Book Review

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination
By Helen Fielding
Picador
Price: Rs 910

Enter Olivia Joules: fearless, dazzling, independent beauty-journalist turned master spy, a new heroine for the 21st century8212; begins Helen Fielding8217;s latest attempt at finding an exciting new journalist for the new generation. In true Bridget Jones style, Olivia Joules begins her career as an aspiring serious, hard news journalist. Only her overactive imagination and inability to grasp reality have relegated her to the fashion columns of her magazine.

But Joules is not one to accept defeat. So even while covering fashion in Sudan she imagines a cloud of giant locusts descending on the country and at a face cream launch in Miami she thinks she8217;s spotted plasticsurgery-altered Osama bin Laden.

Her intuition, however, isn8217;t entirely unreliable. And in between looking for romance and scrounging for stories Olivia stumbles upon the biggest scoop of the decade. But her dream of breaking it remains happily unfulfilled8212; as she is recruited by MI6 and launched on the biggest adventure of her life.

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination is a perfect lazy Sunday read. September 11 has clearly caught up with our self-obsessed heroines. Counting calories, a la Bridget Jones, is out; chasing terrorists with a global reach is in.

8212; Esha Roy

More Than Enough
By John Fulton
William Heinemann
Price: Rs 550

MORE Than Enough is an engaging tale. A beautifully told story that makes one feel for the characters softly woven into the plot. It engrosses one and makes one think and imagine. Fulton, who earlier authored a collection of stories called Retribution, tells of an American family trying to make it big. In the process he details the everyday agonies and joys that give ballast to ordinary lives.

8212; Prarthana Gahilote