some from my reading list.

"“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” "


1. Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie, for his name and his fame, and for I'm eager to find out.

2. a Robin Sharma, for I've heard so much about him, and never got around to read him, and for he is from motherland.

3. Shobha De, for she exudes an aura around her, that make me want to read her and know her writing..

4. Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami, for i read a simple and beautiful excerpt, and for he surprised me by taking up too many rows in my favourite book shop, and the precise novel for i found a shade of myself in the protagonist from an excerpt i read..


5. Papillon by Henry Charriere coz my book loving cousin picked it up in a bookstore and even decided to gift it to her husband as a b'day gift, and for i grew up discussing books with her..

6. Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham, coz Maugham has always surprised me with his uncanny story telling style and surprises, and for it is again a trusted recommendation from my Anjechi with such love,and for romance has always interested me.

7. Love in the time of cholera, for I first came upon this book in the book shelves of Eloor library as 'from-the-first-look-bookish-girl' was returning it, some one whom i had met several times before, but with whom I never took the pains to develop an acquaintance.

8. a Thomas Harris, for American Psycho horrified me, and for I want to see how the real Hannibal the Cannibal that it is derived from would be like, and to find horror and revulsion in pages would only be my second experience after Psycho by Robert Bloch (the book from which the Alfred Hichtcock movie is adopted)

9. a V.S. Naipaul, for this which i found in wikipedia intrigued me "Naipaul attracted media controversy with statements about women he made in a May 2011 interview at the Royal Geographic Society, expressing his view that women's writing was inferior to men's, and that there was no female writer whom he would consider his equal. Naipaul stated that women's writing was "quite different", reflecting women's "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world", and for he had previously criticised leading female Indian author's writing about the legacy of colonialism for the "banality" of their work."

10. The sly company of people who care by Rahul Bhattacharya, for he wrote an article in Guardian about how he lived in the suburbs of Mumbai, growing up between people who spoke so many different languages, and for that is something I have thought a lot about.

11. Thousand Splendid Sons by Khaled Hosseini, and right after that, his Kite Runner as well.

12. Letters from a father to his daughter by Jawaharlal Nehru - a collection of letters written by Nehru to his daughter Indira Gandhi when she was 10 years old, teaching about natural history and the story of civilisations. For, letters and sorts have always been very close to my heart, as a means of real connection between the one who writes and the one who receives.

13. A cook book by Richard Bertinet http://www.thebertinetkitchen.com/shop/books/cook-cook_in_a_class_of_your_own_by_richard_bertinet.htm

14. William Dalrymple - " A city of Djinns" - for it has captured the Delhi i love in its so many beautiful angles.


15.A pack of lies by Urmila Deshpande, for this i read “But I had never known a love, new or otherwise. All I knew, as Gabriel had told me, were ways to find a reflection of myself that I could live with. And sometimes the only way had been physical. I offered my cunt and all its accoutrements – my brain, my apartment, my cooking skill—to all who happened to glance at me, and hoped that what I offered was enough to make them love”


16. Tiger hills by Sarita Mandanna for i fell in love with these lines "It had been the nape of her neck. The first, fatal hook. The smooth skinned grace of it, all but obscured by the plait that swung to her hips. She had thrust past him at the Kaveri tank, the very picture of determination and his spurt of irritation was swiftly replaced by amusement. And then, as she had wedged herself before him, he had found himself unable to tear his eyes away. Following every dip of light and shadow, the interplay of muscle beneath the translucent skin, as he craned her neck this way and that. He had shut his eyes for only a brief moment in prayer; when they opened, she was tilting slowly towards the water. The compactness of her waist, fitting neatly into the span of his hands. "


17. Immigrant by Manju Kapoor – for, the other books i have read on immigrant life and all was by Jhumpa Lahiri, who at one point of time I thought as I would have as my Godmother, if she would have me, and i was eager to find some different take on it.


18. The Vagrants – Yiyun Li for i read this line from the book somewhere, “The only way to live on, he had known most of his adulthood, was to focus on the small patch of life in front of one’s eyes.”

and the following for so many varied reasons..

19. Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk


20. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy


21. Difficult daughters by Manju Kapoor



22. Jimmy the terrorist by Omair Ahmed