MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE by VASEEM KHAN

As though the fabulously creative and loveable Baby Ganesh series were not enough, the talented Vaseem Khan has now given us yet another wonderful Indian detective, and I am already a huge fan. Introducing Inspector Persis Wadia, India’s first woman detective. We are in Bombay, in the tumultuous, heady days …

DRAGONFIRE by HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY

Having just read “This United State”, moving straight to “Dragonfire” was another disturbing look at what could happen in the ambitious world of politics in which we live. What made this book even more fascinating is that it centres on a part of the world where I live, Asia, and …

The Himalayan Concerto by John Masters

You shouldn’t have to know a place and/or physically be in a place to enjoy a book, but there really is nothing like sitting in the Himalayas, relishing a book about the Himalayas. John Masters’ “The Himalayan Concerto” was written in 1975, published in 1976, and purports to take place …

HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA by MOHSIN HAMID

How many gushing adjectives can one use to describe a wonderful book? Amazing. Well written. Moving. Realistic.  This book was all of these and more. All the time I was reading this book,  I kept saying “yes,” simply because so much of it was so familiar. I live in India. …

INVITATION by SHEHRYAR FAZLI

The debut novel of the young writer Shehryar Fazli is set in his home country, Pakistan, in 1970, in the politically fraught months leading up to civil war and the formation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan. The narrator, Shahbaz, returns from Paris, where he has lived for 19 years with …