Marcus Hughes Hughes itibaren Nan Contrée, Haiti
I loved this book mostly because it is fun to read. I especially enjoyed the little stories the author (a vegan mother) told about her family & life. The photos of the lunches she's made for her son to take to school are also fun to look at; I wish that there were more photos. In my opinion, most of the lunch menus are more varied/labor intensive than most people would be willing to follow daily for their child's school lunches or their lunches to take to work or other on the go meals. But these are healthy, vegan, "fun" meals and obviously a lot of love has gone into making them. The book came about from Jennifer McCann's Vegan Lunch Box blog: www.veganlunchbox.com. One of the best things about this book, especially since it's a book of recipes to make for children, is an Allergen-Free index that shows which recipes in the book are free of nuts, soy, gluten, and wheat, especially helpful information for those with allergies.
This is a sprawling novel about gangsters and cops in Mumbai, India. The author includes a Hindi glossary to assist with the Hindi words sprinkled liberally throughout the text. At first I was frustrated because I wanted to look all of them up, and this book is big (900 pages) and heavy, which made it very cumbersome. But as I went along, I recognized many of the words (especially the bad ones!), so I didn't have to refer to the glossary as often. The main characters are Sartaj Singh, a policeman following in the footsteps of his humble father, and Ganesh Gaitonde, one of two major Mumbai dons. The chapters alternate between these two speakers, and it is interesting to see the ways their lives intersect. There are a plethora of other interesting characters as well. The "Ganesh chapters" tell the story of Gaintonde's rise as a top-gangster, while the "Sartaj chapters" focus on several simultaneous cases he is working on. This book made me want to learn more about India's geography and history, especially about Indian Muslims and Hindus and how these groups have interacted in the past. I really got lost in this book, and I felt sad when it was over. Ganesh and Sartaj are really great characters, and I ended up rooting for both of them. This book is a surprisingly quick read considering how long it is.