Book tasting

started a book-tasting at my place. the first book-tasting got off to a lovely start, with a varied list of books to taste. just like a wine-tasting, we sipped, we swilled, and we got a tad high on these books (and on chaas). a book-tasting is not a discussion heavy book club. people just bring a book they like, introduce it briefly, read a representative extract and in this way in one session you get to hear about a whole lot of books you wouldn't perhaps encounter on your own.
here's what we tasted:



Jayant brought 'The Japanese in the Andamans' - an account of the little known fact that the Japanese came into the Andamans and stayed there for 3 years, till they surrendered (in typical orderly emotionless fashion, from what Jayant tells us). The extracts read gave us a small glimpse of the sociological mix in the Andamans, some slices and nuggets of history, and a feel for the place. The writer's preferred title was Red Sun over Black Water....but his publisher decided to be unadventurous (and dont get me started on that topic) and stuck to the more prosaic title. More and more I see of them, I find publishers are like the olden days Brahmins - the good ones open out the world to you, the bad ones sit on top of everything and keep you where you are.

The author of this book is Jayant Dasgupta, himself.



Madhavi brought a Marathi book, intriguingly titled (now there's a better publisher): Idli, Orchid, ani Me. by Vitthal Kamat, the restaurateur and entrepreneur. An account of the derring-do (if you're Brit) and sheer moxy (if your American) and solid himmat (if you're Indian) of a man who literally turned every problem into an opportunity. She read out a part which narrated the almost audacious and cheeky strategy of 'bussing' hungry travellers from Mumbai airport to the Kamat eatery and back in time to catch their flight. I think the book is available in English too...will someone check?



Abha brought Alexander Macaull Smith's The World According to Bertie, fourth volume in the series of his “44 Scotland Street” novels. Interestingly, this and some of the others were written serially for an Edinburgh newspaper. The book takes your through the lives and minds of all the inhabitants of this set of apartments - Smith is funny, observant, kind, never despairing, and yet a serious observer of humans (and dogs like Cyril). The writer explores people and their lives in philosophically whimsical ways. Bertie is one of the characters, a highly gifted child with a pushy, intellectual mother. The extract read out was one that showed us the six-year-old Bertie at the recieving end of his mothers well-intentioned but annoying psychobabble.



Aparna brought Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. The novel's thirteen chapters each represent one month -- from January 1982 through January 1983 -- in the life of 13-year-old Jason . The novel is written from the perspective of the boy. While when you first hear about it you wonder if it's a bit like Adrian Mole, it seemed from Aparna's reading, that it was a much more 'interior' book, which achieved that most difficult thing - of writing from inside the head of a 13 year old, bringing out quite tangentially, subtly, the mine-field of growing up with a disability and of dealing with a family splitting up. Probably an amusing as well as heart-wrenching read.



Mini brought a tiny little gem of a children's book, which like all good children's books, appeals deeply to adults too. With its superbly emotional water colour illustrations, the book tells an apparently straight story of mice working hard to put away food for the winter, and one of them working equally hard to put away the intangibles - sunlight, and colour, and joy, for when just food and warmth is not good enough. As Mini pointed out, the story makes out a case for the place of poets, artists and dreamers in our over-industrious society. The writer is Leo Lionni, and the book is called Frederick. I looked him up - do check out http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/lionni/books/. The book cover also had the word Middlehauve on it - I cant figure out what that is - the illustrations are by Lionni himself. So who or what is Middlehauve, is not clear from the Net either.



Sunil brought Notes to Myself by Hugh Prater. Hugely popular book, like all good self-help books it does not claim to tell you any Secret, or tell you about Cheese, or give you any kind of instruction manual otr gyaan. The writer's jottings set off a chain of thoughts in the reader, encouraging you to read things in your own context, or in how they apply to you and your life. The fragment read out by Sunil illustrated this perfectly.



Gouri brought Sheila Dhar's Here's Someone I'd Like You to Meet - tales of innocents, musicians and bureaucrats. A sparkling book, full of anecdotes that are thoughtful, perceptive and very funny too. The extracts she read from 'Playing to the Flowers' about the child-like sarangi great Bundu Khan, showed the innocence, purity, as well as eventual pathos in the life of this revered musician. From playing Bahar lying in a flower bed to the sweetpeas blooming around him, to being forced to trail after his family to Pakistan in his later years, the story of this musician, like all the other stories in this book, is told with so much love, compassion and respect.

Two more books that I mentioned but did not bring (they are on my must-read list) are Priscilla Cogan's Winona's Web; and Michael Doty's The Dog Years. The first is about a psychotherapist who gets as a patient, a native american healer who is dying; somewhere along the way the roles subtly switch, with the western preoccupation with living at any cost, rubbing up against the older culture’s better understanding of death. The Dog book is not just a caper/funny book about owning dogs. I believe it is a meditative, philosophical and passionate book about them.



*****