On the shelf

One Hundred Shades of White
By Preethi Nair

In this novel about relocation, food appears to be the primary pre-occupation. Maya enjoys the first years of her life in Bombay, till she is suddenly whisked off to London by her parents. When her father exits their lives, she and her mother Nalini struggle through a classic case of generation gap. Nalini strives to retain her Indianhood and shows her motherly love through her skills with spices and frying pans.

My Invented Country
By Isabel Allende

On September 11, 2001, as the hijackers8217; planes raced towards their targets, Isabel Allende remembered another 9/11, another catastrophe: the 1973 overthrow of the Chilean president, her uncle Salvador Allende. That coup and the threat of persecution led to her flight from Chile. And now that she8217;s made her home in America, the coincidence has inspired her to bid a final goodbye to the land her birth. This foray into non-fiction by Allende should be interesting. Best known for her whimsical House of the Spirits, in a later book Paula she spilled a little secret. She said that a stint in journalism in her younger days involved overcoming a huge challenge: to stop her imagination from taking flight as she reported facts. Ahem, this then must have been a tough book to write.