We're back from India, and we're behind on our reading. City of Djinns by William Dalrymple got us hooked on all things Delhi, Mughal, or otherwise tinged with red stones and political intrigue. The stack of books worth reading keeps growing. Here's our list so far.
India
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, William Dalrymple.
Dalrymple chronicles a year in Delhi, as he pieces together the history of the buildings and world around him. (Also on our long-term list, Dalyrmple's White Mughals and The Last Mughal.)
Slowly Down the Ganges, Eric Newby.
A wonderfully comic account of a boat trip down the Ganges River, a long-time dream of ex- fashion-designer Newby. Margaret has been going slowly through the book -- it's fun to pick up
every few months to watch Newby inch through India, one scraped boat-bottom at a time.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo.
Boo spent three years in a slum in Mumbai to research & write her non-fictional account. It's
beloved by book clubs the world over, and -- better still -- friends recommended it. We haven't
started yet, but soon....
And fiction, you ask? We should reread Rushdie, try out some more V.S. Naipaul, and crack open Amitav Ghosh's lightly fictionalized account of an Indian slave in the Middle East in the twelfth century, In an Antique Land. Nick should probably finish Gora. We'll get to it. But we're also headed to Sri Lanka soon....
Sri LankaRunning in the Family, Michael Ondaatje.
Ondaatje visits Sri Lanka, and traces his Dutch-Celanese heritage.
A History of Sri Lanka, K.M. de Silva.
The standard history of Sri Lanka. At 780+ pages, we might skip around.
The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Gordon Weiss.
An account of the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, lauded by the Economist as "scrupulously fair." We're halfway through, and it's a tough and sad read.
India
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, William Dalrymple.
Dalrymple chronicles a year in Delhi, as he pieces together the history of the buildings and world around him. (Also on our long-term list, Dalyrmple's White Mughals and The Last Mughal.)
Slowly Down the Ganges, Eric Newby.
A wonderfully comic account of a boat trip down the Ganges River, a long-time dream of ex- fashion-designer Newby. Margaret has been going slowly through the book -- it's fun to pick up
every few months to watch Newby inch through India, one scraped boat-bottom at a time.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo.
Boo spent three years in a slum in Mumbai to research & write her non-fictional account. It's
beloved by book clubs the world over, and -- better still -- friends recommended it. We haven't
started yet, but soon....
And fiction, you ask? We should reread Rushdie, try out some more V.S. Naipaul, and crack open Amitav Ghosh's lightly fictionalized account of an Indian slave in the Middle East in the twelfth century, In an Antique Land. Nick should probably finish Gora. We'll get to it. But we're also headed to Sri Lanka soon....
Sri LankaRunning in the Family, Michael Ondaatje.
Ondaatje visits Sri Lanka, and traces his Dutch-Celanese heritage.
A History of Sri Lanka, K.M. de Silva.
The standard history of Sri Lanka. At 780+ pages, we might skip around.
The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Gordon Weiss.
An account of the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, lauded by the Economist as "scrupulously fair." We're halfway through, and it's a tough and sad read.
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