Hot on the shelf

War, history, neighbours, Maoists, fantasy, murder, Marxism, money, jihad, science: don’t miss this summer’s books.

Tahmima Anam, author of A Golden Age, leads the summer’s wave of fiction with The Good Muslim (Canongate). Her research into the 1971 Bangladesh War gives this novel its intensity, in a story that focuses on the relationship between a brother who turns to religious fundamentalism and his travelling sister, a doctor who meets women survivors of the war in villages. The Good Muslim is complex, powerful and rewarding, and by spanning the decades between 1971 and 1991, it brings the Bangladesh War up to date.

 

Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke (Viking), the second in the Ibis trilogy, is expected in India in late summer. His broad canvas takes us back to the Ibis, on its way to the Foreign Enclave in Canton, where we catch up with the stories of Deeti, who has survived widowhood and sati, and several other characters. Ghosh’s retelling of the Opium War is as sharp as his telling of this tale is cheerfully baroque, and fans of Sea of Poppies will not be disappointed.

Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower (HarperCollins) will probably touch as much of a chord in the popular imagination as White Tiger did. Set in a Bombay housing society, Adiga’s pitch-perfect journalist’s eye captures what happens to its inhabitants when a property dealer offers them enormous sums of money to move out. The last man of the title is Masterji, a widowed scholar who doesn’t want to leave his flat; a decision that sets off a chain of violence.

On the non-fiction front, Arundhati Roy’s recent essays, exploring the violence of the Indian state, the workings of insurgencies and the nexus between the state and corporate India, are compiled in Broken Republic (Hamish Hamilton), a typically impassioned set of arguments. Respected for her honesty, Roy’s unwillingness to extend the same scepticism towards Maoist groups that she does towards the state weakens an otherwise thoughtful argument. Siddhartha Deb’s India travelogue, The Beautiful and the Damned (Viking), is also expected, and with its portraits of pony-tailed management gurus and life in the stone quarries, this may be the most unusual India book of the season.

It’s a great summer for fantasy and crime fiction fans. George R R Martin’s long-awaited A Dance with Dragons (Bantam), the latest in the Song of Ice and Fire series, is finally out in July—this may be the most intelligent, brilliantly imagined fantasy series of this century. Set in the warring kingdoms of Westeros, this complex and richly satisfying saga is now an HBO television series. The Scandinavian novelist Jo Nesbo promises another gripping read with The Leopard (Harvill Secker), where the singer-writer ups the stakes in the “anatomically gruesome” category significantly.

But the best crime read of the year might be this translation of Keigo Higashino’s 2005 The Devotion of Suspect X (Minotaur). The abusive husband of a divorced single mother is found dead in her apartment, and Higashino’s subtle plot involves the cat-and-mouse game between a police detective and the neighbour who shelters the lady. It’s definitely a Japanese summer, with Banana Yoshimoto’s intriguing The Lake (Melville House) which explores the relationship between a young woman mourning a personal loss and the survivor of a cult.

For history buffs, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Jerusalem: The Biography (Orion/Hachette) promises to be one of the most satisfying reads of the year. Montefiore moves deftly between covering the history of the holiest of holy cities, while reminding us that Jerusalem was “an often penurious provincial town amid the Judean hills”. He tells its story through the people who visited, conquered or lived here, from Solomon and Saladin to Rasputin and Lawrence of Arabia.

Of particular relevance, perhaps, to India in the wake of the results of the Bengal elections is Eric Hobsbawm’s How to Change the World (Little, Brown), an overview of Marxism and how it’s fared since the days of Das Kapital. This book is essential reading—and quite a triumph for Hobsbawm, now in his 94th year.

For business readers, Tim Harford’s Adapt (Little, Brown) promises to generate as much interest as The Undercover Economist. Harford attempts to apply tools from economics to understanding problems as diverse as the banking crisis and the Iraq war, and argues strongly that business and politics need to embrace failure if they really want success. Read this alongside Kaushik Basu’s recently released Beyond the Invisible Hand (Penguin) for a truly interesting shift in perspective.

In the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden assassination, expect a slew of books on terrorism, jihad and similarly heartwarming subjects. Perhaps one of the most topical will be former CIA maven Bruce Riedel’s Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad (Brookings Institution Press), with a trenchant criticism of America’s policy towards Pakistan.

And on a more cheerful note, for those looking to celebrate India’s success this summer, read Angela Saini’s Geek Nation (Hachette), a look at the country’s domination of science here and elsewhere. Saini is even-handed, acknowledging the relentless pressure on young students that drives many to suicide, but also making a case for the Indian ability to create brilliant, imaginative researchers. “Wacky ideas,” she observes, “are more easily tolerated [in India] than in the West.” Given that researchers in Bangalore are working on a flying Maruti, with rotors attached to the roof that would allow the car to escape traffic jams, she may well be right.