Mehta & Banerjee, anyone?

SPEAKING VOLUMES

I don't know about you, but for me it was a matter of literary precedent, and the allure of the titles. The bright, caring teacher who introduced me and several others to the joys of Dostoevsky and Descartes had a dark secret that we discovered a year into knowing her: she kept the finest collection of vintage Mills & Boons available in Calcutta under lock and key, reading them furtively into the evening instead of the Coetzee and Kadare we imagined was her preferred literary diet.

It was, however, the titles that got me. I admit that Catch 22, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Their Eyes Were Watching God have tremendous resonance. But can they really match up to the tawdry but irresistible promise of The Greek Tycoon's Defiant Bride, The Chequered Silence, A Perilous Refuge and Bride at Wangatapu?

It didn't take me long to discover that