Bought in Oxfam, been trying to find it for a while.

A waiter answers all the questions correctly to win a billion Rupees, must have been cheating, right? Ram is picked up by the police and this book is him talking to his lawyer, outlining the events that led him to know the answers.

Each chapter is about a different question, starting with the first, ending with the last. This means we find out about Ram's life and that of his friends piecemeal and out of order. Another thing I liked was the fact you don't know the question until the end of the chapter, which keeps you guessing as to which piece of information will be relevant whilst reading.

Left in the office.

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In a bookbox.

Taken from the bookbox

I loved this book! I have been wanting to read it for a while and it was a lot better than I expected :-)

I loved the way it was broken down into smaller stories to illustrate how Ram knew the answers to each question.

I will definitely be renting the movie!

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Into the Asia bookbox

Taken from soffitta1's asian theme bookbox.

Picked up my own copy of this in a booksale so will release this back into the community.

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This book is heading to Germany as part of the Asian literature virtual bookbox. Enjoy!

Received it in the mail today, thanks a lot, chuckles, for adding it to the VBB!
(Something is on the way to you, too!)

I heard that in India the novel has been criticised a lot and many readers were offended by the emphasis on the poverty and slums – maybe those Swarup writes about when he lets one of his characters say: “… Yet no one does anything. We Indians have this sublime ability to see the pain and misery around us, and yet remain unaffected by it.” An important observation. I appreciate how misery and social injustice is described in a matter-of-fact way without a moralising undertone. All in all this is an easy to read book that gives a lot of interesting background information about India. I found the protagonist a bit shallow, at times even close to a caricature. There is a multitude of fragments about India, never going very deep unfortunately. The novel has an interesting structure, even though this series of coincidences gets a bit predictable and constructed. And plausibility gets very stretched. I didn't find the narrative style very convincing, it’s sometimes rather flat – but things never get boring, the book is full of energy.

Reserved for a another VVB.

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Travelling to Tsjara.
Happy reading!

That was quick, it's here already! :)
Thanks ApoloniaX! And for the lovely card too (I've never seen this picture by Vincent van Gogh before ^_^)
This sounds like an interesting book, looking forward to read it :)

I really enjoyed this and the further I got, the harder it was to put the book down.
At first I was a bit confused about when different parts of Ram's story took place, as it is not exactly told chronologically but in the sequence of the quiz questions (and how he knew the answers to them). Somehow I thought the book would be more depressing, but despite all the misery and horrible things that happen, it doesn't feel heavy at all and is actually very readable. (Still haven't seen the film, but curious to see how it compares to the book)

The book is on its way to mysteriousmummy (as part of the International BookXerpting).
Hope you will like it! :)

Thank you for sending my choice from book excerpting

Of on a long journey to a new home