Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India

The Unknown Errors of Our Lives
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In tales set in India and the United States, Divakaruni illuminates the transformations of personal landscapes, real and imagined, brought about by the choices men and women make at every stage of their lives.

"The Love of a Good Man" tells of an Indian woman happily settled in the United States who must confront the past when her long-estranged father begs to meet his only grandson. In "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter," which was selected for The Best American Short Stories 1999 and short-listed for a 1999 O. Henry Award, a widow, inadvertently eavesdropping, discovers that her cherished, old-fashioned ways are an embarrassment to her daughter-in-law. A young American woman joins a pilgrimage of women in Kashmir and, in the land of her ancestors, comes to view herself and her family in a new light in "The Lives of Strangers," Two women, uprooted from their native land by violence and deception, find unexpected comfort and hope in each other in "The Blooming Season for Cacti." And in the title story, a young woman turns to her painting and the wisdom of her grandmother for the strength to accept ther fiance's past when it arrives on her doorstep.

Whether Divakaruni is writing about the adjustments of immigrants to a foreign land or the accommodations families make to the disruptive differences between generations, she poignantly portrays the eternal struggle to find a balance between the pull of home and the alluring promise of change.

Blandings Castle
by P.G. Wodehouse

A Wodehouse miscellany that takes us from Shropshire to Hollywood...

At Blandings Castle trouble,as is often the case,rears its bothersome head.Crooning Tenor Orlo Watkins has stolen Gertrude away from the Rev.Rupert Bingham.The Hon.Freddie Threepwood is meant to restore the sticky situation but he is more interested in getting his aunt to sample the delights of Donaldson's Dog-Joy biscuits. Lord Emsworth is about to lose his butler Beach when he acquires a not too handsome beard, but there's even worse confusion when the Empress,Lord Emsworth's beloved pig,loses her appetite. Meanwhile,Mr Mulliner at the Angler's Rest has some intriguing tales to tell about the film industry.

Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist
by M.S. Aiyar

In this book, Mani Shankar Aiyar, parliamentarian, commentator and crusader for a secular credo, calls for an unambiguous and decisive restoration of secularism to the core of India's nationhood. In doing so, he revisits every dimension of India's secular ethos and exposes the various myths perpetuated by communal elements of all hues.