Selfservice

Another Bombay novel,a long-awaited return to Westeros,and the men who can spin. New books to look forward to.

Last Man in Tower
Arvind Adiga

In his third book,Adiga looks at Bombay changing into Mumbai. Vishram Cooperative Housing Society,located close to the airport,has been a modest home to its residents for some 50 years. In the new Mumbai,real-estate developer Dharmen Shah wants to turn it into a gleaming luxury complex. He earned a reputation as a man who made other men rich always preferring to entice a recalcitrant tenant out of a building with a check rather than with a knife,and waiting until there was no other option. He has a buyout package for Vishram as well,and even the most reluctant residents agree to move out. Except for Masterji,a retired schoolteacher. Adigas is the Mumbai of new money and old values,and the tussle between the two.

A Dance with Dragons
George R.R. Martin

This is the new,much-awaited instalment of George R.R. Martins epic fantasy series A Song of Ice And Fire. In the fictional land of Westeros,the first stage of a civil war seems to have ended. But stories have been left unresolved: what is happening in the far north,where a monastic order mans an immense wall of ice against unknown enemies? In the continents sandy south,where anger against an unpopular dynasty builds? Across the seas,where the last daughter of a dead dynasty might,or might not,return? Some of these might be answered in the second week of July.

Twirlymen
Amol Rajan

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This book should delight the Indian cricket lover. It looks at what Rajan calls crickets most beautiful art form,spin bowling,and some of its greatest exponents. It also argues with some of the received wisdom regarding the twirlymen. Did Bernand Bosanquet really invent the googly? Did Aussie off-spinner Jack Potter bowl the doosra before Saqlain Mushtaq even thought of cricket? What fun!

Noon
Aatish Taseer

Taseers second novel is set in India and Pakistan,and explores the subcontinent from the eighties to nearly the present day. It is also a wayward family saga about a young man,Rehan Tabassum,who grows up alongside a rapidly maturing nation,even though his heart is split along both sides of two very different cultures and their troubled divide.