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Vikram Seth Born in 1952 in Calcutta, India, Vikram Seth was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Stanford University and Nanjing University. He has travelled widely and lived in Britain, California, India and China. His first novel, The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986), describes the experiences of a group of friends living in California. His acclaimed epic of Indian life, A Suitable Boy (1993), won the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book). Set in India in the early 1950s, it is the story of a young girl, Lata, and her search for a husband. An Equal Music (1999), is the story of a violinist haunted by the memory of a former lover. Vikram Seth is also the author of a travel book, From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983), an account of a journey through Tibet, China and Nepal that won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and a libretto, Arion and the Dolphin: A Libretto (1994), which was performed at the English National Opera in June 1994, with music by Alec Roth. His poetry includes Mappings (1980), The Humble Administrator’s Garden (1985), winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia), and All You Who Sleep Tonight: Poems (1990). His children’s book, Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992), consists of ten stories about animals told in verse. Vikram Seth’s latest work is Two Lives (2005), a memoir of the marriage of his great uncle and aunt. Top of page Genres (in alphabetical order) Children, Fiction, Libretto, Poetry, Translation, Travel Bibliography Mappings Writer’s Workshop (Calcutta) (re-issued Viking 1994), 1980 From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet Chatto & Windus, 1983 The Humble Administrator’s Garden Carcanet, 1985 The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse Faber and Faber, 1986 All You Who Sleep Tonight: Poems Faber and Faber, 1990 Beastly Tales from Here and There (illustrated by Ravi Shankar, re-issued Phoenix House 2002) Phoenix House, 1992 Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu Faber and Faber, 1992 A Suitable Boy Phoenix House, 1993 Arion and the Dolphin: A Libretto Phoenix House, 1994 An Equal Music Phoenix House, 1999 Two Lives Time Warner, 2005

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Best of November

In A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein, author of the breakout debut novel, Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love, goes to even greater literary heights with a contemporary suburban drama brewing with an undercurrent of violence that, with each turn of the page, takes on the weight of an American tragedy. As the book opens, Peter Dizinoff, a successful New Jersey doctor, is struggling to adjust to the aftermath of his actions as the foundation of his personal and professional life crack beneath his feet. At the center of his troubles is his beloved son Alec, who deflates his father’s high expectations when he drops out of college after just three semesters and moves into the apartment above their garage. And when his son begins seeing Laura, the troubled daughter of Peter’s best friend who is ten years older than Alec and lives in the tainted shadow of being acquitted for an unspeakable crime when she was 17, Alec’s ambivalence to his father’s hopes in living a good life turn into a simmering rage. Dizinoff, a man with a clear definition of right and wrong, flips back and forth in time as he narrates the history of events that build their way to a layered, emotionally wrenching climax. –Brad Thomas Parsons

 

Recommended for fans of The Ice Storm by Rick Moody and Little Children by Tom Perrotta

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