Simply good books...

1. Saturday by Ian McEwan, hardcover - published by Jonathan Cape, pp 308, price Rs 1,295

2. The Quiet American by Graham Greene, paperback, pp 192, published by Vintage, price Rs 500

3. Alexander Vol 1: Child of a Dream by Valerio Massimo, Manfredi paperbacks, published by Pan books, pp 480, price Rs 500

4. Alexander Vol 2: Sands of Ammon by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, paperbacks, pp 400, price Rs 500

What the books are about:

Saturday:

Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind, a newspaper lawyer and proud father of two grown-up children, one a promising poet, the other a talented blues musician. What troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the world — the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11 and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. ‘Saturday’ shares its confident, graceful prose and its remarkable perceptiveness, but is perhaps even more dramatically compelling, showing how life can change in an instant, for better or for worse.

The Quiet American:

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious ‘Third Force’. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love...

Alexander Vol 1: Child of a Dream

A huge international bestseller, ‘Alexander, Child of a Dream’ is the first in Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s outstanding trilogy of brutal passion and grand adventure in ancient Greece. This is the story of a boy, born to a great king — Philip of Macedon — and his sensuous queen, Olympias. It tells of the stern discipline of Philip and the wild passions of Olympias, and how, together, they formed Alexander, a young man of immense, unfathomable potential, capable of subjugating the known world to his power, and thought of by his contemporaries as a god.

Alexander Vol 2: Sands of Ammon

Continuing the epic saga of Alexander the Great, The Sands of Ammon brilliantly describes Alexander’s quest to conquer Asia, the limitless domain ruled by the Great King of the Persians. In a seemingly impossible venture, Alexander and his men storm Persian fortresses and harbours, crippling King Daruis’ domination of land and sea. Even the legendary Haliacarnassus is defeated by the Macedionan armies. Ruthlessly, Alexander’s war machine moves ever onward taking him up into the snow-covered Anatolian highlands, and ever closer to his destiny. But there is much danger ahead. Despite the defeat of Daruis, the Island City of Tyre and the Towers of Gaza prove to be formidable obstacles.