The Summer's Reading- Rushdie, Lahiri and Amitav Ghosh

Sunday brought with it “Literary Review” in The Hindu newspaper and I spent the whole morning poring through the articles in it. I found Pradeep Sebastian’s piece on James Wood’s ‘How Fiction Works’ most interesting. I wish I could find this book somewhere soon for two reasons. One was that Pradeep Sebastian describes the book as ‘the first truly illuminating book on the craft of a writer I have read.’ Second was a small aside he let in that James Wood was one of Pico Iyer’s literary hero which makes him a hero of one of my own literary heroes.

It seems like it is Jhumpa Lahiri everywhere these days. I had read an interview with her in AARP The Magazine that I found on Sunday. Then in Monday’s “Metro Plus” there was a front page article about the books of three biggies that we’ll get to read this summer- Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth) along with Amitav Ghosh ( Sea of Poppies) and Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence). There was an excerpt from ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ in today’s Deccan Chronicle in the Books Plus page. I read the excerpt and felt captivated by Jhumpa Lahiri’s exquisite style.

The latest issue of India Today magazine carried an excerpt from Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Enchantress of Florence’ along with a write up on Rushdie by S.Prasannarajan. Rushdie is described by Prasannarajan as ‘ a world novelist, like Milan Kundera’, and ‘Enchantress of Florence’ as ‘an exuberant celebration of storytelling.’ Can't wait to read it.

I’m feeling giddy with expectation of reading these books. It will be sometime before they appear at Abids but I wonder if I will be able to wait until then after reading all these articles about the two books.