This is a memoir at its best. Vikram Seth has weaved a masterful account of his great-uncle and great-aunt – Uncle Shanti, an Indian Doctor and Aunty Henny, a lovable German-Jewish lady. They met in Berlin in the early 1930s and later got married against all odds in the backdrop of the historic times that they lived in; their lives intertwined in Hitler’s Germany. Truly, a remarkable book.

Yes, it is a good memoir as far as the book is concerned. But personally i found the life of Henny a little more engrossing than his uncle Shanti's life. This is because her life deals with all the atrocities that the Germans/Nazis had given to the Jews. This has been dealt in minute details by the author.

Shanti's life to me came as a pretty ordinary NRI guy's story and hence failed to entertain me much.

But to the contrary, as Henny was no more at the time of writing of this book, her vie...

The book I received from flipkart is a used one with creases and torn pages. In fact, the publisher is not ' The Little Brown Book' as specified in flipkart but some publisher known as 'Abacus'. The book binding and page quality is bad. Overall the book delivered is disappoining to say the least.

This is a very slow moving and mundane story - initially! After about 200 pages, it takes a dramatic turn - and becomes arresting in its ability to capture the reader's imagination. A must read book, I rate it as one of the best books that I have ever read.

A very ordinary work. It is difficult to read such a large book if it is not very engrossing and certainly this book lacks this trait. Despite my several attempts I could not go beyond the half way mark.