Lonely Planet Simon Winchester's Calcutta (Writer & Place)
Ah, lovely Calcutta. Not actually, according to this best-selling British writer and his son, both of whom have great familiarity with this famous--infamous?--city that was capital of India during the Raj. But Winchesterpere et filshave put together a book of travel writing that, in essence, says that even if Calcutta is dirty and smelly and chaotic ("a public nightmare," "a truly infernal city"), it still casts a spell over those who stop there. For this anthology, the Winchesters each write a separate essay on what the city means to them and then, in tandem, supply a 50-page history of Calcutta, which, by their lively language, cannot fail to engage the travel literature lover. But the real "meat" of the book is the compilation of excerpts taken from a wide range of sources, including Rudyard Kipling, Rabindranath Tagore, and Paul Theroux. Like all good travel literature, these essays, and the Winchesters' introductory pieces, are capable of transporting you there--if not by magic carpet, at least on highly evocative prose.Brad HooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved