Actually, barring instances like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Shame (and the attempt to read God Of Small Things), I have begun reading Indian fiction regularly only over the past year or so. So there's a lot to go - in that I am yet to read Jhumpa or Amitava Ghosh or Anita Desai or Sudha Murthy or Shashi Despande and so many other authors. But during this period the books I admired were

a) An Equal Music - Vikram Seth : I know this book has evoked mixed reactions, but as an ardent follower of western classical music, I found his story and writing brilliant. I haven't read his other books 'A Suitable Boy' and 'Golden Gate'
b) Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand : which talks about a day in the life of a 'bhangi'
c) English transations of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's 'Devdas' and 'Parineeta'

Then there were city-based books like Suketu Mehta's 'Maximum City' (on Mumbai) and Dominique Lapierre's 'The City Of Joy' (on Kolkata). The latter is a Frenchman but his understanding of India is amazing, as was also evident in Freedom At Midnight

Narendra - I loved 'Maximum City' by Suketu Mehta... Extremely well written book.... 'India Unbound' by Gurcharan Das was a great read as well.......

I didnot like 'The City of Joy' as much - I found places of the book objectionable.. but I agree that he has a good understanding of the Indian setting as an outsider.... I should start 'An Indian Summer' by James Cameron after this, and I have heard good things about the book as well.. lets see....

Shashi Deshpande's 'That Long Silence' was brilliant, but her books do have a feminist flavor, so thats a caution...

Another Indian author I have heard good things about is Rohinton Mistry, not read anything yet...

Well, I may have liked The City Of Joy because I have visted Kolkata only twice - once for exactly 21 hours - that too on a Sunday - and the other at the airport changing flights to and from Jamshedpur. So I don't know much about the city - actually I know nothing - to identify what was authentic or not.
Yes, Maximum City was fabulous - though there were many aspects of the city he has not covered, like the stock market and the glamour scene, or covered only in brief, like the daily local train drama, and the food specialities apart from vada pav. But his description of the underworld and the shady night life was amazing. Guess he should have stuck to the 'darker side' of Mumbai

Talking about foreigners writing about India, I recently read 'Siddhartha' by German writer Hermann Hesse. Amazing book about man's search for spiritual bliss. 'Siddhartha' is apparently staged as a play very often in Germany - I was in Munich six years ago, and the guy in who's house I was staying as PG was an actor playing the lead role. Of course it was in German and I didn't understand a word - except for some of the basic sentences. Thanks to him, I was sitting in the second row where I couldn't even yawn and where I looked quite like a monkey.

Exactly - I was surprised that Stock Exchange and the Blitz was not covered well in 'Maximum City'.. in fact, I found the chapter on 'Mission Kashmir' to be the weakest in the book... But regardless, its one of the best city books I ever read......

Kirti - You know, I haven't read Vikram Seth yet... when 'The Suitable Boy' was published, I was still a student and while I was reading the fat engineering books, reading another fat book scared me and I never read anything from him after that... May be I should try reading something now...

I dont know, but may be the way this discussion is going... I should rename the thread to something else

Good to see other book lovers on the forum

I am not an avid reader of love stories, but tried reading 2 of them given that they were 'famous' or people claimed they were among the best.. was quite dissapointed by both of them:

Love Story - Eric Segal
The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks

I could see nothing in them very frankly....

If one wants to read a real solid love story, go for 'Love in the time of Cholera'.. a brilliant piece!

Yes u shud probably rename this thread's title

Am currently reading a book called 'In the Walled Gardens' by an Iranian writer, Anahita Firouz.
This supposedly romantic book centers around Mahastee and Reza and their doomed romance. Mahastee has grown up amongst priviledged aristrocratic rich folks while Reza is the son of one of Mahastee's family employees and also a militant revolutionary who wants democracy in Iran.
Have read through half the book and have found it more political in nature than romantic. The author's writing style is highly reminiscent of Khalid Hosseini and she has painted a very nice picture of Iran during the days of the last Shah before it became an Islamic republic. Has been quite interesting so far...
More after i finish

Jaya, who can forget those fat engg books BUt replacing one of those fat books by another fat book albeit a novel normally allowed me uninterrupted hours of reading as my mom never realised that it was a novel i am reading

NKji, With regards to foreigners writing abt India, I quite enjoyed 'Shantaram' by Gregory Roberts. That was one other really fat book and dragged at places but nevertheless made for good reading.