 | Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Buy new: £4.87 / Used from: £0.24 A humorous, if not accurate, account of the first 25 years of post-independence-India, according to its author it's a study of how individual memories are at variance from historical accounts.
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 | The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Buy used from: £0.01 Stylishly written. The author has a keen eye for social comedy; parts of the book are hilarious. The ending is quite moving.
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 | Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Buy new: £5.40 / Used from: £0.01 This is fiction at its best. Very entertaining. Some of my friends found the initial pages a bit of a drag. I found them at least as fascinating as the rest of the book.
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 | Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Buy new: £4.76 / Used from: £0.01 It took me a while to get into this book, but once I did, I enjoyed it thoroughly, not least because of its quirky prose and quaint humor.
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 | The Ghost Road (The regeneration trilogy) by Pat Barker
Buy used from: £0.01 Populated by historical and fictional characters, this is the final volume of Pat Barker's great trilogy on the First World War. It loses its focus a bit at times, but is still very gripping.
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 | Staying on by Paul Scott
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £1.44 A moving story of a retired 'sahib' and his wife, who decide to stay on in India, after the independence. I like this book better than the ones in the 'Raj Quartret'.
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 | The Siege Of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £0.01 An acerbic, sardonic and (heavily) biased account of the colonialists under siege, during the Indian mutiny of 1857, in the fictional town of Krishnapur. An enjoyable read, though.
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 | Schindler's List (Level 6) (Penguin Longman Penguin Readers) by Thomas Keneally
Buy used from: £0.01 Extraordinary fictionalized account of how the flamboyant Schindler saved lives of thousands of Jews. Historically accurate, detailed, gripping, and, ultimately, very moving.
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 | The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Buy new: £4.76 / Used from: £0.79 In language that is elegant and soothing Ishiguro tackles themes such as dignity and loss. I found Stevens's attempts at banering and rhetorical manner touching.
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 | Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
Buy new: £4.55 / Used from: £0.01 Relentlessly grim, harrowing and bleak. A disturbing account of modern day South Africa. One of the best books I have read.
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 | Heat and Dust (New Longman Literature 14-18) by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Buy new: £6.75 / Used from: £0.81 Thoughtfully written, this is a sensitive and insightful examination of the impact of India on its protagonists. Highly recommended.
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 | The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £0.51 Part drama, part thriller, this is an absolutely stunning book. The narartive structure is complex and the language is so lyrical that you feel as if you are reading poetry, and not prose.
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 | The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Buy new: £5.45 / Used from: £0.01 Gripping, multi-layered plot and flowing narartive style makes this a dazzling example of Atwood's awsome talent. A must-read.
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 | The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £0.01 This is an entertaining novel albeit somewhat formulaic. The highly stylistic prose, the jaunty tone, and a sense of foreshadowing & foreboding that pervades the novel are very reminiscent of Rushdie.
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 | The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
Buy new: £5.82 / Used from: £0.01 The story of slow disintigration of a Jewish family that is clingning rigidly to the age-old values of its culture. Rubens is a great story-teller; and this is a superb book.
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 | True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Buy new: £5.39 / Used from: £0.01 Carey lays it a bit thick while depicting Kelly as a noble spirit, & the deliberate agrammatism is affected. But such is Carey's narrative power that the reader buys it all willingly. Riveting stuff.
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