The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Paperback)
Description
National Bestseller
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post * The Boston Globe * Minneapolis Star Tribune * NPR * Newsday * The Guardian * Financial Times * The Christian Science Monitor
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness takes us on an intimate journey across the Indian subcontinent—from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Delhi and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war. Braiding together the lives of a diverse cast of characters who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, patched together by acts of love—and by hope, here Arundhati Roy reinvents what a novel can do and can be.
About the Author
Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize and has been translated into more than forty languages. She also has published several books of nonfiction including The End of Imagination, Capitalism: A Ghost Story and The Doctor and the Saint. She lives in New Delhi.
Praise For…
“A great tempest of a novel. . . . Will leave you awed.” —The Washington Post
“Staggeringly beautiful. . . . Once a decade, if we are lucky, a novel emerges from the cinder pit of living that asks the urgent question of our global era. . . . Roy’s novel is this decade’s ecstatic and necessary answer.” —The Boston Globe
“Powerful and moving. . . . Infused with so much passion—political, social, emotional—that it vibrates. It may leave you shaking, too.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Roy writes with astonishing vividness.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Magisterial. . . . The Ministry of Utmost Happiness works its empathetic magic upon a breathtakingly broad slate.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“A fiercely unforgettable novel about gender, terrorism, Indian’s caste system, corruption and politics. . . . A love story with characters so heartbreaking and compelling they sear themselves into the reader’s brain.” —USA Today
“Thrilling. . . . [Roy’s] luminous passages span eras and regions of the Indian subcontinent and artfully weave the stories of several characters into a triumphant symphony.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A lustrously braided and populated tale.” —Vanity Fair
“Roy’s second novel proves as remarkable as her first. . . . Through [the characters’] archetypal interactions, juxtaposed with Roy’s glorious social details, you will have been granted a powerful sense of their world, of the complexity, energy and diversity of contemporary India.” —Financial Times
“Epic in scale, but intimately human in its concerns, the long-awaited story dazzles with its kaleidoscopic narrative approach and unforgettable characters.” —Elle
“The novel weaves the personal and the political with powerful results. . . . Roy turns her lens outward to examine India’s rich but violent history and the catastrophic lingering effects of Partition.” —Esquire
“A riotous carnival, as wryly funny and irreverent as its author.” —The Guardian
“A deeply rewarding work. . . . Images in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness . . . wedge themselves in the mind like memories of lived experience.” —Slate
“Complex and ambitious. . . . A deep and richly satisfying read.” —The Christian Science Monitor
“One of the best protest novels ever written. . . . Roy elucidates the conversation around power and diversity in a way that no other author does.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“A rich, romantic, and sprawling tale. . . . You’re guaranteed to fall in love with the characters and be swept up by the writing.” —Glamour
“Once again, Roy demonstrates her mastery of exquisite prose, visionary intelligence and a bent for epic storytelling.” —The Seattle Times
“Haunting. . . . A passionate political masterpiece delivered in an enchanting array of narrative styles and voices.” —The Times Literary Supplement
“Stunning. . . . Roy’s lyrical sentences, and the ferocity of her narrative, are a wonder to behold.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
How to read more
https://unsplash.com/@birminghammuseumstrust
( Birmingham Museums Trust’s Digital Image Resource shares thousands of images that span decades of Birminghams vibrant past)
How To Read More
If you love reading, but for some reason you read less and less, know that everything is fine. It happens.
Our lives today have so many things that distract us - how can we not put books away when all these movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, social networks and endless surfing in online stores are around ...
Yes, it's really hard to resist, but you certainly can!
In this article, we want to share with you some tips to read more often and more successfully.
These are some notes and some practices that we have collected for our SUNDOG BOOKS readers club.
And maybe it will bring more books into your life!
Why do we want/need to read more?
To start reading more, you have to understand why you need it.
And you will be surprised, but your goals can be quite varied:
- for work
If you read a lot on duty, then you definitely need to speed up the process. The logic here is simple: read faster → work faster → more time for books for yourself.
- for education
you need this for your educational career or sometimes you just want to read to learn. And, with all the new alternative ways to gain knowledge (podcasts, online courses and videos), the book still does an excellent job of this task too.
- for self-development
all exercises for increasing speed, one way or another, improve cognition and memory.
- for fun
because good books always = fun!
Book lovers have an additional special goal for reading more often. If you love literature, you will understand what we mean: you want to catch everything - to follow modern literature, and not forget about the classics, look into non-fiction and children's publications. And there’s so much you want to reread! The goals are ambitious, but attainable if you read a lot.
And so - How to read more:
We will tell you about the methods that we use ourselves. Perhaps some will suit you as well.
15 minutes a day
You've probably already heard this rule: if you want to start a healthy habit, devote 15 minutes a day to it. Once upon a time, we all read irregularly, in jumps and starts. Sometimes we cannot open a book we have begun weeks ago. Therefore, you should decide to create a rule: devote at least 15 minutes a day to reading. Try reading before bed, or maybe during lunchtime, or even when you are having your morning coffee.
You will see progress immediately. You will notice that almost always your 15 minutes will grow into half an hour or more. But the most remarkable thing is that in three weeks your hands themselves will be looking for a book.
50 First Pages
This method advises - If the book hasn't hooked you from the first 50 pages, put it aside! Life is too short to read uninteresting books.
It is necessary to change the approach to books. At first it will be hard for you to stop and put the book down. Even if we put the book away, it will seem to reproach us from the shelf, mocking us as quitters. But in the end we should come to one simple thought: if it doesn’t hook your attention, you should not force yourself to read it.
***Fifty pages is not a bad test. Not the most objective, but definitely effective. It helps to determine whether it interests you or not, and whether to spend time on things that do not excite.
Reader's Diary
This should be used to improve the quality of reading - to make it more conscious. For starters, it can be a simple notebook with headings:
- Author
- Year of publication
- Main characters
- Scene
- Plot
- Theme
- Quotes
And, yes, a reader's diary is not a thing about quantity, but about quality. But, it can also motivate. When you open your diary and start looking at quotes (especially quotes), you immediately really want to read.
Maybe a Book Bet?
Several people can participate. Members of the betting group can come from friends, family, and also your colleagues. And of course you can set your own rules for participation, but we'll give you a simple example:
Everyone in the group should read and review a book over the course of a month with weekly updates. Anyone who does not finish a review buys the book for all other participants for the next month.
Speed Reading
Another effective way to increase the amount you read is speed reading. The logic here is simple - the faster you read, the more books you can enjoy.
*There are many online courses on speed reading, and you can also study on your own using instructional books. But, it is worth noting that this is a serious learning process that will require some effort on your part.
Outcome
Reading every day is quite attainable, the main thing is to try to make it a habit.
Sometimes, instead of heading for Facebook, try opening a book and soon you won’t even remember why you needed to wander around social media.
And also - don't forget about audiobooks. They are a cool way to take the load off your eyes sometimes and just immerse yourself in the story. Some books are really strong in voice acting.
