The Book List, Part I

(and part of Part II)
June 2007 - May 2008

Before I left:

Shantaram, by Gregory Roberts

One thousand pages of marauding adventure novel – a slightly silly, slightly bloody, but very thorough introduction to India – appeared under mysterious circumstances on the doorstep of my houseboat, and will be coming soon to a screen near you, with love from Mira Nair, Johnny Depp, and Amitabh Bachchan.

The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (selected stories)

Stunningly beautiful writing, set on the blurry line between Indian and American culture.

Culture Shock! India: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette, by Gitanjal Kolanand

This was the one book assigned by AJWS. It is clearly written, and somewhat useful… but very snooty, and includes long sections on how to deal with caste conflicts among your servants.

Since taking off on a plane towards Delhi:

The Moore’s Last Sigh, by Salman Rushdie

I was given this book by experts in International Living, and told to read it on the plane. The brilliant (and meandering) story line leads from the backwaters of Kerala (Jews and spices make a delicious combination) to the teeming streets of Mumbai, with a hundred layers of interlocking metaphors (or palimpsests, in this case) in between.

Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett

Because I love Discworld, and because the first Terry Pratchett novel that I read was one that Michael had picked up in an English-language bookstore in Montepulciano, Italy in 1998, and because it is easy to find British mass-market paperbacks in the former Commonwealth, and because I needed my first taste of escapism. Plus, this one is about gender-bending.

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange of Modern India, by Edward Luce

An excellent and somewhat panoramic (if spotty) view of ‘modern’ India. The author is a British reporter for the Financial Times who has been lucky enough to interview most of the major players in Indian culture and politics, and his analysis of everything from the meaning of highway construction to the interplay of Hindu fundamentalism with the many forms of Islam that have come up throughout Asia is insightful. This was also recommended by AJWS, and I think it would be make much better required reading than Culture Shock.

The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy

Heartbreakingly beautiful, and many people’s favorite book of all time. A friend once mentioned to me that she felt as if the story line was just a vehicle for Roy’s gorgeous prose…

Orlando, by Virginia Woolf

With the aftertaste of Roy’s writing in my mind, this went down perfectly… and helped to organize some of my thoughts and frustrations on the complications of leaving the liberal land of Wes, and stepping into a strictly gendered society.

Passage to India, by E.M. Forster

A painstakingly detailed (and pretty, if slightly dry) portrait of British India – but Forster’s depiction of race relations is in many ways just as relevant now as it was in 1924.

Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins

My holiday present to myself was to begin reading this book, which I had bought months earlier, and let tease me from the shelf. It is quirky and funny and creative and exactly what I needed.

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, by William Dalrymple

Set in Hyderabad, and spanning the golden age of the Nizams, when the rulers of the princely state of Hyderabad were the wealthiest men in the world, this historical treatise (lightly disguised as a novel with enticing writing and animated descriptions of key events) gave me a much richer appreciation of the place I’ve been calling home. Recently, a friend and I completed a long-awaited adventure: the search for the dollhouse that British Resident James Kirkpatrick built for his Muslim wife, Khair-un-Nissa (photos are available for your viewing pleasure on my picasa account - just click the photo icon)

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One of those books… the ones that other people have said helped them find meaning, and you feel like you should read… but his vision of love, however poetically mapped out, was not one that resonated with either my desires or my experiences…

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri

Just as beautifully written as her short stories and fun to breeze through (even more fun to pick up on both the Indian and American cultural references), but ultimately lacking something…

Biopiracy, by Vandana Shiva

This was left at our house by a wandering visitor, and although it is more manifesto than explanation, I loved her straightforward eco-feminist critique of intellectual property rights, globalization, and other massive structural forces changing the way that seeds and cells exist on earth.

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

As the bus began to climb the curves of the mountains that would take us to Dharamsala for Passover, Shlayma handed me this book. Both the scientific and the Buddhist explanations are simplified for the layperson, but the Dalai Lama’s simple description of the relationship between science and religion is the most articulate I have ever heard. I recommend this book to anyone who is tired of (or intrigued by) me harping on about the similarities between these two systems of thought.

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Absolutely worthy of all the hype that it receives. If you haven’t read it yet, you probably should. Soon.

Supplemented by pieces of:

Pathologies of Power, by Paul Farmer

If you know me at all, you know why I love this book. If you don’t, pick it up and read it. I asked my mother to send it for a Chanukah present because I needed to hear the preface, ‘Bearing Witness.’

The Revolution Will Not be Funded Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

At the closing ceremony of the US Social Forum last August, I heard Andrea Smith speak. She was electrifying, of course, and mentioned a new book that she had helped to edit. I was entranced by the title, and asked for a special round-the-world-delivery birthday present. As I expected, it is very radical, fairly brilliant, and both deeply disturbing and eminently satisfying to read while working in the ‘NPIC’ (with, yes, its love of unnecessary acronyms!)

Malgudi Schooldays, by R.K. Naryan

Classic, but less than gripping if you didn’t spend your childhood in India.

Blink, by Malcom Gladwell

I was bored, it was on our friend’s bookshelf, and it entertained me for an afternoon.

[along with many sections of the Lonely Planet and Rough Guides to South India and/or India, of course]

Currently lost (and often found) around page 200/600 of:

Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco

I promised this book to myself as an end-of-thesis treat in Middletown, Connecticut. One year later, I picked it up at a bookstore in Hyderbad, Andhra Pradesh, and have been entranced ever since. It is about the patterns that people make, in their heads and in the sand, during humanity's varied and desperate attempts to find meaning in the world… quite simply, this book explains why I started reading (and writing and story-telling) in the first place.