Bangalore

Resources in Bangalore

• • Travel Books

    • Lonely Planet India: Gives insight into the Indian culture, lists important destinations, and offers practical details (train times, phone numbers, etc.) about most places to visit in India.
    • Rough Guide to India : A comprehensive guide to India with stunning photography. Has detailed and illustrated sections on Sacred India, Handicrafts, Bollywood, temple architecture, Indian classical music, etc.
    • Fodor’s India: Fodor’s is a great resource for high-end hotel and restaurant recommendations.
    • Frommer’s India: This book has very detailed introductory sections that some travellers feel are mandatory reading for anyone visiting or wanting to live in India.
    • The Love Guide’s Love Bangalore by Fiona Caulfield: Luxury advice with tips from shopping hotspots to swish eateries.

    Fiction

    • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: Recently declared ‘The Booker of Bookers’ this landmark piece of fiction is at once poetic, surreal, sensuous, idiosyncratic, and entertaining – in many ways a mirror of modern India.
    • A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: One of the longest novels ever written in the English language, this book is set in post-colonial India of the 1950s. A sprawling, opera-scale saga that traces four families, their loves, and losses against the historic backdrop of a nascent nation.
    • White Mughals by William Dalrymple: A love story that retraces the social history of early 19th Century Indo-British relations and cultural merging, which was quite ahead of its time.
    • The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: Fractured families, forbidden love and politics all meet in this Booker-winning novel. Arundhati Roy, now a famous activist, plays with and re-invents language in this lush and lyrical book.
    • Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts: A gritty, swashbuckling adventure story, this is a fictionalized version of the life of the author who escaped an Australian prison and fled into the slums and underworld of Bombay.
    • Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh: The first part of a trilogy to come, this is a historical novel set in 19th Century India during the opium wars. A novel that is as ambitious in the sweep as it is meticulous in detail.
    • A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry: A fascinating story set in the Mumbai 1970s, this novel chronicles the sufferings of outcasts and innocents trying to survive in the “State of Internal Emergency”.
    • The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: This Man-Booker Prize-winning book is a compelling novel on the liberation of a man born to be a servant of the rich.
    • The Emerald Route by RK Narayan: This book is Narayan’s account of his travels across his homeland of Karnataka, from the hilly prospects of Mangalore to the gold mines of Kolar and so on.

    Non-fiction

    • Bangalored! The Expat Story By Eshwar Sundaresan: This book delves into the lives of expatriates who have made Bangalore their home. With a collection of “expat experiences” in the form of narratives/interviews, it gives an interesting insight into the disparate nature of expats in the city. Culture Smart! India: A Quick Guide to Customs & Etiquette: A guide that lists essential information on attitudes, beliefs, and behavior of Indian people. Tells you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport.
    • Bangalore & Karnataka by Stark World: This book is a visual treat and carries over 750 fabulous pictures of Karnataka’s wildlife, heritage temples, beaches, palaces, and much more. Stark World’s photographers have traveled far and wide to bring colorful photographs of city life, people, and local art forms.
    • Bangalore: The Story of a City by Maya Jayapal: Narrates in an easy manner Bangalore’s history and provides a vivid description of the influences that have shaped the city.
    • Bangalore Mum’s Guide by Rina Mehta
    • Bangalore: A Century of Tales from City & Cantonment by Peter Colaco: The book is a collection of newspaper articles written over the space of several years, recounting anecdotes and events relating to the author’s large extended family in Bangalore over the past century.