INSATIABLE

Insatiable''I promise not to be three things--profound pedantic and pretentious.'' ''I promise not to be three things--profound pedantic and pretentious'' says Shobhaa De as she begins her heart-warming book. It''s a promise India''s most beloved writer delivers on in her irreverent memoir about the year leading up to her landmark seventy-fifth birthday. Quintessential exuberance and keen observations firmly in place she tells us about travelling solo feasting (and fasting) with family and friends the triumphs and losses that accompany ageing the vagaries and vulnerabilities of being a writer and above all how food connects people in the most unexpected places and delightful ways. From where to find the most delicious lassi in Jaipur her obsession with kasundi and conversations with a Nobel Laureate who is a gourmet to M.F. Husain''s last food khwaish and what''s served at Aamir Khan''s dinner table Shobhaa takes us into the dining rooms of politicians artists and celebrities to festivals and parties and other social events and more privately into her home where food is always the prime subject of conversation. In Insatiable Shobhaa reminds us of the many delights and disappointments that the banquet of life offers even as she examines the shared emotional hunger for happiness and love that binds us alldependenceTHREE SISTERS. THEIR UNBREAKABLE BOND. AND A NATION ABOUT TO BE BORN. Here is a river... Here is a village... Here is a grand old mansion... Here is the country that contains them all... India. August 1946. Everything is about to change. Priya Jamini and Deepa Dr Nabakumar Ganguly''s daughters live in Ranipur Bengal safe from the rising turbulence in the country. When their father is killed on Direct Action Day their world turns upside-down. Priya the youngest intelligent and idealistic is determined to follow in her father''s footsteps and become a doctor no matter how difficult. She is fortunate to have the support of zamindar Somnath Chowdhury her father''s best friend. Jamini devout dutiful and talented helps her mother stitch kanthas to make ends meet. Hungering for affection even as she is resentful of her sisters she nurses a secret desire. Beautiful Deepa the eldest all set to marry well falls in love with Raza Youth Leader at the Muslim League and must face the consequences. When India is partitioned the sisters find themselves separated from one another afraid of what will happen to not only themselves but also each other. It is only then that they understand what it means to be independent and the price one has to pay for it. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni''s powerful new novel is a moving story of loyalty and love nationhood and sisterhood set against India''s independence movement at once exhilarating and devastating. -- ''A spellbinding saga of the decolonization and partition of the Indian subcontinent with a cast of vividly drawn compelling characters.'' AMITAV GHOSH ''A national movement unsettles a country. Only a powerful imagination can recreate how profoundly it changes three women''s lives.'' NAYANTARA SAHGAL ''I have long been a fan of Chitra Divakaruni''s novels but Independence is now my favorite.'' LISA SEE