the book fan further – what was once a personal experience for him/her, is now universal; with the perceptions and prejudices of producers, directors, actors and audiences – all influencing the final product.

All is not lost, though.

In Part II, we shall take a look at some of the more successful experiments to have managed the leap from literature to cinema.

Novelistic ambition is a tricky thing; it can be too slight, too grandiose or, worst of all, failed. Dr Kunal Basu has none of these problems in his riveting new novel.

The Yellow Emperor’s Cure is the story of Dr Antonio Henriques Maria – Portuguese doctor, brilliant surgeon, lady killer, adventurer – who sets off on an ocean voyage to China to find a cure for syphilis; a disease that afflicts his father and is effectively a death sentence in 1898. (As Antonio’s teacher says, “No one even believes in a cure for syphilis anymore.[…] In Naples they’ve built walls inside hospitals to separate the patients from the poxies, just as in Glasgow where the police have replaced doctors on the wards. In the lands of Calvin they’ve been left to die as punishment for their sins. The civilised world has simply given up.”)

Over the next year, Antonio inhabits a strange world of invisible royalty, eunuchs, new food and new customs. He must overcome his impatience and his previous training to learn the secrets of the Nei-Ching, the ancient medical canon that teaches a doctor to diagnose a patient simply by listening to the pulse. He must replace sphygmograph and ophthalmoscope with a reading of the four seasons and the five elements, the twelve channels of the body and its eleven organs. In the process he learns Mandarin, falls in love, and finds himself as a doctor and as a human being.

Basu creates a whole and absorbing world rich with detail, and peopled with characters who, despite a fair level of suspense, refuse to deliver the perfect ending, and are therefore that much more believable.

INDIAreads had the opportunity to speak with Dr Basu at the launch of ‘The Yellow Emperor’s Cure’ in New Delhi recently. Here are some extracts from the interview;

INDIAreads: Tell us a little bit about your first book ‘The Opium Clerk’. How difficult was it getting it published?

KB: When I moved from Montreal to take up teaching at Oxford, I carried ‘The Opium Clerk’ as a voluminous manuscript tucked under my arm, and did not quite know what to do with it.

I’m an academic – I understood a lot about academic publishing, not so much about literary publishing. So I sent the first 100 pages of the manuscript to seven different literary agents – randomly picked from a handbook called the ‘Handbook of Writers’ – and prepared for rejection.

Luckily, 5 of them wanted to represent me. The one I picked to be my agent, and who still remains my agent, managed to place the manuscript in 3 weeks.

So in that sense, my story has been a rather ordinary, boring one.

INDIAreads: What first attracted you to writing?

KB: I always wanted to be an author.

My father was a very famous publisher, and my mother was a fiction writer. So while I was always fascinated by culture, and writing in particular, growing up in the 70’s like I did, one’s options were always limited.

So I made more than a few wrong decisions, studied the wrong subjects, and ended up with the career that I am in now (Dr. Basu is a University Reader in Management at Saïd Business School, Oxford). However, being a ‘Sunday writer’, or writing as purely a hobby, was never an option for me.

So when I did start writing ‘The Opium Clerk’ back in 1998, I wanted to devote full attention to my writing, and that is what I did.

IndiaREADS: You are a full-time writer now, having written 5 books in 10 years. How do you balance being a writer with your career as an academic?

KB: I’ve been writing for 10 years, and am a full-time writer now. But having been an academic for 25 years, I know how to work the academic part around my writing – rather than the other way round. So I’ve never really had to take time off my work for my writing.

For instance, let’s say Wednesday morning I have a class at 11am. So I’ll write from 9 – 10:30am, go out and teach my class at 11, come back, get back to my desk and start writing again.

INDIAreads: How easy or difficult is it for you to flip the literary switch on/off at will?

KB: Well fortunately up until now that has not been a problem largely because I don’t resent my working life. I’ll make it that much harder for myself if I resent it. Look, we all need day jobs – I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that 95 per cent of writers in the English language today have a day job. I could have been a postman, a journalist; I just happen to be an academic. Which is no bad thing either. So I go out, teach my class and do my job, get back home and back to my writing again.

INDIAreads: What in your opinion makes for ‘a good story’?

KB: (smiles)  Ah. It’s what the author makes of it. Having been raised on classics, for me a good story or the scope of a good novel is – intricately woven tales of human relationships in the backdrop of great social turmoil. Think of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, or Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. What sets these works apart?

During times of normalcy, we’re all (more or less) normal. But the extreme in us comes out during extreme times; extremely good, or extremely bad. So if I’m able to think of a story with such elements in it, then that is the kind of story I like to tell.

INDIAreads: How do you begin your writing? Where does the genesis of your story usually lie?

KB: The most difficult question to answer would be ‘how’ or ‘why’ I thought of a particular story; it’s a confluence of various things. I can talk very cogently about ‘how I wrote it’, but the actual ‘birth’ of a story is inherently nebulous.

So I could be stuck in traffic; observing things around me, thinking – and suddenly a thought might pop into my head out of nowhere; it could be about an individual I see, or a setting I witness – it could be anything. Now if I ferment that thought some more, maybe I can create a good story.

INDIAreads: What has been the toughest criticism you’ve faced as an author?

KB: Every author is criticised; such is the nature of the game. But I feel I’ve been largely lucky in this regard.

(Upon being gently probed further) Maybe one, after ‘The Japanese Wife’ came out. But that wasn’t really a review of the book; it was more of a ‘character assassination of Kunal Basu’, so to speak. ‘He’s a management prof, what business does he have writing fiction – he should go back to management’ – the like.

But one immediately sees something like that as being driven by ‘extra-literary’ considerations, and is consequently not affected by it.

Having said that a large literary novel, after I’ve written it does not belong to me anymore; it belongs to the readers. Different people choose to see different aspects of it. And it’s not mathematics – I can’t argue with how people choose to interpret my work.

INDIAreads: What would you advise aspiring writers?

KB: To read and write a lot, and to always believe in themselves. I dare say, a little bit of arrogance is not a bad thing.  Look. If you were to just look at my CV, would you say this guy writes or would end up writing fiction?

Write if you’re really passionate about writing; don’t write if it’s a ‘side thing’. So if you find yourself saying,” I have an exciting job, a beautiful partner etc., and by the way I also want to write a bit”, don’t pursue it. Usually, those experiences are not happy writing experiences. Write when you’re ready; when writing seems to be the reason you’re alive.

I wake up in the morning, and I literally have withdrawal symptoms if I haven’t written for a couple of days. So, write when you can’t live without it.

INDIAreads: Truman Capote was a self-declared “completely horizontal author” and said he had to write lying down, while Hemingway used to write standing up – a pencil in one hand and a drink in the other. Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulder, while T.S. Eliot preferred writing when he had a head cold.

Tell us a little bit about your writing ‘quirks’, if any.

KB: I’m a compulsive editor; 3 full drafts at least, edit after edit after edit.

My wife has to drag me away from my desk so I may go out for a walk or some exercise, for I am forever at my desk.

INDIAreads: When may your readers expect a work of non-fiction by Kunal Basu?

KB: I write non-fiction all the time. Strictly speaking, all of my academic publishing has been non-fiction. Additionally, I’ve written the text for an exceptionally different collection of 8,000 beautiful photographs by Kushal Ray called ‘Intimacies’ (releasing on 15^th February 2012), and almost wrote it fictionally. But in principle it’s neither a short story nor a novel; one could classify it as non-fiction.

(Pauses and thinks) However, if I were ever to move to non-fiction per se, I would probably write my memoirs. But hopefully that won’t happen in the next 10 years; I’ve got stories lined up in a queue in my head, each jumping and yelling ‘Me Next!’

INDIAreads: Any particular reason why you choose to mainly write historical fiction?

KB: History was my favourite subject in school. So deep inside me there has always been a strange love for other worlds, other places, and other times.

Also, I’m a Bengali and most of my early writings through school and college, from poetry to short stories, have been in Bangla. And Bengal has always had this great tradition of historical fiction – Bankim Chandra, Romesh Chunder Dutt, and others. So I believe that has seeped into me as I was growing up. Incidentally, I do also want to write a Bangla novel at some point.

But I do not see myself purely as a practitioner of historical fiction – my next novel is set in the here and now, right here in India.

INDIAreads: How much of a part does research play in your writing?

KB: For a historical novel, a significant amount of research always needs to be done. But the trick for me is not to over-research, for an over-researched piece of work will cease to sound and read like fiction.

I am driven only by my story. So I will only research an aspect of my story if I feel it will add to it as a whole. But even so, researching and writing a historical novel easily takes me a couple of years.

INDIAreads: Do you keep shuttling back and forth between Oxford and India?

KB: Quite a bit, and largely for reasons of my writing. I do all my writing at home in Oxford, and I keep visiting India periodically to sort of, do what I have to do to fertilize my imagination.

INDIAreads: What else interests you, apart from writing?

KB: Nothing about me is casual; for me it has to be ‘full on’, or I won’t do it.

I was a painter as a child, I’ve even acted in two films – but a sustained interest in my life would have to be traditional crafts. I really think that this is a part of human heritage that is increasingly getting lost. For instance, most people don’t realize that the terracotta Bankura Horse (a regular feature in most Bengali living rooms, and the official emblem of All India Handicrafts) is not even being made anymore.

So I’ve travelled around the world – Africa, South-east Asia, Latin America, visited villages and spoken to artisans, weavers, craftsmen of all types, photographed them and written about them. In the process, I’ve acquired quite a few pieces that currently occupy pride of place in my study.

INDIAreads: So may we expect to see you try your hand at sculpture sometime..?

KB: Writing is the path I’ve reached after most meanderings in my career, and it continues to be an abiding passion in my life. But (and smiles) never say never, is what I’ve come to understand about life.

I say again, lest my last post failed to register with the ‘deaf futtbucker’ demographic hiding amongst you: The Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 is about to get underway.

There are Lit Fests and there are Lit Fests. This one, though, is not your average overdose of book readings and (equally lackluster) panel discussions. The authors will not brood and the audience will not snooze.

For one, it’s a free festival.

So you see..? It is a chance for bottom feeders (like you) to approach Salman Rushdie, sip coffee with Michael Ondaatje, rub shoulders with Amish Tripathi, or admire Fatima Bhutto in toto for her, er, literary excellence.

Choosing what events to attend may be the only stress of the day for your cheap derriere. You’ll pay nothing to get in; then mull difficult session choices over a free lunch.

The atmosphere will be informal, interdisciplinary, and infectious. Actors, directors, fashion designers, economists, travellers, politicians, scientists, students, bloggers and all manner of urban hipsters will congregate in the gardens of an old and intimate Rajasthani palace to spend 5 days “in conversation”.

At night, the wine will flow. Expect the stage to come alive with the Dionysian revelry that typically follows a literary salon.

But there’s a catch.

Thanks to a rise in the number of programmes (and an ever increasing attendance) over the years, the venue is straining to breaking point and the nature of the event is changing. Last year, J.M. Coetzee had to clamber over hundreds of people squeezed next to speakers, crouched next to seats, or sitting on folded newspapers on the churned-up grass.

To reach the stage.

Those who have experienced the intimacy of earlier editions of the JLF lament that it is now impossible to have conversations with their favourite writers. The authors, too, may bemoan the festival’s increasingly unwieldy size.

Junot Diaz, a witty and thoughtful commentator on the lot of migrants in America, used one session to blame capitalism for encouraging writers to pursue their work not because they have something important to say, but for the sake of getting approval from the largest possible audience. “We know that we need less applause and more conversation,” he told a packed room.

Promptly—inevitably—the audience clapped.

One can certainly nitpick, and criticism has always been a blood sport in India. My money, though, is still on Dalrymple (co-Director of the event) to put up a great show. The self-confessed “Indophile” has always had an acute understanding of the way things work (or don’t work) in India (a fact amply demonstrated in his books). Vikram Seth may well buy George Herbert’s house and own an umbrella but he won’t ever really be ‘British’; while one may safely proclaim Dalrymple is more ‘Indian’ now than when he first came here (as a backpacker in 1989), and less of an anglophile than a lot of us.

Ergo: Mister William aage badho, hum tumhaare saath hain.

At the 2010 Lit Fest;

1. Catherine Clement, French intellectual and author of ‘Edwina and Nehru: A Novel’ and Nayantara Sahgal, Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece discussed the roaring affair between Jinnah and Sarojini Naidu. “It is well known in France. Why is it not spoken of in India?” asked Clement. Came the reply, “Because our national leaders are not allowed to have sex organs.” Sahgal and Clement also agreed that Sahgal’s ‘maamu’ was a beautiful man while Edwina was ‘nice’.

2. The toothsome Bangladeshi author Shazia Omar had to be shepherded through crowds of autograph-seeking men. Subsequent to getting her autograph on brand new notebooks came the question, “What is your name, madam?”

3. Hanif Kureishi, irritable about being on a panel called ‘Migrant Words’, snapped, “I have moved a few kilometres within London. That’s the extent of my migration.”

4. At one Litfest venue (the Mughal Tent), speaker Amitava Kumar stopped to salute William Dalrymple, who’d just entered. He went on: “I hear Dalrymple is soon taking over the world. This is how the East India Company began; one Mughal tent at a time.”

5. Hearing a ‘whoosh-whoosh’ sound, Wole Soyinka paused mid-reading to peer down his chin at the mike: “Is my beard doing something?”

Earlier, Soyinka had the pleasure of being introduced by Urvashi Butalia as ‘the greatest thing since sliced bread’.

6. Sidin Vadukut (then first-time author of comic novel Dork), on the Jaipur Litfest experience: “It’s like a college fest, except you don’t go home — you just grow older.”

7. During a session titled ‘Bin Laden after Bush’, Javed Akhtar jumped out of the audience to accuse Steve Coll of being part of an American conspiracy to pretend Bin Laden was still alive. This, in January 2010.

At the 2009 Lit Fest;

1. Authors Ira Pande and Namita Gokhale, cousins, began a session by chattering jovially amongst themselves, completely oblivious to the audience, and apologising for the same later: “Sorry about this, when Namita and I get together we turn into a Johar Mahmood show and forget all about the audience.”

2. Bruce Palling, a journalist for over 40 years and well-known travel writer, recalls seeing Colin Thubron being addressed scornfully by a visa officer at the Indian High Commission in London.

Thubron, whose novels and travel books have stopped just short of the Man Booker Prize but earned him the sobriquet of “gentleman traveller”, was apparently trying to assert himself as a delegate for the Jaipur festival but the documents he was presenting, rather than earning him a visa, seemed only fit to draw derision. Bruce, with all his experience of India pulled him gently aside and counselled in a whisper, “Colin. Just go back home and come again tomorrow with an application for a tourist visa.”

3. Amitabh Bachhan, attending the festival to release ‘Bachchanalia’ (a book in his honour) was seen brandishing his trademark native wit. When a crowd gathered on an overhanging terrace came too close to the edge and an announcer requested them to move back, Amitabh translated, “Peeche hat jao nahin toh aap meri godh mein giroge!” (Please get back, lest you fall in my lap)

4. When a young school girl asked Nandan Nilekani, what prompted him to write a book, the Infosys co-founder replied, “I wanted an invitation to the Jaipur Literature Festival.”

5. Vikram Seth revealed that he had to buy a copy of his own book to read in one of the sessions, as he’d arrived at the festival without any copies.

6. Final Night. Writers’ Ball at the Jaipur City Palace. Chetan Bhagat was seen asking Vikram Seth for an autograph.

As India’s young rock-star novelist tried to convince the cranky genius (who sat there fretting with a wrinkled brow) to write something meaningful on a scrap of paper for his sister (or someone), a journalist (standing with Seth) noted that he might consider adapting the kind of line Asimov is reputed to have taken in such situations: “I’ll never forget our marvellous night on the beach.”

Seth guffawed, and Bhagat got his autograph.

Homies!

The Jaipur Literature Festival (20-24 Jan ’12) is about to get underway.

It’s been a bumpy ride - The inaugural event in 2006 drew a crowd of about 100 attendees, including some who “appeared to be tourists who had simply got lost,” according to the event’s co-director William Dalrymple.

And the naysayers feel the festival is all about pretenders and post-colonial sahibs. Like Hartosh Bal; in a caustic piece appearing in Open Magazine in 2011, he wrote the festival  “works not because it is a literary enterprise, but because it ties us to the British literary establishment”—exemplified, first and foremost, by Dalrymple himself (whom he went on to deride as the “pompous arbiter of literary merit in India”). Incidentally, Bal is an Oxbridge-educated Indian who sounds more British than the Queen herself.

Dalrymple hit back immediately, lambasting Bal’s screed as racist cant akin to “pouring shit through an immigrant’s letterbox”.

Sadly, things are less acrimonious now.

Let’s take one final, longing look back at some of the funnier and more candid moments from events of years past. To set the mood for the serious business that follows.

Literary foreplay, if you will.

At the 2011 Jaipur Lit Fest;

1. Orhan Pamuk, that grave purveyor of melancholy, is evidently also a funny man.

During the Q&A session, someone asked Pamuk if the theme of his new novel ‘Museum of Innocence’ was whether philosophical love was deeper than physical love. Without skipping a beat, Pamuk responded, “That depends on the penetration.”

2. Junot Diaz (author of ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao‘), during a session titled ‘Storyteller-in-Chief’, told a packed crowd under the Mughal tent, “I can’t imagine anything more foreign to Indian readers than the Dominican Republic or New Jersey. But white people were looking for YOU when they found US.”

3. During one of the interactive sessions, Gulzar amused the audiences with little anecdotes on the birth of songs in Hindi cinema before Javed Akhtar (who arrived 20 minutes late) could join him. He later apologised to Akhtar saying,” ‘Maaf Kijiyega, main inhe behla raha tha (Forgive me, I was just managing them).

4. During a Q&A session, a school girl asked Gulzar, “There was simplicity in our old songs. The vocabulary was simple and it touched our hearts. Why can’t we have a similar vocabulary in new songs?” Gulzar shot back, “You have used ‘vocabulary’ twice in your question. Can you tell me what it is called in Hindi?

5. An angry Indian editor from a well-known and respected publishing house was heard  describing Dalrymple (who at last year’s festival was reading his own texts while Paban Das Baul sang and swayed, even as certain sections felt as the Director of the Festival he should not have been hogging so much of the limelight) as “that self-promoting ‘White Mughal‘ who has turned down all my authors”.

People!

2012 is about to be quite a year; doomsday predictions notwithstanding.

With a star studded line-up of authors and titles to choose from, rest assured the literary roller-coaster at INDIAreads is not about to stop anytime soon.

Check out these gems that may be pre-ordered at INDIAreads shortly;

1. I’ve Got Your Number – Sophie Kinsella (Feb 2012): When Poppy loses her engagement ring and her mobile all in the same disastrous evening, it seems making use of a phone she finds by chance, abandoned in a hotel bin, is the obvious solution.

But inevitably her life becomes entangled with the real owner of the phone, a high-flying businessman called Sam who becomes increasingly irritated when Poppy can’t resist meddling in his affairs…

2. The Oath of The Vayuputras – Amish Tripathi (Oct 2012): Book Three in the hugely popular Shiva Trilogy – after ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ and ‘The Secret of The Nagas’ – keeps the feeding frenzy going.

3. Emerging India: Economics, Politics And Reforms  – Bimal Jalan (Jan 2012): A collection of essays written over 20 years, this is an essential read for anyone seriously interested in the history and future of India’s development as a nation.

4. Didi: A Political Biography – Monobina Gupta (Jan 2012): Gupta brings her experience as a journalist and commentator on the politics in West Bengal to paint a fascinating portrait of the woman who defeated the longest-serving communist government in the world; and is fast emerging as one of the most important political figures in India today.

5. When Loss is Gain – Pavan K Varma (Jan 2012): Action-packed yet contemplative, Pavan K. Varma’s first novel is a powerful story of love and loss, despair and hope, chance and destiny, and the true meaning of joy and sorrow in every human life.

6. Rahul – Jatin Gandhi & Veenu Sandhu (Jan 2012): .Who is Rahul Gandhi—the real man—beneath the hype and the hatchet jobs? What are the ideas and influences that propel him? Who are his advisers? And how will he tackle his new responsibilities as his mother, Sonia Gandhi, makes way for him? Two young journalists, Jatin Gandhi and Veenu Sandhu, trace the evolution of the Rahul brand and explore the fascinating relationship between modernity and dynasty in this incisive political biography.

7. Neglected Poems – Gulzar (Jan 2012): Neglected only in name, these poems represent Gulzar at his creative and imaginative best, as he meditates on nature, delves into human psychology, explores great cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and New York , and confronts the most telling moments of everyday life.

8. Micro – Michael Crichton (Jan 2012): An instant classic in the vein of Jurassic Park, this boundary-pushing novel has all the hallmarks of Michael Crichton s greatest adventures with its combination of pulse-pounding thrills, cutting-edge technology, and extraordinary research.

Three men are found dead in a locked second-floor office in Honolulu. There is no sign of struggle, though their bodies are covered in ultra-fine, razor sharp cuts. With no evidence, the police dismiss it as a bizarre suicide pact. But the murder weapon is still in the room, almost invisible to the human eye…

9. Smart Trust – Stephen M. R. Covey (Foreword by Indra Nooyi) (Jan 2012): Find out why trusted people are more likely to get hired or promoted, get the best projects and bigger budgets, and are last to be laid off. This book will forever shift your perspective as it reveals and validates once and for all the transformational power of trust. Reading Smart Trust will help you thrive in an increasingly unpredictable marketplace.

10. The Innocent – David Baldacci (Apr 2012): Freelance hitman Will Robie gets a job from the US government. Even as he expertly nails his target – a suspected enemy of the country – he sees something at the scene of crime which he suspects will have deadly consequences …

Does he need to change sides to save lives, including his own…?

11. Untitled Memoir – Salman Rushdie (Sep 2012): The memoir will cover Rushdie’s childhood, his family life – he has been married four times – and his time in exile.

12. The Limpopo Academy of Private Investigation – Alexander McCall Smith (Apr 2012): The new installment in the perpetually delightful and bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

Precious Ramotswe is back and, as usual, her plate is full.  She’s called in to tackle a mysterious disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter’s school. Her infinitely trustworthy assistant, Grace Makutsi, is having trouble adjusting to wedded bliss; a problem to test even the formidable talents of Mma Ramotswe. And the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of The Principles of Private Investigation – the No. 1 Ladies’ prized manual – has arrived, right there, in Botswana, on a case of his own. Bush tea, anyone?

13. Home – Toni Morrison (May 2012): The latest novel from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.

An angry and self-loathing veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money finds himself back in racist America after enduring trauma on the front lines that left him with more than just physical scars. His home–and himself–may no longer be as he remembers it, but Frank is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from; a place he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits childhood memories and the war, that leave him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding himself–and his home.

14. Bring Up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel (May 2012): In this sequel to the Man Booker-winning Wolf Hall, Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn. From history’s darkroom, this novel offers a speaking picture to the modern world; a vision of Tudor England so recognizable it defies archaism. It is the work of one of our greatest writers at the peak of her powers.

15. Betrayal – Danielle Steel (Mar 2012): A renowned film director confronts an act of unimaginable treachery—and the first devastating blow will not be the last.

In this riveting novel, Danielle Steel reveals the dark side of fame and fortune. At the same time, she brilliantly captures a woman’s will to navigate a minefield of hurt and loss—towards a new beginning.

16. Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity – Katherine Boo (Feb 2012): In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book by the Pulitzer winner, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human; thanks in no small part to three years of uncompromising reporting.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

Do They die really?

The death of an icon- be it on telly, in the comic books or in a novel, normally leads to a whirlwind of emotions and a storm of protests from their ardent followers. I mean that’s what fiction is about right – good triumphing over evil, the main protagonist going through everything and coming out unscathed. That’s what provides hope to millions. That’s half the attraction of fiction- thinks that can’t happen in real life, happen there and they normally end with a happily ever after, and increasingly now, they don’t end. So, even when an author decides that he has had enough of a character and decides to make it a mortal, the audience just refuses to let go. “You are an author, use your imagination and give us more or even give us more of the same, but don’t you dare kill my superhero. ” And so for the comic book sellers, it has become a tried and tested formula. Kill a superhero, generate loads of hype, see sales skyrocketing and then give in to popular demand and bring him back. And then watch the sales go up even higher.

I almost feel that now even the readers know that death in comics or even on telly is often temporary. So when Rowling killed Dumbeldore or Sirius Black, almost every Potter fan was confident that they would return. Rowling stuck to her plot. But not so with others. So today when an icon dies,  the readers feel very little loss, they are simply left wondering how long it will be before their icon is resurrected. The excitement is to see how they are bumped off and how they will be made to return and in what form. Here is a look at the death of some of the important comic and fictional characters.

The 1992, DC comics storyline, “The Death of Superman”, created a lot of buzz around the death of Superman. In the story, Superman is killed in an engaging battle with the machine named Doomsday. Both the contestants succumbed to wounds caused due to fight. The later issues depicted the world’s reaction to Superman’s death in “Funeral for a Friend,” the emergence of four individuals believed to be the “new” Superman, and the eventual return of the original Superman in “Reign of the Supermen!”

In DC Comics’ Batman: RIP: storyline, Batman was apparently killed. The “Final Crisis” storyline revealed that he had survived, only for him to disappear into the time stream. Dick Grayson took on the mantle of Batman, and Batman came back to the present in the “Return of Bruce Wayne” storyline, published about a year and a half after “Final Crisis”.

DC Comics has revived the character of Batwoman with a 21st-century twist: The masked crime fighter is a lesbian socialite. Batwoman made an appearance in the July issue of DC comics called 52, in 2008.
The hero’s real identity is Kathy Kane. Interestingly, the former Batwoman, created in 1956, was also known by the same name. However, The first Kathy was killed off in 1979, murdered by an assassin.

While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, even though was not the work he valued most.  In fact Conan Doyle once referred to them as  “an elementary form of fiction”.  He was very proud of his historical novels and considered them some of his finest work. As time went on Conan Doyle found himself more closely identified with Sherlock Holmes to the exclusion of his other works.  “I weary of his name,” he told his mother.

After a visit to the Reichenbach Falls, Conan Doyle contemplated the death site for Sherlock Holmes.  The Adventure of the Final Problem was published in December of 1893 in The Strand magazine.  People were so upset that more than twenty thousand of them cancelled their subscription to The Strand magazine. It took a story of a ghostly hound to inspire Conan Doyle to bring the great detective back.  In 1901 Sherlock Holmes reappeared in “The Hound of Baskervilles. The Hound of the Baskervilles was also first published in The Strand. The magazine’s circulation rose by thirty thousand overnight.

The publisher of the Spiderman series said that Parker’s alter ego, Spider-Man, will finally succumb to one of his most pernicious foes in the final issue of “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man”. He will end up dying, after an epic fight, by the hands of the Green Goblin, on the last issue of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man. Fans of Spider-Man can take a sigh of relief, as the “Ultimate” imprint will have no bearing on Marvel’s bigger universe and Amazing Spider-Man series.

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad

This  debut novel by a 79 year old retired civil servant from Pakistan is perhaps Penguin’s most interesting release slotted for the year. The Wandering Falcon traces the story of a Tor Baz, a young boy who journeys between tribes. The book is his story and the story of the many people he encounters – men and women who live in a society where honour is the foremost religion.

This collection of interlinked stories is set in the strife torn tribal areas where the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran meet.  It chronicles life before the advent of the Taliban. Stark and compelling, the book creates an intimate picture of the tribes- capturing both the hardship and desolation of their homeland and the paradoxes that govern their lives. It takes the reader to world of custom and cruelty, of love and gentleness, of hardship and survival;a fragile, unforgiving world that is changing as modern forces make themselves known. For long this region has been known only for the “terrorism” and “terrorism related” conflicts. For the first time, Jamil, who has served in these areas and travelled extensively through them, acquaints us with the inner dynamics of a society which has incited such fierce emotions the world over.

An excerpt from the book – the story of a Baluch couple who had defied the norms of the tribal society and were being pursued-was read out by Suhel Seth at the Spring Fest in New Delhi last month and the audience was riveted. Suhel, of course, is a greater orator and the perfect person for a book reading, but it was not his rendition alone that enthralled the audience. The excerpt revealed a well written book which was descriptive and yet not overly so; the pace was moderate – not racy like a thriller that gives the reader little opportunity to get acquainted with the characters and the settings and yet, it did not drag.

Definitely a book to look out for this month.

And just in case you are curious about the author: Jamil was born in Jalandhar in 1931 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and Master’s degree in History, both from the University of the Punjab. As a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan beginning in 1954, he served mainly in the Frontier Province and in Baluchistan. He was posted as Minister in Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul at a critical time before and during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In an interview he admitted that when thought of writing, poetry had been his first choice. It was however, his wife who suggested that he focus on his association with the tribal areas instead. “It was she who  typed the first draft of the handwritten manuscript of The Wandering Falcon on an old typewriter with a German keyboard,” said Jamil.

“Abandon” by Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot symbolizes with light novels, but her latest novel “Abandon” seems to be in a different league than the Princess Diaries that brought her fame and adulation. In the novel, the main protagonist Pierce is seen engrossed in the battle with the underworld. When she first encounters a dark stranger, she is convinced that he takes life but his methodology in doing so was devoid of any figment of imagination. As Pierce tries to uncover the truth surrounding the shocking death of someone close to her, unexpected secrets spurt up and pose several questions in her heart.

Chick lit, Romance, Mystery and Science Fiction are her preferred genre of writing.

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“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear”   – Meg Cabot`

The review of the latest book on Mahatma Gandhi has caused a huge uproar when it hit newspapers in US and UK. The book titled “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India”, is written by Pulitzer winner Joseph Lelyveld. According to the reviews the book goes on to say that Gandhi was racist and bisexual. A German Jewish body builder named Hermann Kallenbachh has been referred to as his lover. However the author has denied having made any of the remarks in his books. Some Gandhi experts who have read his work have also stood by him and maintained that the reviewer got it all wrong. Meanwhile protests and opinions from all corners have started collecting in cyber space. Just like any controversy around great leaders, this too has the potential to rake up book sales. We have not flipped through the book, so we do not have an opinion on this one. If you do, please tell us

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