Book Club
Monthly book discussions for members

Chair: Joydip Kundu, Shalini Passales
Contact: bookclub@netsap.org
Book Club Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/netsap-books

Welcome to the NetSAP-DC book club! The book club started in October 1998 to read and discuss books with South Asian themes. We read a new book each month. Feel free to attend whenever the month's selection interests you, but please make a good faith effort to read that month's book.

We meet the second Thursday of each month at 7pm. For each meeting we ask one of our participants to volunteer to host. The host provides a space conducive to discussion and orders snacks or dinner for the meeting. We ask our participants to share the cost of food.

To join the book club, visit the book club Yahoo group above, or send a blank e-mail to netsap-books-subscribe@yahoogroups.com . (To unsubscribe send a blank e-mail to netsap-books-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com .) We use the Yahoo group to send out meeting notices, directions to meetings, and other book club information.

We select readings by soliciting nominations at the end of each year and voting for our preferences. These are the selections for 2008:

 

2008
Month	Title	Author
January	The World is Flat	Thomas Friedman
February	A Thousand Splendid Suns	Khaled Hosseini
March	The Reluctant Fundamentalist	Mohsin Hamid
April	The Perfect Man	Naeem Murr
May	Gifted	Nikita Lalwani
June	Unaccustomed Earth	Jhumpa Lahiri
July	If Today Be Sweet	Thrity Umrigar
August	A Good Indian Wife	Anne Cherian
September	The Last Song of Dusk	Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

 

These are the past readings:

2007
Month	Title	Author
January	Ramayan	Ramesh Menon
February	Nectar in a Sieve	Kamala Markandaya
March	The Argumentative Indian	Amartya Sen
April	Storywallah	Shyam Selvadurai
May	Saturday Morning Omelettes	Kavita Khanna
June	Under Her Skin	edited by Pooja Makhijani
July/August	Sacred Games	Vikram Chandra
September	Husband of a Fanatic	Amitava Kumar
October	A Space Between Us	Thrity Umigar
November	Climbing the Mango Tree: A Memoir of Childhood in India	Madhur Jaffrey
December	Splendor of Silence	Indu Sundaresan

 

2006
Month	Title	Author
January	Maximum City	Suketu Mehta
February	Shalimar the Clown	Salman Rushdie
March	The Kite Runner	Khalid Hosseini
April	If You Are Afraid of Heights	Raj Kamal Jha
May	Feast of Roses	Indu Sundaresan
June	The Red Letters	Ved Mehta
July	Two Lives	Vikram Seth
August	The Rice Mother	Rani Manicka
September	The Red Carpet	Lavanya Sankaran
October	The Path Unimagined	Imran Ahmad
November	The Great Indian Novel	Shashi Tharoor
December	The Sari Shop	Rupa Bajwa

 

 

2005
Month	Title	Author
January	Brick Lane	Monica Ali
February	Suburban Sahibs	S. Mitra Kalita
March	Where are you From?	Dhooleka Raj
April	Freedom Song	Amit Chaudhari
May	Such a Long Journey	Rohinton Mistry
June	Memories of Rain	Sunetra Gupta
July	Baumgartner’s Bombay	Anita Desai
August	Sadhika's Way	Hina Haq
September	I Dream of Microwaves	Imad Rahman
October	Maps for Lost Lovers	Nadeem Aslam
November	Monsoon Diary	Shobha Narayan
December	Beneath a Marble Sky	John Shors

 

 

2004
Month	Title	Author
January	Born Confused	Tanuja Desai Hidier
February	The Shadow Lines	Amitav Ghosh
March	White Teeth	Zadie Smith
April	The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian	Nirad Chaudhuri
May	A House for Mr. Biswas	V.S. Naipaul
June	Untouchable	Mulk Raj Anand
July	Shame	Salman Rushdie
August	Madras on Rainy Nights	Samina Ali
September	The Twentieth Wife	Indu Sundaresan
October	The Holder of the World	Bharti Mukherjee
November	Clive Avenue	TS Tirumurti
December	Hero's Walk	Anita Rau Badami

 

 

2003
Month	Title	Author
January	A Fine Balance	Rohinton Mistry
February	Darjeeling	Bharati Kirchner
March	Train to Pakistan	Khuswant Singh
April	Heat and Dust	Ruth Prawer Jhabwala
May	The Unknown Errors of our Lives	Chitra Banjerjee Divakaruni
June	The Impressionish	Kunzu Hari
July	Manhattan Music	Meena Alexander
August	A Singular Hostage	Thalassa Ali
September	Life of Pi	Yann Martel
October	White Mughals	William Dalrymple
November	The Namesake	Jhumpa Lahiri
December	The Golden Gate	Vikram Seth

 

 

2002
Month	Title	Author
January	A Suitable Boy (first half)	Vikram Seth
February	A Suitable Boy (second half)	Vikram Seth
March	Difficult Daughters	Manju Kapur
April	Age of Kali	William Dalrymple
May	Salt and Safron	Kamila Shamsie
June	Anil's Ghost	Michael Ondaatje
July	Fasting Feasting	Anita Desai
August	Riot	Shashi Tharoor
September	The Moor's Last Sigh	Salman Rushdie
October	Romantics	Pankaj Misra
November	The House of the Blue Mangoes	David Davidar
December	The Buddha of Suburbia	Hanif Kurieshi

 

 

2001
Month	Title	Author
January	A Bend In The River	V.S. Naipaul
February	Motiba's Tattoos	Mira Kamdar
March	The Story of My Experiments with Truth	Mohandas K. Gandhi
April	Curry Coast	Binoo K. John
May	Chakori	Chandrasekhar Kambar
June	Bolo! Bolo!
July	The Death of Vishnu	Manil Suri
August	Samsara	Rajiv Vrudhula
September	Glass Palace	Amitav Ghosh
October	The Karma of Brown Folk	Vijay Prasad
November	Moth Smoke	Mohsin Hamid
December	Malgudi Days	R.K. Narayan

 

 

2000
Month	Title	Author
January	Homework	Suneeta Perez de Costa
February	Reef	Romesh Gunesekra
March	In Light Of India	Octavio Paz
April	Beach Boy	Ardashir Vakil
May	The Snake Charmer	Sanjay Nigam
June	The Blue Bedspread	Raj Kamal Jha
July	My Own Country	Abraham Verghese
August	Cinnamon Garden	Shyam Selvadurai
September	Junglee Girl	Ginu Kamani
October	Meatless Days	Sara Suleri
November	Pilgrimage	Pramila Jayapal
December	Cracking India	Bapsi Sidhwa

 

 

1999
Month	Title	Author
January	Love and Longing in Bombay	Vikram Chandra
February	Arranged Marriages	Chitra Bannerji Devakurani
March	Midnight's Children	Salman Rusdie
April	Arrow of the Blue Skinned God	Jonah Blank
May	Midnight to the Millenium	Shashi Taroor
June	May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons	Elisabeth Bumiller
July	Shiva Dancing	Bharti Kirchner
August	Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard	Kiran Desai
September	The Invisibles	Zia Jaffrey
October	Snakes And Ladders	Geeta Mehta
November	What the Body Remembers	Shauna Singh Baldwin
December	Interpreters of the Maladies	Jhumpa Lahiri

 

 

1998
Month	Title	Author
October	The God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy
November	Tennis Partner	Abraham Verghese