Vikram Seth S A Suitable Boy

Vikram Seth'S Captivating Book Is The Story Of A Century And Of A Love Affair Across A Racial Divide Shanti Behari Seth Was Born On The Eighth Day Of The Eighth Month In The Eighth Year Of The Twentieth Century; He Died Two Years Before Its Close. He Was Brought Up In India In The Late Years Of The Raj, And Was Sent By His Family In The 1930S To Berlin Though He Could Not Speak A Word Of German To Study Medicine And Dentistry. It Was Here, Before He Migrated To Britain, That Shanti'S Path First Crossed That Of His Future Wife. Henny Gerda Caro Was Also Born In 1908, In Berlin, To A Jewish Family, Cultured, Patriotic And Intensely German. When The Family Decided To Have Shanti As A Lodger, Henny S First Reaction Was, 'Don'T Take The Black Man!' But A Friendship Flowered, And When Henny Fled Hitler'S Germany For England, Just One Month Before The War Broke Out, She Was Met At Victoria Station By The Only Person She Knew In The Country: Shanti. Vikram Seth, Their Great-Nephew From India, Arrived In This Childless Couple'S Life As A Teenage Student. Now He Has Woven Together The Astonishing Story Of Shanti And Henny, And The Result Is An Extraordinary Tapestry Of India, The Third Reich And The Second World War, Auschwitz And The Holocaust, Israel And Palestine, Postwar Germany And 1970S Britain. Two Lives Is Both A History Of A Violent Country Seen Through The Eyes Of Two Survivors As Well As An Intimate Portrait Of Their Friendship, Marriage And Abiding Yet Complex Love. Part Biography, Part Memoir, Part Meditation On Our Times, This Is The True Tale Of Two Remarkable Lives A Masterful Telling From One Of Our Greatest Living Writers. Click Here To See Vikram Seth'S Microsite

The author of the international bestseller A Suitable Boy returns with a powerful and deeply romantic tale of two gifted musicians. Michael Holme is a violinist, a member of the successful Maggiore Quartet. He has long been haunted, though, by memories of the pianist he loved and left ten years earlier, Julia McNicholl. Now Julia, married and the mother of a small child, unexpectedly reenters his life and the romance flares up once more. Against the magical backdrop of Venice and Vienna, the two lovers confront the truth about themselves and their love, about the music that both unites and divides them, and about a devastating secret that Julia must finally reveal. With poetic, evocative writing and a brilliant portrait of the international music scene, An Equal Music confirms Vikram Seth as one of the world's finest and most enticing writers.

The 'Continuum Contemporaries' series is designed as a source of ideas and inspiration for members of book clubs and literature students at school, college and university. It aims to give readers informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, acclaimed and influential novels of recent years.

A special limited edition of nine classic novels produced to coincide with Weidenfeld & Nicolson's 60th anniversary. Designed by the award-winning advertising agency Fallon with special endpapers commissioned from ground-breaking artists. The endpapers for this title have been designed by Yehrin Tong. Vikram Seth's novel is at its core a love story, the tale of Lata - and her mother's attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. Set in post-Independence India and involving the lives of four large families and those who orbit them, it is also a vast panoramic exploration of a whole continent at a crucial hour as a sixth of the world's population faces its first great General Election and the chance to map its own destiny. 'A SUITABLE BOY may prove to be the most fecund as well as the most prodigious work of the latter half of this century - perhaps even the book to restore the serious reading public's faith in the contemporary novel ... You should make time for it. It will keep you company for the rest of your life' Daniel Johnson, The Times

Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this is a unique and wonderfully creepy tale that is sure to delight Murakami fans. "All I did was go to the library to borrow some books." On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library finds himself wondering how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. He pops into the local library to see if it has a book on the subject. This is his first mistake. Led to a special 'reading room' in a maze under the library by a strange old man, he finds himself imprisoned with only a sheep man, who makes excellent donuts, and a girl, who can talk with her hands, for company. His mother will be worrying why he hasn't returned in time for dinner and the old man seems to have an appetite for eating small boys' brains. How will he escape?

The Great California Novel Has Been Written, In Verse (And Why Not?): The Golden Gate Gives Great Joy' Gore Vidal 'A New Star In The Literary Firmament & It Outshines In Brilliance Anything That I Have Seen In Half-A-Century Of Star-Spotting & Seth Has The Stuff That Nobel Laureates Are Made Of' Khushwant Singh, Illustrated Weekly Of India 'A Tour De Force Of Rhyme And Reasonableness. The Golden Gate Doesn'T Only Compellingly Advocate Life'S Pleasures, It Stylishly Contributes Another One To Them' Sunday Times , London 'Seth Is The Most Astute And Sharp-Tongued Social Critic To Arrive On The Scene Since Jonathan Swift' India Today 'A Thing Of Anomalous Beauty & Seth Writes Poetry As It Has Not Been Written For A Century' Washington Post Book World

A Delightful Read The Hindu The First Woman Chief Justice Of A High Court In India, The First Woman Judge Of The Delhi High Court, The First Woman To Top The Bar Examinations In London: Leila Seth Has Led A Full Life. In This Autobiography, Leila Talks About Its Joyous As Well As Its Difficult Moments. Figuring Prominently Are Her Early Years Of Homelessness And Struggle, Her Straying Into Law While In England With Her Husband Premo, And Later Practising In Patna, Calcutta And Delhi; And Her Happy Marriage Of Over Fifty Years, Including The Experience Of Bringing Up Three Remarkable Children: Writer Vikram, Zen Buddhist Dharmacharya Shantum And Film-Maker Aradhana. Intertwining Family Life With Professional, Leila Movingly Describes The Years After Her Father S Premature Death When As Children They Were Obliged To Live With Friends. There Are Also Delightful Vignettes: Premo And Her Turning An Old Mansion Into A Splendid Home In Patna, Vikram S Writing Of The Novel A Suitable Boy, Shantum S Ordination As A Buddhist Teacher By Thich Nhat Hanh And Aradhana S Marriage To Peter, An Austrian Diplomat, And Work As Art Director On Films Like Earth And Water. Intimate, Intricate, Charming And Often Amusing, On Balance Presents A Rich And Heart-Warming Portrait Of An Exceptional Woman, Her Family And Her Times.