[rafiq]

There are too many good books. Keeping in mind your apprehension for love set in nineteenth century english country estates, and noting your disinterest in such neo-classics as "bam haater.." by our own orpheus, here are some modern day writers I would recommend:

Philip Roth and Milan Kundera. Particularly Czech writer Kundera's earlier works - The Joke, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Life is Elsewhere and, of course, what many considered the defining book of the last days of communism in the eighties, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I have been reading many of the South Asian heritage writers, although now there are so many you have to pick and choose. Hanif Kureishi, Pakistani-British, remains my favorite - My beautiful laundretter, Buddha in Suburbia, most of his work ends up in films.

Of the new Indian writers, Arundhati Roy is a cut above. not only for God of Small Things, but also for her regular political commentary in publications such as the Guardian in the UK.

I'll give you a plug for my old schoolmate Sujata's husband Raj Kamal Jha. His Blue Bedspread was critically acclaimed a couple of years ago but you may want Fab to read this first as it is very dark and definitely not PG-13.

Read new desi writers who are winning significant awards - Jhumpa Lahiri in the US and now Bangladeshi-British Monica Ali whose Brick Lane I am reading now. She was shortlisted for the Booker in the UK and maybe has already won it this month?

Because you live in Australia, try Adib Khan's Seasonal Adjustment, which was interesting only because it's a story of Bangladeshi - Australian immigration. Not a great book, but you may like it.

Finally, I like the old VS Naipaul novels - the ones set in Trinidad where he grew up. Some of the most hilarious books I have ever read, try Bend in the River.

Among the American writers and the great coming-of-age novels, of course Salinger and Kerouac which people mentioned, but also Updike (Hotel New Hampshire and Rabit, Run) and Steinback.

This post is long enough as it is, hopefully you are trying Rabindranath in Bangla or in translation.

Let me know if you ever read any of these and what you thought of them. Enjoy!