No comments about Khmer Mythology: Secrets of Angkor.

1 comments about India File.

1. It isn't easy capturing a country of over a billion people in a hundred and eighty five pages. In India File, Trevor Fishlock, however, comes very close. His novel, funny and shocking in its honesty, is a wonderful introduction to India. In a style similar to Bill Bryson and a tone similar to Jamaica Kincaid, his anecdotes and descriptions bring the vast nation alive. While this book doesn't work well as a guide to India (as a result of its somewhat random organization and its lack of travel details), it makes for a great prep book before a trip to the subcontinent or just an interesting read. There are parts of the novel that are not for the faint of heart. This is non-fiction at its most graphic as Fishlock describes the Indian's intolerance for crime through the stories of common people dropping large stones on people's kneecaps to break them or wardens pok ing prisoner's eyes out with bicycle spokes. On the other hand, these vivid, if violent details, add a level of realism and balance to the book not often found in your average travel guide. As well, despite its very reasonable length, India File reaches some depth in describing India's culture and its people's customs. In this slow moving country even a book originally published in 1987 is relevant and current enough to be useful. This is especially true when one considers that most of its subject matter hasn't substantially changed in hundreds of years. Fishlock follows everything from fishermen's stories to mass marriage ceremonies to the ever-present danger of an overflowing bus falling on you. His humour, sometimes subtle and sometimes blatant, is omnipresent, lightening up what can at times be an either dreary or overwhelming subject matter. Because Fishlock shows us India instead of telling it to us, we are inclined to believe him, almost unquestioningly. Instead of depicting India from the tourist's point of view, Fishlock shows us India from the inside out. He describes it as a foreigner who is at home in India, a non-native untouchable who is in touch with India's grandeur and deformity. In his bluntness Fishlock creates a feeling of the every day in his writing. That is to say, instead of describing a train packed full of people (both inside and on top) crashing into a river and everyone on board dying as a unique and shocking experience he tells of how it's the kind of thing that happens all the time in India. This feeling of everything being common amplifies the feeling of hearing about India from someone who really knows the country as well as emphasise the country's massive scale. In a country this big,, even the most random and bizarre occurrences are repeated.

   There is a strong focus throughout Fishlock's novel on religion, language and the Hindu caste system. This focus is paralleled in Indian society and creates a framework in which everyone leads their lives. From the daily work of the untouchables to the different way a priest treats the Brahmins during a mass marriage (that includes members of all of the castes) we see the interaction of religion and class at every level.

   As a novel, as a story, as a summary of India itself, this book excels. While not a light read, it is never boring and is never off topic. Fishlock knows India intimately. I, like Fishlock, lived in India (New Delhi) for three years. In a manner very similar to myself, Fishlock developed a love hate relationship with the country and is sharing it with his readers.

2 comments about A Meeting by the River.

1. Isherwood takes on the ambiguities inherent in sexuality,religious devotion, and sibling relationships in a completelynon-polemical way. Easy to read, involving, and witty, the Isherwood way. A fifth star would be deserved if the book were a little messier--it does have a slight tendency toward "patness". But that's a minor quibble. END



2. After he moved in 1939 to Los Angeles, where he met Swami Prabhavananda, Christopher Isherwood translated many Hindu texts, wrote a biography of Ramakrishna (a nineteenth-century Indian mystic), and increasingly incorporated his newly adapted religious beliefs into his fiction. Those beliefs are ever-present in "A Meeting by the River," in which the author depicts two British brothers who serve as alter egos for his own spiritual and sexual longings.
   
   The story is simple and is established in the first few pages: living near the Ganges, Oliver writes to his brother, Patrick, and reveals that he intends to enter the Hindu monastery at which he has been studying. In Los Angeles for business, Patrick, whose wife Penny and their children live in London, departs immediately to India to see Oliver, find "out what kind of state he's in," and to prevent "this monstrously unnatural spectacle of a young Englishman being turned into a Hindu swami." Patrick, however, has a secret of his own: a lover, Tom, whom he left behind in Los Angeles.
   
   Conceptually, it is a brave book, but its execution is appalling. The book is often excruciating to read, and it's difficult to believe that Isherwood wrote such a book only three years after "A Single Man," which is a tour de force of incisive prose and controlled diction. Stylistically, the novel alternates between Patrick's letters--to Tom, to Penny, to his mother--and Oliver's diary entries. The epistolary sections transcend informality into the realm of chattiness; they are freckled with conversation tidbits, pillow talk, and exclamation points. ("You deserve the best, and what the best is, from your point of view, only you can say! Do I deserve you? I would never dare to claim that. But if you say I do, then I'll be the last to contradict you!") The diary entries, by comparison, are respites amidst the prattle, but even their loquaciousness threaten to turn these oases into swamps.
   
   What saves the book from being a total wreck are Isherwood's fascination with the atmosphere of the monastery and his post-Freudian portrayal of the two conflicted brothers. (The offstage character of Tom, on the other hand, is a somewhat embarrassing boy-toy fantasy whose presence seems rather pointless, while Penny and the mother serve as little more than recipients for Patrick's increasingly hysterical letters.) The book's ending, too, while altogether unsurprising, contains just enough ambiguity to allow it to be incongruously affecting. The last few pages offer a regretfully brief hint of what this novel could have been.

No comments about Cricket: A Bridge of Peace.

No comments about Lonely Planet Citiescape Kathmandu (Lonely Planet Citiescape. Kathmandu).

2 comments about The Kathmadu Valley.

1. I love knocking around this book and remembering my trip to Nepal- I just wish there was a way to get the noise and smells (except the throat-burning CO fumes), too, as any experience in the Kathmandu Valley is incomplete without them! Arvidsson's photography captures all that one would like to remember about Kathmandu and its sister cities, Patan & Bhaktapur. If I had only brought more film with me in the first place!!! Luckily, there is this book for all my armchair travels back in time... The photographs themselves are sharp, introspective and capture the color of the area (of which there is a lot!) as well as providing a glimpse of the far off snowy peaks of the Himalayas which if you are lucky, on a clear day, you can see from the city- you cannot believe that the mountains are so far away because it looks as if you could just reach out and scoop the snow off one of their majestic summits.I do not know if there was one, but I would love to one day see an exhibition of these photos and be wonderfully overstimulated by the sheer sensory overload that is Kathmandu and the Kathmandu Valley.



2. If you have ever had the privilege of visiting Kathmandu, you will appreciate this book very much. The Kathmandu Valley is a cornucopia of sights and smells, and seemingly around every corner is a beautiful picture in one of the poorest cities on the face of the earth. For all its natural beauty though, it is the people, and the religion and festivities which make Kathmandu and the Kathmandu valley truly unique and a place which holds a special place in my heart. This is a coffee table book with stunning pictures and history of the beautiful Kathmandu Valley. Most casual travelers who visit will not get a chance to see all of the places in this book. The pictures encompass Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, and also the periphery of the valley where farming is done in the shadow of the urban chaos.
   
   What this book cannot do is expose the reader to the overwhelming sights and smells of this beautiful valley, for Kathmandu is the epitome of sensory overload.......for that you will need to purchase a ticket;-)

No comments about ACROSS COVETED LANDS - KINDLE EDITION [ENG].

No comments about Manaslu.

1 comments about Sikkim Region of India Map by ITMB (Travel Reference Map).

1. This map is all you need to discover the possibilities for adventures in Sikkim. It enables you to get a feel for lie of the land and enables you to plan accordingly, whether it be trekking or cultural experiences. If you are going to Sikkim you need this map. Dont leave home without it.

1 comments about Being Indian.

1. This is a tremendous book. I am Indian, but grew up in a very western household in India, and have spent my whole life thinking about what it means to be Indian. This book more than any other has shed light on this question. In writing about Indian attitudes towards power, money, technology or culture, Pavan Varma hits the nail on the head on what makes the Indian civilization so different than any other and so complex in many different ways. He writes excellently all through and makes insightful comments on every single page. I would recommend this book to any Indian who wants to learn more about themselves, or to any non-Indian who has either spent time in India or around a lot of Indian people.