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.

Leddies.

The Velenntyne Day is here, and louve is in the air.

(sniff) Can you smell it?

Annyway.

Let’s celebrate romance by taking a look at some of the more romantic literary characters to have tumbled out of ‘romance novels‘ (and similar works of propaganda that were almost certainly metaphors for the authors’ own failed love lives);

1. Edward Rochester of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre – (Alternately cold, imperious, and withholding; he proposes to Jane without disclosing the much-married madwoman imprisoned in his attic)

2. Richard Sharpe of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series – (“He’ll fall in love with anything in a petticoat”, according to Patrick Harper – Richard’s loyal friend)

3. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – (In 2010, a protein sex pheromone in male mouse urine, that is sexually attractive to female mice, was named Darcin in honour of the character)

4. Heathcliff of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – (A man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, murder and digging up dead lovers – a fact perhaps unknown to Gordon Brown when he compared himself to “an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff” in 2008.)

5. Rupert Campbell Black of Jilly Cooper’s The Rutshire Chronicles – (Cooper has acknowledged that Rupert’s character is based upon Andrew Parker Bowles, the ex-husband of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Incidentally, she left him for Prince Charles – a man with a face for radio)

That’s just the beginning of my list. I could go on and on, but let me not kill all that love in one go. So more later….Till then

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

How would one explain the Kindle to Charlie Dickens…?

No wait; that’s a separate blogpost. Let’s get to know Charlie a little better first.

Charles Dickens: The name conjures up visions of plum pudding and Christmas punch, quaint coaching inns and cosy firesides, but also of orphaned and starving children, misers, murderers, and abusive schoolmasters. Dickens was 19th century London personified – he survived its mean streets as a child and, despite being largely self-educated, possessed the genius (that trademark leftie trait) to eventually become the greatest writer of his age.

Charlie was born on February 7, 1812, the son of a clerk at the Navy Pay Office. His father, John Dickens, continually living beyond his means, was imprisoned at the Marshalsea(a prison on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark) in 1824 for failing to pay his debts.

A 12-year-old Charles was subsequently removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory – earning six shillings a week to help support the family. This experience cast a shadow over the clever, sensitive boy, and became a defining episode in Charlie’s life. (He would later lament, “How I could have been so easily cast away at such an age.”)

This childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens‘ later views on social reform; and not least on the world he would create through his fiction.

Not surprisingly, Dickens’ characters are some of the most memorable in fiction.

Often these characters were based on people that he knew: Wilkins Micawber and William Dorrit (his father), Mrs. Nickleby (his mother). In a few instances Dickens based the character too closely on the original and got into trouble, as in the case of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, based on Leigh Hunt, and Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield, based on his wife’s dwarf chiropodist.

Their names, too, are funkier than most. Characters such as Sweedlepipe, Honeythunder, Bumble, Pumblechook, and M’Choakumchild are recognizable as Dickensian even by those unfamiliar with the stories.

Charlie’s friend and biographer, John Forster, said that Dickens made “characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves.”  Characters such as Scrooge (miserly) and Pecksniff (hypocritically affecting benevolence) became defining terms in everyday vernacular.

Charlie would go on to write 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles before his death on June 9, 1870.

He wished to be buried, without fanfare, in a small cemetery in Rochester, but the Nation would not allow it. He was laid to rest in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, the flowers from thousands of mourners overflowing the open grave.

Incidentally, among the more beautiful bouquets were many simple clusters of wildflowers, wrapped in rags.

More about him later, though; must get back to my very empowering ‘Five Point Someone’.

In the meantime, please feel free to buy/rent, and academically fondle thereafter, the following Dickensian Classics at INDIAreads;

1. A Christmas Carol: You know the tale, you’ve seen the movies, but if you haven’t read the book you’re missing half the story. Dickens‘ little tale of human redemption has a million versions out there; make sure you get the original at INDIAreads.

2. David Copperfield: Charlie’s eighth novel was a thinly disguised autobiography, with many of the story lines mirroring Dickens‘ own life. ”Dickens never stood so high in reputation as at the completion of Copperfield.” – John Forster, Dickens‘ friend and first biographer.

3. Great Expectations: Strongly autobiographical again; though not as openly as in David Copperfield. Charlie actually reread Copperfield before beginning Great Expectations – to avoid unintentional repetition. Called Dickens‘ darkest work by some, it was very well received by Victorian readers and remains one of his most popular works today. Many consider it his greatest use of plot, characterization, and style – and a masterpiece of literary work.

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.

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.

People !!!!

Now is the time to subscribe to INDIAreads.

We’re giving away a Free Bestseller with every purchase of an INDIAreads Smart/Bonanza Plan in 2012.

You heard us; our shelves runneth over.

Only for New Members, though.

Existing Subscribers will have to settle for our massive discounts and flawless service; it’s quite sad, really.

So please hurry and mooch off of us.

For a complete overview of all INDIAreads plans, please click here. (for Delhi/NCR)

or here. (for Other Metros)

and here. (for Rest of India)

NOTE: Offer valid only till midnight, January 2012.

New releases

1. Non Stop India – Mark Tully: Jugaar may loosely be translated as ‘muddling through’, or making
do. This quintessentially Indian ability has seen India through numerous crises which would have
easily dispirited a less resilient people—four wars, for instance. But while jugaar can be said to
have served India well in the past, it has a downside.

It has led to a dangerous complacency: the belief that since India has managed to ‘muddle through so many times before, there isn’t much need for a sense of urgency in tackling the problems it faces. In Non Stop India veteran journalist Mark Tully draws on his unmatched knowledge of India, garnered from thirty years of living in, and reporting from, the country to examine how this approach impacts her much-touted prospects of becoming an economic super-power. From Maoist conflicts to huge industrial houses; from the Tiger project to farmer suicides; from the Ramayana to the remote valleys of the north-east, Tully examines India’s myriad negotiations with modernity and her prospects for the nextcentury and beyond.

2. Get To The Top – The Ten Rules For Social Success by Suhel Seth: When it comes to getting
ahead in life, who we know is as important as what we do.How do you draw people to you?
Impress the powerful? Make an impact and extend your circle of acquaintances? Cultivate
influential friends?

Suhel Seth, a man who knows almost everyone there is to know in the country, brings you the
ultimate guide to social success. From the secret to throwing a successful party to the benefits
of befriending the less important half of a couple, he gives you canny advice and strategies to
become a successful networker.

Inspiring, provocative, and wise, Get to the Top is the ultimate book about wielding soft power.

About The Author :

Suhel Seth is the Managing Partner of Counselage India, the only strategic brand management
and marketing consultancy in the country advising chairpersons and CEOs on branding and
marketing.

His clients include R.K. Krishna Kumar of the House of Tata, S. Ramadorai of TCS, Analjit Singh of
Max Hospitals, Pawan Munjal of Hero Honda, Sanjiv Goenka of the RPG Group, and Prannoy Roy
of NDTV.

Suhel writes columns in The Financial Times, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, and The Indian
Express on current affairs and has co-authored two books on Calcutta with Khushwant Singh and
R.K. Laxman.

3. Classic Saratchandra Volume I – By Saratchandra Chattopadhyay – Translated By Malobika Chaudhuri & Sunanda Krishnamurty: One of the greatest Indian novelists of the early twentieth century, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is unputdownable even seven decades after his death. His canvas of human relationships is rooted in the everyday lives of families in turn-of-the-century Bengal. Saratchandra’s carefully crafted stories, brimming withemotion, and his sharply etched characters, are unforgettable. This omnibus that brings together eight of his novels in translation is a collection to be cherished.

Biraj Bou, Parineeta (A Married Woman), Palli Samaj (The Village Life), Arakkhaniya (The Unprotected), Srikanta, Devdas, Swami (Husband), Grihadaha (House of Cinders)

4. Secrets – by Ruskin Bond: This brilliant new collection of stories by one of India’s best-loved storytellers richly evokes Dehradun of the 1940s, with its quaint cinema halls and crumbling villas, its modest chaat-shops and ubiquitous tongas. But, as young Ruskin—the narrator in these interconnected tales—soon discovers, not all is as it seems in this sleepy town. Behind the tranquil facade, Dehra is home to a cast of colourful characters: from plucky old women to possible murderers.

‘The Canal’ is a joyful tribute to adolescent mischief and adult resolve, in which a group of roguish boys must face the consequences of antagonizing the much-feared Miss Gamla. ‘Over the Wall’ celebrates the resilience and hard-won dignity of a man ravaged by leprosy as he struggles to come to terms with his malady. The dashing young army captain in ‘At Green’s Hotel’ might be the perfect gentleman—or a murderer. And in ‘The Skeleton in the Cupboard’, an old scandal is revived following a chance discovery, leading to wholly unexpected results.

By turns charming and poignant, witty and exhilarating, Secrets is vintage Bond.

5. The Mahabharata Volume 4 – Translated by Bibek Debroy: The Mahabharata is one of the
greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the
epic than the dispute between Kouravas and Pandavas that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It
has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and
it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets.
This magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition
compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

The fourth volume of the Mahabharata includes Virata Parva and almost all of Udyoga Parva. It
describes the Pandavas’ thirteenth year of exile which they spend in disguise in King Virata’s court.
When, during their stay, the Kouravas and Trigartas invade Matsya to rob Virata of his cattle, the
Pandavas defeat them in battle. With the period of banishment over, the Pandavas ask to be returned
their share of the kingdom. This is refused and Udyoga Parva recounts the preparations for the
inevitable war.

Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to
hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes
the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers.

6. Lucknow Boy – A Memoir by Vinod Mehta: Sharp, insightful, shocking, delightful. In this
sparkling memoir, Vinod Mehta, India’s most independent, principled – and irreverent – editor
finally tells his own story.

And by any reckoning, it is an extraordinary story. Mehta grew up as an insouciant army brat from a Punjabi refugee family, in the syncretic culture of Lucknow of the 1950s—an experience that turned him into an unflagging ‘pseudo secularist’. Leaving home with a BA third class degree, he experimented with a string of jobs, including that of a factory hand in suburban Britain, before accepting an offer to edit Debonair, a journal best known for featuring naked women. With the eclecticism and flair that were to become his hallmark, he turned it into an intelligent, lively magazine, while managing to keep fans of its centrespreads happy. The next three decades saw Vinod Mehta becoming one of India’s most widely- read and influential editors, as he launched a number of successful new publications, from the now legendary Sunday Observer to the weekly newsmagazine, Outlook.

This remarkably candid memoir, with its ringside view of many of the major events of our times, brims over with wit, wisdom, scandal and gossip. Mehta recounts with zest how he was wooed and then summarily sacked by sundry media proprietors when their much-vaunted respect for editorial freedom broke down in the face of political pressures. There are riveting accounts of his encounters with personalities from the worlds of politics, business, films and the media. There are masterly pen portraits of personalities ranging from Shobhaa De to V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie and Sonia Gandhi. ( And ofcourse, Mehta’s dog Editor who now, like his master, gets quantities of fan and hate mail.) There are the stories behind the scoops Mehta has brought before a fascinated public, from the alleged mole in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet, to the cricket match-fixing scandal, to the Radia Tapes.

Embedded within these racy tales are thoughtful insights on Indian politics and society. There are valuable lessons, too, in Mehta’s inside stories of his successful media launches, in his tips for aspiring journalists, and in his struggles for editorial independence through his nearly four-decade-long tryst with Indian journalism.

COMING SOON

1. Diary of A Wimpy Kid – Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney: The sixth book about the comic adventures
of Greg Heffley and family. The funniest books you’ll ever read!

Greg Heffley is in big trouble. School property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he’s innocent. Or at least sort of. The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he’s going to have to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for
the holidays?

2. God Save the Dork – The Incredible International Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese by Sidin Vadukut: Maestro management consultant and strategy guru Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese has been dispatched to London to the Lederman account. Things in the mother country are not all tally-ho as Einstein must make do with convoluted remuneration, temperamental digestion and a comely coworker who revels in mixed signals—not to mention a bizarre conspiracy by museums all over the city to frustrate his every attempt to imbibe in high culture.

Things are not all that much better with his love life. Gouri insists that he go to Madame Tussaud’s and take a photo with the Shah Rukh Khan statue. But who will pay for the entry ticket? Gouri’s father is not the proprietor no? Then? Just when things look like they can’t get any worse, Lederman threatens to shut down the project. Panic ensues. Once again Dufresne Partners turns to their most resourceful, inventive, original, strategic, out-of-the-box-thinking employee.

‘India’s Dilbert.’    – DNA
‘Nothing else skewers corporate India’s assorted silliness so accurately. Or so funnily.’   —Outlook
‘Unputdownable.’   —The Hindu
‘[Dork] will have you in splits.’   —The Asian Age
‘Hysterically funny.’    – Hindustan Times

‘I want to put a dent in the universe.’

These words best describe the tenacity and vision of Stevie Jobs; the man who turned a drab technology
company into a pop-culture phenomenon.

I never personally interacted with Stevie (rrreally, you might ask as you roll your eyes), and yet I do it —
we all do it —every day when picking up an iPod or working on a macbook. These devices aren’t dumb
terminals. Each one has a story, both in creation and execution.

So while he may not be with us anymore, he has still managed to leave a lasting impression in our
minds, our hands, and our ears. Let us get to know our friend a little better.

1. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences,” he once said. “So they don’t
have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Billy Gates, he suggested,
would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.

2. “I don’t wear the right kind of pants to run this company,” he told a small gathering of Apple
employees before he left in1985, according to a member of the original Macintosh development team.
He was barefoot as he spoke, and wearing blue jeans.

3. When asked what market research went into the iPad, he replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job
to know what they want.”

4. He was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of
a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes before approving the third, and began shipping it in June
2007.

5. As an eighth grader, after discovering that a crucial part was missing from a frequency counter he was
assembling, he telephoned William Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Hewlett spoke with the
boy for 20 minutes, prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern.

6. In 1971, he collaborated with Steve Wozniak on designing, building, and selling blue boxes: devices
that were widely used for making free – and illegal – phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the
effort.

7. In 1980, he lured John Sculley to Apple to be its chief executive. A former Pepsi-Cola chief executive,
Sculley was impressed by Stevie’s pitch: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared
water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”

8. In September 1985, after leaving Apple, he started NeXT Inc, with the intention of building a
workstation computer for the higher education market. Although NeXT never became a significant
computer industry player, it had a huge impact: a young programmer, Tim Berners-Lee, used a NeXT
machine to develop the first version of the World Wide Web at the Swiss physics research center CERN
in 1990.

9. If he had a motto, it may have come from “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which he said had deeply

influenced him as a young man. The book, he said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005,
ends with the admonition “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

10. Stevie was a stickler for design details. Bruce Tognazzini, a former user-interface expert at
Apple who joined the company in 1978, once said that Jobs was adamant that the keyboard not
include “up,” “down,” “right,” and “left” keys that allow users to move the cursor around their computer
screens.

11. His pursuit of aesthetics sometimes bordered on the extreme. George Crow, an Apple engineer in
the 1980s and again from 1998 to2005, recalls how Stevie wanted to make even the inside of computers
attractive. On the original Macintosh PC, Crow says Jobs wanted the internal wiring to be in the colors of
Apple’s early rainbow logo. Crow says he persuaded Jobs it was an unnecessary expense.

12. Within months of taking control at Apple once again in May 1998, Stevie flexed his power on Apple’s
Cupertino, Calif., campus. He replaced four of the five top executives with former NeXT underlings. He
issued emails forbidding employees to bring pets to the office or to smoke, even in parking lots. He
threatened to fire anyone caught leaking company documents.

13. Stevie was typically hands-on in the creation of the iPhone. People familiar with the matter say
the former CEO was the one who made a decision to change the screen of the iPhone from plastic to
glass after he unveiled the product at the Macworld trade show in 2007. The iPhone team scrambled
to procure glass that would meet his standards, so the devices could be manufactured in time for the
launch.

14. Those who knew Stevie say one reason why he was able to keep innovating was because he didn’t
dwell on past accomplishments and demanded that employees do the same. Hitoshi Hokamura, a
former Apple employee, recalls how an old Apple I that was displayed by the company cafeteria quietly
disappeared after Jobs returned in the late 1990s.

15. He insisted that the first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent – putting user needs above engineering convenience. He called an engineer at Google one weekend with an urgent request: the colour of one letter of Google’s on-screen logo on the iPhone was not quite the right shade of yellow. He often wrote or rewrote the text of Apple’s advertisements himself.

16. Stevie was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such
were his powers of persuasion.

17. When Jobs and Wozniak were designing the first Macintosh computer, he remembered the
calligraphy lessons he had taken after dropping out of college in 1972. He decided to incorporate the
fonts he had learned into the Mac. “It was the first computer with beautiful typography,” said Jobs.
Windows would later use these fonts as models.

18. A significant thing about Stevie’s public performance and interviews was his use of the
pronoun “We”. Almost every time Jobs spoke, he never said “I”, and said “We” instead. During an
interview at D5, Walt Mossberg curiously asked him, “Who’s ‘we’?” Jobs replied, “Well, ME!”

19. Stevie had been a dedicated vegan ever since his teenage years. At the age of 19, in Reed College, he
explored strange diets which, according to him, would let him get rid of all mucus and hence the need to
shower.

20. A title of one of the press articles written about Stevie’s difficult character was “The Trouble
with Steve Jobs.”According to Robert Sutton, Stanford management science professor and author of
best-seller “The No Asshole Rule,” “The degree to which people in Silicon Valley are afraid of Jobs is
unbelievable. He made people feel terrible; he made people cry.”

21. Stevie studied Zen Buddhism in his youth. He used to say that he wanted to become a monk in a
monastery in Japan instead of starting Apple. But his guru Kobun Chino Otogowa later made him think
otherwise.

22. Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of News Corp.’s Fox Filmed Entertainment, recalls an incident. “He
came into a meeting one day and said, ‘Hey, you want to see something cool?’ And he reached into
his jacket and pulled out the first prototype of the iPhone,” Gianopulos said.”It was like someone had
shown you the first rocket ship.”

One could go on. But one shall not. For one is free.

One could, however, direct you to http://www.indiareads.com/book/steve-jobs-exclusive-biography :
where you may buy or rent (for a frraction of the price) Stevie’s exclusive biography written by Walter
Issacson; Harvard Graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and long time Stevie confidante.

Ok honestly, how many of you looked at the title of this post and started grumbling about why anyone would want to know what Americans are reading? Well, trust me it’s not cos we are looking up to Big Brother for ideas and guidance. Nope, this is just to get an idea of what books are out in the market, and what nations and nationalities are reading. It can tell us lots about a country, don’t you think? I would love to do such a post on every country and then compare, but figures (which can be very misleading) for others are difficult to come across. So till then, we can start with what is available, no? And you know what I would really like to know? Are we reading the same stuff? So, whatever your nationality, if you come by this post, do tell me and all our other visitors your country and what you are reading currently

SO here’s the List for the USA: Source: Publishers’ Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal etc. Order is approximate, not accurate. (The best of the lists that we consulted and there were loads of them, I assure you!!!)

FICTION:

1. 10th Anniversary by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

2. Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen

3. Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

4. The Kane Chronicles, Book 2: The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan (fantasy)

5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

6. Buried Prey by John Sandford

7. The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

8. The Sixth Man by David Baldacci (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

9. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

10. Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin

11. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Fantasy)

12. What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen (children)

13. Worth Dying For by Lee Child (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

14. The Search by Nora Roberts (mystery/ suspense/ thriller)

15. Room by Emma Donoghue (short listed for the Man Booker 2010)

NON FICTION

1. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

2. Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me by Chelsea’s Family, Friends & Other Victims

3. Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? by Steven Tyler with David Dalton

4.  Bossypants by Tina Fey

5. Seal Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin & Stephen Templin

6. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

7.  The 17 Day Diet: A Doctor’s Plan Design for Rapid Results by Dr. Mike Moreno

8. Where’s the Birth Certificate? by Jerome Corsi

9. Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

10. The Dukan Diet by Pierre Dukan

Read anything from the list? Know of anyone reading from this list? Let us know…..

Source: http://enotes.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/top-10-true-confessions-of-professors-and-other-literary-types/

So, I love collecting books. I see a good book, especially if it has anything to do with history, politics, world affairs and I just have to buy it. I know that I may never get a chance to read them all, but one can dream right? And just looking at them gives me immense pleasure. I begin each morning by walking around the library, running my hands over books, flipping some open and smiling. I know that at the end of the day (or even in between), I have something to look forward to. My friends and family often complain that the only reason INDIAreads came up is so that I could indulge this book addiction of mine. Every time they call and ask, “So where are you?,” the answer inevitably is, “book shopping.” “Again?” “Hey, that’s my job after all ”

So in my latest shopping spree I came across some great Off the Beaten Track Non Fiction reads (bought 500 in one go ). They’ll make their way to the library collection soon enough but here’s a list of a few choice picks. Now take a look and tell me can you really blame me for buying these????

P.s. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to read and review all of these, so am including external albeit reliable reviews. The once without any information are books which we have already uploaded on the site with all information. Hope you enjoy them!!!!!

1. Conquerors of Time: Exploration and Invention in the Age of Daring by Trevor Fishlock: A completely absorbing read that brings to life the important events and ideas that have shaped our world. It is about “men, animals and machines, about the seafarers, engineers, inventors and trailblazers who enabled the British to hold together a vast empire and the Americans to push their frontiers West.”  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/feb/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview21

2. Spectre of Violence: The 1857 Kanpur Massacres by Rudrangshu Mukherjee: An illuminating inquiry into the play of power and dominance behind 1857 .
On 27 June 1857, rebels publicly slaughtered over 300 men, women and children of the ‘master race’ at the Satichaura Ghat in Kanpur. On 15 July, a group of women and children who had survived were killed at the Bibighur. Two days later, General Havelock reclaimed Kanpur and Colonel James Neill decimated the rebel population. This sequence of violence has held sway over Indian and British imaginations for generations, and historians and commentators have recounted the massacres with horror.
Locating the massacres in the upheaval which overtook north India in the early nineteenth century, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, an eminent 1857 historian, analyses the nature of the violence. Mukherjee argues that the absence of rebel accounts and chronicles inhibits a telling of their version of the story. What is available are the contemporary accounts of British survivors, diaries of British loyalists and depositions as part of the official report prepared by the British. By reading these sources ‘against their grain’ and by examining the manner in which the evidence was stitched together, Spectre of Violence brings to light fresh directions of inquiry into the events of 1857.

3. The Mammoth Book of War Correspondents: 100 of the greatest war dispatches ever written with contributions from Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Rudyard Kipling, James Cameroon, Leon Trotsky and Max Hastings. “War correspondence is a dangerous job, but someone has to do it. The readers demand it. Need  it. Warfare has changed much since Russell’s day (the first man to use the telegraph in the 1840s to to send dispatches from the Crimean wars.), so has the technology of war journalism from telegraph to sat phone, and live commentary as you watch war-u like on the tube. The readers’ hunger for war news has changed too. It’s even greater. In the information age the one information you cannot do without is Mars’s latest havoc. Somewhere, a war correspondent is dying to give it to you.”  This book contains dispatches from the Crimean war to the Franco-Prussian War, from the American Civil War to the Russian Civil War, from the World Wars to the Korean War, from the Cuban Civil War to Chechnya,  from Bolivia (the last journey of Che Guevara) to Vietnam.

4. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature by Steven Pinker: How you use words can determine how your mind works, Steven Pinker explains here. Find out more with this detailed NYT review. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Saletan-t.html

5. Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment by Jacques Leslie: There are more than 45,000 of them in the world. They have altered the speed of the planet’s rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field. They influence landscapes and societies. They are dams, and in Deep Water,Jacques Leslie offers an incisive, searching, and beautifully written account of the emerging crisis over dams and the world’s water. Reporting in the tradition of John McPhee and Peter Matthiessen, Leslie examines the crisis through the lives of three people: Medha Patkar, the world’s foremost anti-dam activist; Thayer Scudder, an American anthropologist; and Don Blackmore, an Australian water manager. In each of these engrossing portraits, Leslie shows how dams seduce national leaders with seeming bounties of water and power but end up producing blights on the citizenry and landscape. Deep Water is an eloquent and important book about the water crisis and a startling look at the fate of our planet. (From goodreads.com)

6. Simplexity: Why Simple things become complex (and how Complex things can be made simple) by Jeffrey Kluger: Frustrated by the traffic on narrow bridges? Stunned by the number of buttons on a remote control? Saddened by the lack of basic medical care in the developing world? Kluger (Splendid Solution) makes the modern world comprehensible, analyzing social and technological systems to reveal that “things that seem complicated can be preposterously simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex.” He compares cells to cities to stock markets, renders quarks and fractals accessible and draws parallels between Wal-Mart and AIDS clinics in Tanzania. Although Kluger is prone to hyperbole, his astonishing discoveries require no exaggeration: the book describes how even the most technologically advanced manufacturing plant is infinitely simpler than a humble houseplant “with its microhydraulics and fine-tuned metabolism and dense schematic of nucleic acids”—and baseball fans will be dismayed to discover that football is, in fact, the more complex of the two games: “the possible number of starting configurations before the play even begins is… 31.4 billion.” Kluger’s findings are likely to incite controversy, confirming his contention that explaining simplicity and complexity is never as straightforward as it seems. (Publishers Weekly, April 2008)

7. Flames of the Chinar by Sheikh Abdullah (Abridged and translated from Urdu by Khushwant Singh): This is the autobiography of Sher-e-Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, the man who shaped Kashmir’s destiny.

8. Mountbatten and the Partition of India by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre: This book contains interviews with Mountbatten, and a selection of papers that were in his possession, explaining and examining Mountbatten’s role in India’s partition.

9. The Europe since Napoleon by David Thomson

10. Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz

11. War Made new:  Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World by Max Boot: From bronze cannons to smart bombs, this engaging study examines the impact of new weaponry on war by spotlighting exemplary battles, including famous epics like the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the attack on Pearl Harbor along with obscure clashes like the 1898 Battle of Omdurman, in which a British colonial force mowed down Sudanese tribesmen with machine guns. Boot (The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power) gives due weight to social context: advanced weapons don’t spell victory unless accompanied by good training and leadership; innovative doctrine; an efficient, well-funded bureaucracy; and a “battle culture of forbearance” that eschews warrior ferocity in favor of a soldierly ethos of disciplined stoicism under fire. These factors flourish, he contends, under a rationalist, progressive Western mindset. The author, a journalist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, enlivens his war stories with profiles of generals from Gustavus Adolphus to Norman Schwarzkopf and splashes of blood and guts. Boot distills 500 years of military history into a well-paced, insightful narrative. (from the Publishers’ Weekly)

By now, we all know that technological and strategic revolutions have changed the face of war, but how many of us also realize how much these innovations have also transformed the world beyond the battlefield? Narrative historian Max Boot contends that advances in military affairs helped create the modern nation, facilitated the growth of European colonial empires, and aided the rise of 20th-century totalitarian governments. Boot’s detail-packed discussion of the impact of military revolutions on the course of modern history makes War Made New one of the most provocative, thought-stimulating books in recent memory (goodreads review)

12. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell: Among his many gifts, Joseph Campbell’s most impressive was the unique ability to take a contemporary situation, such as the murder and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, and help us understand its impact in the context of ancient mythology. Herein lies the power of The Power of Myth, showing how humans are apt to create and live out the themes of mythology. Based on a six-part PBS television series hosted by Bill Moyers, this classic is especially compelling because of its engaging question-and-answer format, creating an easy, conversational approach to complicated and esoteric topics. For example, when discussing the mythology of heroes, Campbell and Moyers smoothly segue from the Sumerian sky goddess Inanna to Star Wars‘ mercenary-turned-hero, Han Solo. Most impressive is Campbell’s encyclopedic knowledge of myths, demonstrated in his ability to recall the details and archetypes of almost any story, from any point and history, and translate it into a lesson for spiritual living in the here and now. –Gail Hudson, Amazon.com

13. True as the Stars above: Adventures in Modern Astrology by Neil Spencer: What do Princess Diana, Ronald Reagan, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare and the leaders of the Third Reich have in common? They all consulted astrologers. Why? How does astrology work, and if scientists like Richard Dawkins go out of their way to rubbish it, why has it never been so popular? Most books on astrology have either been how-to manuals, cheap guides to the year ahead, or forbidding academic tomes on subjects like the transits of Pluto – until now. True as the Stars Above is a irreverent, intelligent defence of astrology, and an examination of the extraordinary role it has played in the past and still plays today. Among some of the revelations in the book: Margaret Thatcher sought astrological advice after the Brighton bomb. A significant number of the world’s major financial institutions have an astrologer or two on their payroll. British intelligence employed an astrologer during WWII because they were convinced Hitler was doing the same. Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff (to his fury) was forced to keep a colour coded calendar, with green for good days, red for bad days and yellow for ‘iffy’ days, in line with the views of Nancy’s astrologer. This is astrology demystified, whether it’s the ongoing row over statistical evidence for astrology; the myth of The Age of Aquarius; computer dating by star sign or why Gone With The Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara is definitely an Aries.

14. Beyond the Oxus: the Central Asians by Monica Whitlock

15. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: Okay, before you point it out, I know this one’s fiction, but I just had to mention it. Why? Read the synopsis below…..

“. . . I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

January, 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, Dawsey Adams, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name in a book?
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of Dawsey and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—a book club born as a spur-of-the- moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts an outstanding cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable conversation in letters with the Society’s members, learning about their lives, their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on all of them. Over time, and despite a demanding and dramatic life in London, she finds herself drawn to the self-contained Dawsey Adams, and to the story of Elizabeth, a young woman whose bright spirit and strength live on in the daughter she left behind when she was sent to a concentration camp. Juliet knows she has found the subject of her book, and possibly much more, and sets sail for Guernsey, changing the course of her life forever.

And I could go on and on, after I hand picked every book and each according to me is special….but here’s just a taster….just to explain why I am a compulsive book buyer!!!!!