White Tiger by Aravind Adiga I did actually buy this book new and did not as I often do pick it up through bookcrossing. I do love books about India they seem to have a certain atmosphere that only come from books based in that country. My version is published by Atlantic books for £7.99 but I see once again it is available though Amazon used for 1p plus P&P. The ISBN is 987 1 84354 722 8 This book won the Man Booker prize in 2008 and usually prize winning books do not attract me as often they are a bit too literarily worthy for my taste but I thought that as it was set in India and had a nice cover ( how shallow am I? ) I would give it a ...  Read the complete review

Balram Halwai is born a boy with no name; just known as Munna (Boy) for the first years of his life, he lives in a tiny village in India in one house with the numerous members of his extended family. Everyday life consists of keeping the water buffalo alive in a desperate attempt to keep the milk flowing so that it can be sold to get money for food. As a caste of sweet-makers, the family is eligible for some higher-caste employment, and Balram's father is proud to be a rickshaw-puller, even though the work is hard and eventually kills him. Given the nickname White Tiger by a school inspector, who uses the image of the 'rarest of creatures' to highlight the ...  Read the complete review

Balram Halwai was a driver in New Delhi. Born and bred in Laxmangarh, commonly known as the Darkness along with all other poor slums and villages, Balram was from a low caste in the Hindu society. Life was tough in the Darkness, people lived in extreme poverty, survived from the land, with the water buffalo being the fattest living thing in each family as it provided the essential milk. Families were also used to work, and education was unimportant, so each child left school early to help. Bahram, a bright boy, was set to work in a tea shop, and after seeing his poor father die of TB he knew he had to get out of the Darkness. A boy with ambition, he managed to ...  Read the complete review

This book was in the Times newspaper, voted as one of the best books of the decade. And that is how I came upon it. See, I vowed (or challenged myself) to read the 100 books before the end of the decade (ie. in a month's time...) Having come across so many great books on this voyage of discovery, I have to say, this is one of my favourites so far. The story was so intoxicating, I literally couldn't go to sleep until I had come to a comfortable, stable and uninteresting point. So, starting reading at about eight, the night flew past as I dissolved into the life of Balram, an 'entrepeneur'. It was early in the next morning until I finally put down the book. ...  Read the complete review

If the American Dream has been about money, power, success, making it (and big shoulder pads) then the Indian Dream, for me at least, has been something far more spiritual, ethereal and mystic. In this stunning, thrilling and shocking debut novel author Aravind Adiga exposes an altogether harsher, completely un-mystical world, something more primal and more raw and more brutal by far. The white tiger of the title plays on this theme. We learn that a white tiger is that rare find, someone seen at a school with raw natural talent. If they are lucky they have or are offered an opportunity to use their talent, but for the majority - the great majority - of Indian ...  Read the complete review