Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts Gregory David Roberts was sentenced to 19 years in an Australian jail having been convicted of a series of armed robberies, carried out to feed his heroin addiction at the time. He escaped from prison, and travelled to India, becoming one of Australia's most wanted men. The book then follows him though his experiences (including setting up a health clinic In the slums of India, working as a forger and counterfeiter and a gun runner) and introduces us to a weird and wonderful array of people along the way. It is an unusual story, in that it is fiction, though quite heavily influenced by real life events, which ...  Read the complete review

The groundbreaking novel 'Shantaram' spans the world between fact and fiction seamlessly. Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and Heroin addict escaped from an Australian prison. After adopting the name Lin he eventually fled to India, a country he fell in love with. Embracing the wonderful culture Robert's learned Hindi and Marathi, the majority of the latter was learned in a remote village. He returned to Mumbai and began living in a slum, establishing a free health clinic for the slum dwellers. The epic novel follows his entrancing life in India, detailing his involvement with the mafia as a money launderer, forger and street soldier before being thrown in an ...  Read the complete review

A month after leaving India myself I took a moment to flick through the first few pages of a book so many people on my travels had spoken about. I ended up in the book shop for half an hour reading as much as I could. The accuracy in the description of Mumbai was so eloquently written it drew me in instantly. It resonated in my mind and brought me straight back to the time I spent there. The story itself is a compelling one and 900 pages does not seem such a laborious job or an endless story. In brief the central character, Lin, is an escaped convict from an Australian prison, who manages to find his way to Mumbai. He meets a charming, frank Indian man, who ...  Read the complete review

Quite simply my favourite book! It is a big book, but within the first couple of chapters you will be hooked. Basically, the character, based on the author, escapes from an Australian prison and escapes to Bombay. From then on the events that take place are non-stop as Lin soon integrates into the chaotic Bombay life and makes lots of friends. He soon becomes a very popular guy around the City and the people that he meets leads him towards some interesting opportunites. One of my favourite parts of the book is when he is living in the slums. I've often wondered what it would be like to live in those kind of conditions and this section of the book gives a ...  Read the complete review

This is a must read for anyone, no matter what sort of novels you are into it has everything in it. The story is a semi-autobio of Gregory David Roberts, who is an ex-heroin addict, with this in mind it's impossible to not love his character, someone who is wise, loyal, selfless and just an all round nice guy with a dark past, and just trying to make a name for himself. However it is not the characters in the book that you will fall in love with (Lin, Prabu) but also the book's setting, India. Yes there is financial hardship in some of the slums, but the book demonstrates that each person out there always cares those around them. I wasn't really bothered about india ...  Read the complete review