Books I've Read this Semester

I wrote this a while back while we were in Jaisalmer. Since that time, I've read some more books, but I thought I'd post this anyway.

Books I’ve read This Semester:

-Understanding the Caste System: The Non-Brahmanic Perspective

*I read this book for a book report for my Country Analysis course. I thought it was just an okay piece. It was a collection of essays that had been papers at a conference at the University of Pune on the Caste System. However, I found that that collection was all essays by academics-which I don’t really think can claim to be the Non-Brahmanic perspective. I didn’t feel that there were any voices of the people who the essays were talking about-like women, Dalits, scheduled castes, untouchables, converts to other religions because of their untouchable status, etc. The Introduction did provide a good overview of the history of religion in India. But, I found this book lacking.

-Equation for Life

*I read this book for a book report for my International Development course. It was a collection of essays surrounding issues of sustainable development. For my book report, I focused on the essay about sustainable agriculture and the effects of Intellectual Property Rights and Genetically Modified Crops, such as Bt Cotton.

-Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

*This is Jhumpa Lahiri’s new collection of short stories. VERY GOOD, although this time almost all of the stories took place primarily in the United States, unlike Interpreter of Maladies that had stories set in both Western countries and India.

-Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

UNBELIEVABLE!!!! The best way to describe it is to use the back cover:
“A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld. In the early 80s, Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There, he established a free health clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger, and street soldier. He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time being worked over in an Indian jail. Then, in case anyone though he was slacking, he acted in Bollywood and found with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan...Amazingly, Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions. It’s a profound tribute to his willpower...At once a high-kicking, eye-gouging adventure, a love saga and a savage yet tenderly lyrical fugitive vision.” AND 934 PAGES LONG! Seriously, this book is SOOO crazy and SOOO amazing. Probably one of the best books I’ve read.

-One Night @ The Call Center

*I’m not sure how to describe this book! It is one of the top-selling English Indian novels and has recently been made into the Bollywood hit “Hello.” It is a story about six workers at a call center outside of Delhi and then one night they get a call from God. Basically the premise is that their lives are all full of issues and then this call from God gives them the strength and courage to make necessary changes in their life. But there are a lot of questionable parts in the book-like the portrayal of women, and the sentiment toward Americans. Basically, all Americans are portrayed as stupid, rich, and ignorant. I guess it was good to read this because it is such a wide-read book by English speaking Indians, but I wonder what they think about this book. It was disturbing to me, for more than just one reason.

-AIDS Sutra

*This is a collection of stories written by famous Indian authors. Each author tells the story of the different faces of HIV/AIDS in India. This ranges from impoverished drug injectors in the northeast to sex workers in Bombay to widowed women in villages whose husbands passed the disease to them and then after he died, his family shunned her, to truck drivers to the MSM (men who have sex with men) community, etc. A very good and important book to read.

-The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

An awesome book that weaves together magic, spices, life stories or love, loss, grief, injustice, immigrant life, identity and culture. I’m in the middle of this book, so I’m offer more of an anotation later.

And, I’ve bought soooooo many more books to read!!! I can’t wait to read them and let you know what I think!