“Sleeping on Jupiter” by Anuradha Roy (India) Review From a classic plot-driven novel to an unusual collective ‘novel-essay,’ the four shortlisted books for this year’s Summer Reading Group varied greatly in structure, style of writing, and point of view. Our summer readers also noticed a recurrent theme in all four of dreams and their many meanings. At the end of the discussion, when it came … Continue reading Sleeping on Jupiter
“A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistry (India) Synopsis Set in mid-1970s India, “A Fine Balance” tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a ‘State of Internal Emergency.’ Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances – and their fates – become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. … Continue reading A Fine Balance
“The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy (India) Review For those who were reading this book for the first time, they said it took them a while to get into the story as they found the timeline unnecessarily confusing at the beginning. Readers, for whom it was the second or third read, said they enjoyed it more each time describing it as an amazingly … Continue reading The God of Small Things
“The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga (India) Review From the opening pages of the book, readers were drawn into the tale Balram is telling to the Chinese Premier by the humour and irony he uses. It had them laughing from the start. Although not all the readers warmed to Balram, most found him a compelling character. They felt the narrative was well structured, as his … Continue reading The White Tiger
“Clear Light of Day” by Anita Desai (India) Review Interestingly, there was a clear divide between readers whose first language is English and those for whom it is a foreign language. The native English speakers loved the book, whereas the non-native speakers did not enjoy it overall. This was largely due to the style of writing, choice of words and sentence structure (long complex sentences). … Continue reading Clear Light of Day
Nicola's Book Club 