Paperback Sunday

1.The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, paperback, published by Black Swan, pp 464 , Rs 550

2.Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian, paperback, published by Vintage, pp 96 , Rs 650

3.Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb, paperback, published by Vintage, pp 432, Rs 695

4.Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran, paperback, published by Arrow books, pp 400, Rs 650

5.The Underdog by Joshua Davis, paperback, published by Corgi books, pp 2,888, Rs 750

The God Delusion

I was an agnostic before I read this book. My logic went a little something like this. Although I didn’t believe in God, I didn’t know there wasn’t one for sure. Atheism seemed a little arrogant, an assertion of something which could not be known. Dawkins takes this reasoning and smashes it to pieces. You cannot prove the non-existence of Fairies at the bottom of the Garden or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendages) or anything else anyone cares to invent.

Stick Out Your Tongue

A Chinese writer whose marriage has fallen apart travels to Tibet. As he wanders through the countryside, he witnesses the sky burial of a Tibetan woman who died during childbirth, shares a tent with a nomad who is walking to a sacred mountain to seek forgiveness for sleeping with his daughter, meets a silversmith who has hung the wind-dried corpse of his lover to the walls of his cave, and hears the story of a young female incarnate lama who died during a Buddhist initiation rite...

Sweetness in the Belly

In Thatcher’s ‘London’, Lilly, a white Muslim nurse, struggles in a state of invisible exile. As Ethiopian refugees gradually fill the flats of the housing estate where she lives, Lilly tentatively begins to share with them her longing for the home she herself once had in Africa and her heartbreaking search for her missing lover. Back in Haile Selassie’s ‘Ethiopia’, the young Lilly, born in the 1950s to British parents, now orphaned and full of religious conviction, finds herself living in the city of Harar.

Pomegranate Soup

Things are about to change for the inhabitants of Ballinacroaghwhen the beautiful Aminpour sisters — Marjan, Bahar and Layla — arrive, determined to share the magic of their kitchen with the friendly locals. Soon the townsfolk is lured by the tantalising aroma. Not everyone welcomes the three women though. The women of Ballinacroagh want their men back.

The Underdog

Joshua Davis had a dream. He dreamt of being the best. It didn’t really matter what he was the best at, he just wanted to be number one, the big enchilada, to say that he had made it. This is how it began: Josh was driving through the Mojave Desert one day when he saw a sign for the American arm-wrestling championship — all comers welcome. He decided to enter...