The very best of 2005 in Nepal

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling, published by Bloomsbury, pp 607,price Rs 1,450

2. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, published by HarperCollins, pp 288, price Rs 695

3. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, Published by Warner Books, pp 448, price Rs 425

4. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, published by Abacus, pp 916, price Rs 750

5. Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, published by Penguin books, pp 256, price Rs 895

What the books are about:

Harry Potter and the...

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in JK Rowling’s bestselling series, picks up shortly after we left Harry at the end of The Order of the Phoenix. Harry is again at the Dursleys, where the events of the previous month continue to weigh on his mind, although not as much as the impending visit from his Headmaster, Albus Dumbledor leaving Harry confused.

Everything Is Illuminated:

What would it sound like if a foreigner wrote a novel in broken English? Foer answers this question to marvelous effect in his inspired though uneven first novel. Much of the book is narrated by Ukrainian student Alex Perchov, whose hilarious and, in their own way, pitch-perfect malapropisms flourish under the influence of a thesaurus.

Kafka on the Shore:

Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, both to escape his father’s oedipal prophecy and to find his long-lost mother and sister. As Kafka flees, so too does Nakata, an elderly simpleton whose quiet life has been upset by a gruesome murder. What follows is a kind of double odyssey, as Kafka and Nakata are drawn along their separate but linked paths, groping to understand the roles fate has in store for them.

Shantaram :

In 1978, talented writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a 19-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from the maximum-security prison, spending the next 10 years on the run as Australia’s most wanted man. prison. His debut novel, Shantaram, is based on this 10-year period of his life in Bombay.

Information courtesy: UNITED BOOKS, Ganesh Man Singh building, Thamel, ph: 4229 512, Bluebird stores in Lazimpat & Tripureshwore, ph: 4245 726, Namaste Supermarket in Pulchowk, ph: 5525 017 & Momo and More, Old Baneshwor