Kankana Basu's forthcoming blockbustr

KANKANA BASU

‘A first-time author with a punctured ego, I wrote a stinker to the literary critic. The gentleman calmly said that he saw the glimmerings of a promising book in me, but it was definitely not Vinegar Sunday. Almost by autosuggestion, I wrote Cappuccino Dusk’

Kankana Basu’s Cappuccino Dusk, which was long-listed for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize (for unpublished manuscripts), will be published in September. The novel is about four siblings, Basu says, and “their eccentric friends and relatives, and the hopes and ideals of youngsters who live in a metropolis, and about the death of their ideals”. The thrust of the novel is on the shifting mesh of relationships but coffee and conversation play a significant role. Basu says her decision to write this novel was fuelled by the first review her debut book — a short story collection titled Vinegar Sunday — received: it left her shattered.

Menaka Shivdasani's books

MENKA SHIVDASANI ON BOOKS

I have recently read Anita Nair’s new book, Mistress.

It was on the Orange Prize for fiction long list 2008. I think it is a masterful piece of work, richly textured and multilayered, and she unmasks these layers with care. Dance is the central motif in this novel and Nair, who is known for researching her subject in depth, had enrolled in a Kerela Kalamandalam to write this book. The protagonist, Radha, is married to a man she sees as an ambitious and insensitive boor, and finds herself drawn to a cello-playing foreigner who has moved in. By itself, this might have been a slight narrative but Nair successfully weaves in different strands from the past. She takes the ordinary and makes it memorable.

Shivdasani is the author of Stet and Nirvana at Ten Rupees

Anuvab Pal's books

ANUVAB PAL Playwrigh A book that means a lot to you? AS Byatt’s Possession. I love the way it’s written and the idea of a literary detective novel. But it doesn’t mean much personally. A book that does is David Mamet’s Bambi Vs Godzilla. Your favourite character from a book? It has to be a cross between Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes books, and Digital Dutta from Sarnath Banerjee’s new novel. An author or genre you dislike? Definitely dislike books titled Mistress of Spices, Master of Cardamom, First Cousin of Mango or any magical-realist tour guide of a non-existent nation of child widows or levitating transsexuals, or where Indians turn into flowers, exotic meats, gods show up, etcetera. Last book bought? Foreign Correspondent: Fifty Years of Reporting South Asia. Last book read? Either Hamish McDonald’s The Polyester Prince or Sarnath Banerjee’s The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers. A very overrated book or genre? The whole Paulo Coehlo thing. Also Jeffrey Archer. Why is he considered a famous writer in India and nowhere else? A book you wish you’d written? I wish I’d thought of Harry Potter or Tintin. I’d be rich. And I like the stuff those two do. Latent English public school politics, globe-trotting, etcetera. Your favourite writers? Ian McEwan, AS Byatt, Oscar Wilde, Martin Amis, David Sedaris, Woody allen, Haruki Murakami, Julian Barnes, Ramchandra Guha. A book you’ve always wanted to read, but haven’t? I’ve never actually read any PG Wodehouse. People say he’s funny. ANNIE ZAIDI

Mridula Koshy's new stories book

MRIDULA KOSHY

‘These stories are all about ways of seeing, including the whole range of seeing — from objectification to empathy. Looking at people is a national pastime in India. We’re always staring and being stared at. But where is our curiosity? Where is the compassion?

Mridula Koshy’s first collection of short stories," If It Is Sweet," will be launched in September this year. The stories are not directly linked to one another, but the lives of her characters, who might belong to very different social groups, intersect. People in these stories often find themselves pulled together by grief, or loss. Koshy says that the stories make the same point: how do people, who are so divided by class, gender, race and so on, view each other? “People have written a lot about this: the tragedy of the upper middle class not ‘seeing’ other people. But that’s not true. I think we are all very painfully aware of each other.”

INDRAJIT HAZRA ON BOOKS

I’m currently reading two books, both fiction. One is Nathanael West’s 1939 classic, The Day of the Locust’. The protagonist, Tod Hackett, goes into the dark, glitzy world of the Hollywood of the 1930s, as a set designer and enters a nightmare world. What is totally captivating about this slim novel is how it presents the viciousness of the world in a deadpan way. West himself was a Hollywood scriptwriter. But to see the beast with its belly up, and in a style that is almost noir but not quite, is delightful.

The second book, Ami ebong Amra (I and we) is also slim novel written by Humayan Ahmed, the Bangladeshi writer. This novel — from Ahmed’s Mishi Ali series — has Ali, a psychoanalyst who solves crime, trying to stop a man who tells him in the first chapter that he’s killed two people and will be killing another. Ahmed’s language is refreshingly understated. The scene in which Ali is sitting on a park bench, and encounters the killer for the first time, is brilliant. His response to the psychopath bragging about killing is: “You’ve killed two. You’ll kill a third. Go ahead. What do I have to say? It’s not as if you need my permission.” Psychological warfare between individuals doesn’t get better.

Hazra is the author of The Bioscope Man

Deepa Gahlot's bookworld

DEEPA GAHLOT
Writer

A favourite book or one that means a lot to you?
Too many to name, really.

How many books do you own?
Although I am a member of several libraries, I own over 2,000 books.

Last book you bought?
Granta 100, guest edited by William Boyd. It includes pieces by Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Hanif Kureishi

A book you wish you’d written?
Every good book I read; anything by Toni Morrison.

Last book you read?
Salam Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence. I think this one sees him back in top form.

A genre you dislike?
Cheap pulp thrillers and anything that doesn’t grab me in the first 20-25 pages. With so many books to read, why carry on reading something you don’t like? Sometimes I speed read things I don’t find particularly worthy.

A genre you like?
I love reading humour, especially that of Woody Allen, Saki, John Updike and a slightly obscure Hungarian travel writer called George Mikes. He writes travelogues, which are full of wit and satire.

Your favourite film adaptation of a book?
Guide, originally a book by RK Naryanan, was very effectively sexed up by Vijay Anand. The dhoti clad Raju guide morphed into the sauve Dev Anand. One instance when the film is better than the book.

Most overrated book?
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. A one million dollar advance heightened expectations but I found it didn’t quite live up to its hype. Many other books that have gone unnoticed were better.

ANASTASIA GUHA

Sampurna Chattarji on books

SAMPURNA CHATTARJI ON BOOKS

Alasdair Gray’s Lanark is a book I first encountered in 2005, and I return to it every year. I’m at the Lanark-moment in my life again, newly amazed at how absolutely compelling this hard-to-summarise novel is.

Inventively structured, hilariously annotated, it tells the stories of Lanark and his alter-ego, Duncan Thaw, set in surreal Unthank and the all-too real city of Glasgow. Oracles, dragonhide, deterioration wards, doctors in white coats, and incurable patients whose bodies are sources of energy and food, are some of the things that make Unthank not just fantastical but also chillingly apocalyptic. When Lanark wants to know how he got there , the Oracle tells him Duncan Thaw’s story — his early years, his coming of age as an artist and his despair as a man. Beautifully-written, funny, moving, Lanark is big, rich, strange and very, very rewarding.
Sampurna Chattarji is a poet and author of Sight May Strike You Blind

Indra Sinha's Book world : Tehelka : 05.July.2008

THE word INDRA SINHA Writer A favourite book or one that means a lot to you? City of Falling Angels by John Berendt. Every bit as good as his famous Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. John has a happy knack of meeting the right people at the right time. He researches painstakingly before he writes. I suggested to him that he should write a novel, but I think he finds the real world and its people far more beguiling than fiction. Last book you bought? The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, thoroughly enjoyable. His writing is so fecund that you feel each sentence could break open and hatch a new story. Last book you read? The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent, a fascinating delve into the realms of early Christian literature. Baigent co-wrote the famous The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail which was the basis for Dan Brown’s excruciatingly awful The Da Vinci Code. How many books do you own? Nine or ten thousand. A book you wish you’d written? Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for the sheer beauty of the writing. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov because of its overwhelming power and the brilliance of its double-edged storytelling. Your favourite character in a book? Mowgli in The Jungle Book. The Gospel According to Luke and Acts of the Apostles which are parts 1 and 2 of the same work. Tendentious disinformation from start to finish. The other gospels, i.e. Mark, Matthew (for the sayings), John (for the detail) and Thomas are worth a careful read SANASTASIA GUHA