Tag Archives: Books

In My Hands Today…

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The Twentieth Wife (Taj Mahal Trilogy #1) – Indu Sundaresan

An enchanting historical epic of grand passion and adventure, this debut novel tells the captivating story of one of India’s most controversial empresses – a woman whose brilliance and determination trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal Empire.

Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensual imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in Mehrunnisa’s embattled love with Prince Salim, and in the bedazzling destiny of a woman – a legend in her own time — who was all but lost to history until now.

Taj Mahal Trilogy

In My Hands Today…

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The Coroner’s Lunch – Colin Cotterill (Dr. Siri Paiboun #1)

Laos, 1975. The Communist Pathet Lao has taken over this former French colony. Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old Paris-trained doctor, is appointed national coroner. Although he has no training for the job, there is no one else; the rest of the educated class has fled.

He is expected to come up with the answers the party wants. But crafty and charming Dr.Siri is immune to bureaucratic pressure. At his age, he reasons, what can they do to him? And he knows he cannot fail the dead who come into his care without risk of incurring their boundless displeasure. Eternity could be a long time to have the spirits mad at you.

In My Hands Today…

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The Age of Kali: Indian Travels & Encounters – William Dalrymple

The result of 10 year’s living and traveling throughout the Indian subcontinent, The Age of Kali emerges from Dalrymple’s uneasy sense that the region is slipping into the most fearsome of all epochs in ancient Hindu cosmology: “the Kali Yug, the Age of Kali, the lowest possible throw, an epoch of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration.” “The brilliance of this book lies in its refusal to reflect any cultural pessimism.

Dalrymple’s love for the subcontinent, and his feel for its diverse cultural identity, comes across in every page, which makes its chronicles of political corruption, ethnic violence, and social disintegration all the more poignant. The scope of the book is particularly impressive, from the vivid opening chapters portraying the lawless caste violence of Bihar, to interviews with the drug barons on the North-West Frontier, and Dalrymple’s extraordinary encounter with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Some of the most fascinating sections of the book are Dalrymple’s interviews with Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, which read like nonfiction companion pieces to Salman Rushdie’s bitterly satirical Shame. The Age of Kali is a dark, disturbing book that takes the pulse of a continent facing some tough questions

In My Hands Today…

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The Death of Vishnu – Manil Suri

Manil Suri’s comic prose and imaginative language transport readers to the petty squabbles and unrelenting conflicts of modern-day India. At the center of the narrative is the character of Vishnu, an aging alcoholic houseboy on the precipice of death, who lies, penniless, on the bottom step of a middle-class Bombay apartment house. While Vishnu appears to face his impending death placidly and philosophically, a maelstrom swirls around him. The residents of the building include a reclusive widower mourning the untimely death of his young wife, a Moslem family coping with the daily prejudices of their Hindu neighbors, and two families who unhappily share a kitchen. Worlds collide when the Moslem family’s son elopes with the Hindu family’s daughter, and Mr. Jalal, the Moslem family patriarch, apparently flips his wig, recognizing Vishnu not as their dying houseboy but as the deity whose name he bears, with the power to save. And when Mr. Jalal is found sleeping on the stairs beside Vishnu, he becomes the scapegoat for the building’s many ills. In its frenetic and hilarious conclusion, The Death of Vishnu trumpets the arrival of an extremely gifted Indian writer, bringing to spectacular life the tempestuous chaos that is life in India today.

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The Harmony Silk Factory – Tash Aw

The Harmony Silk Factory traces the story of textile merchant Johnny Lim, a Chinese peasant living in British Malaya in the first half of the twentieth century. Johnny’s factory is the most impressive structure in the region, and to the inhabitants of the Kinta Valley Johnny is a hero—a Communist who fought the Japanese when they invaded, ready to sacrifice his life for the welfare of his people. But to his son, Jasper, Johnny is a crook and a collaborator who betrayed the very people he pretended to serve, and the Harmony Silk Factory is merely a front for his father’s illegal businesses. This debut novel from Tash Aw gives us an exquisitely written look into another culture at a moment of crisis.

The Harmony Silk Factory won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and also made it to the 2005 Man Booker longlist.