When I bought the book "The strange case of Billy Biswas" for 5 or 10 bucks at the roadside secondhand book shops in Mysore, it was because the title of the book was vaguely familiar. I also bought that day "Silas Marner", "The Guide" and "The Financial Expert" by RK Narayan, "Untouchable" by Mulk Raj Anand, some book by Manohar Malgaonkar, and "Pickwick Papers" by Charles Dickens, I think. All this must have cost me around 70-80 bucks. (These Arts college junta get prescribed some fundu books for English literature and you can buy them real cheap at second hand places. There are lots of second hand places in Mysore. So if you go there, keep an eye open). I started reading "Pickwick Papers" on the bus back to Bangalore. It's an extremely funny book. Funny and lazy. Unfortunately I forgot it on my seat, and I had read only a few chapters.

Of the others, I read "The Guide" and the "The strange case of Billy Biswas" and am reading the "Untouchable". Did start reading "Silas Marner" but never got going. The Manohar Malgaonkar book is at home in Kumta.

"The strange case of Billy Biswas" is the story of a very intelligent man who knew exactly what he wanted and gave up a lot of "comfort zones" to get there.

Key words: New York, Anthropologist, IAS officer, Marriage, Delhi, Chattisgar, Tribes, Dancing, Wine. It is set in the 50's and 60's.

The book is very easy to read because it is written by an Indian (Arun Joshi), it is written in 20th century English, It is small (250 pages), and it is written in the Indian context (so one can easily empathize with the characters). The first person narration is extremely believable. I will be extremely surprised if the story is not heavily based on real life. A very gripping book.

I don't know what impression of the book I have managed to convey, but if you chance upon it at a second hand store or a library, do read a page or two and see if you like it.