Book shelf update ...

Red Earth & Pouring Rain starts very well. Abhay has returned from US after studies. He kills a monkey in a dramatic incident. But this is no ordinary monkey. He remembers his previous berths as Sanjay (from Mahabharat)and Parashar (not rally sure of this character :-)) So when Lord Yama comes to take the monkey away, he pleads to monkey god Hanuman. Hanuman strikes a deal with lord Yama that Sanjay (the monkey) will have to tell a story every day for at least 2 hours. Yama puts a condition that if audience starts getting bored Sanjay has to go with him. This starts a thread of stories. stories inside stories, typical to Mahabharat style. These stories are not all that interesting, they are very slow and don't really hold the attention. This is Vikram Chandra's first book. He certainly does not have economy when it comes to using words. He could have done it in a much crisp and readable way.

After reading cuckold I was looking for something which has dark shades and very bold in style. Then one day in Landmark I found Confession of Indian women eater by Sasthi Brata. It has forward by Kushwant Singh. So just picked it by instinct. Again the first half of the book was up to my expectations but then it becomes very repetitive in story telling. It has that shades of soft porn in the later part, but not always exciting.

I just started reading "Swami" a marathi novel written by Ranjit Desai based on the life of Madhavrao Peshwa. Next I have RKN's "English Teacher" and planning to buy My name is red by noble winner of 2006 Turkish author Orhan Pamuk