City Of Djinns : A Year In Delhi

As the author of the best travel book of recent years at theintensely irritating age of twenty-two, William Dalrymple has now shown that In Xanadu wasno fluke. City of Djinns is an entertaining mix of history and diaryinformed by a deep curiosity about the ways in which the ghosts  of eventhe most distant past still walk in the twentieth century. On one level thereare the amusing rites of passage, the struggles with bureaucracy, theeccentricity of author's landlord, all entertainingly related. He has a way ofletting you smell and feel the city. There are beautifully chiselleddescriptions of a grand capital, but much of the book's strength lies in hisskill in peeling the historical onion and showing how (the) New Delhi resonateswith  the old. A splendid tapestry.