The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (12/09)

This was much better than I'd expected.

The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple (12/09)

Read this on the train back from Calcutta to Delhi, feeling sick most of the way. It's the best Dalrymple book I've read yet. I'm now reading White Tiger--might as well go through the white person in India's booklist.

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (12/09)

Picked up this copy in one of those snazzy kiosks in the Vishwavidyalaya metro station, a poor life decision, the chance to put off paper writing for the two days it took to get through all 800 or so pages. Melissa lost respect for me, or pretended to, but it's a fuck's sight better than traipsing around India with Shantaram or William Dalrymple. The first Wheel of Time novel since maybe Lord of Chaos to call riveting. Sorry Robert Jordan, this project should have been taken from your hands years ago (though perhaps not wrested by death, as it happened). No more Wheel of Time as thick, Tolstoyan description, thank God. This was fun, dumb fantasy.