Gulf Weekly Book Club

BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. What Are You Hungry For?, Deepak Chopra ISBN 9781472225283 (Rider) BD5.600 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

Carrying on with my selection of diet and self-help books throughout the month of January (while those New Year resolutions are still strong enough to niggle and worry their way to the top of life’s to-do list), here is Deepak Chopra’s solution to permanent weight loss, well-being and lightness of soul.

What do you crave?
For many of us, sugary treats, fatty meals and high-calorie snacks are impossible to resist. And yet, reaching the bottom of the biscuit tin rarely leaves us feeling satisfied. What if we are actually hungry for something much more fulfilling?

In this ground-breaking book, bestselling author and endocrinologist Chopra unites the latest scientific and alternative therapy research to reveal how our overeating is often a symptom of ‘inner starvation’ – a hunger for love, self-esteem, happiness and security. By changing our approach to eating using the tools in this book, we can heal our bodies and minds to achieve permanent weight loss, a longer, happier life and spiritual well-being.

The ultimate guide to inner and outer health What Are You Hungry For? will change the way you eat forever and is heavily tipped to be as popular as his bestseller, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.

* READ it now in paperback
The Lives Of Others, Andy McDermott, Neel Mukherjee, ISBN 9780099554486 (Vintage) BD5 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members.

Some of you may have already read this in hardback as it was shortlisted in 2014 for both the Man Booker prize and the Costa Novel Award.

Now available in paperback, this rich and engrossing novel recounts an epic saga telling the story of a Bengali family in 1967 living in Calcutta – a family that is decaying, whilst civilization as they know it, around it, collapses, and one young man who tries to re-imagine his place in the world.

Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is a note.

At home, his family slowly begins to unravel. Poisonous rivalries grow, the once-thriving family business implodes and destructive secrets are unearthed. And all around them the sands are shifting as society fractures, for this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change.

This is a big, sweeping, engrossing novel, beautifully written with a large cast of characters and a very dramatic ending. Highly recommended and one of my personal favourite books of the month.

* MY favourite read-of-the-week
Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky, ISBN 9780099598442 (Vintage) BD5 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members.

I have to admit that I was initially drawn to read this book only because of the outstanding reviews it received from the UK newspaper critics (and not because of the cover which is a film tie-in edition).

So, ignore the cover and you will find inside a glorious, remarkable book and a tale which will grip and hold you tight until the last page. As with Balzac, Irène Némirovsky paints a sordid tragedy that makes us question the worth of human existence.

It is France in 1940 and Lucile Angellier’s husband has been captured as a prisoner-of-war. All she can do is wait for him – and tend to the household controlled by her domineering mother-in-law. Their small village is soon occupied by a regiment of German soldiers, forcing the locals to co-exist with an invading Nazi force.

Lieutenant Bruno von Falk takes up lodgings with the Angellier women, and Lucile struggles with her growing feelings for the officer – soon a powerful love draws them together and they too fall victim to the tragedy of war.

Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a best-selling novelist. She was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l’Evêque (in German-occupied territory).
 
It was here that she began writing Suite Française in 1940, but her death in Auschwitz prevented her from seeing the day, 65 years later, that the novel would be discovered by her daughter and hailed worldwide as a masterpiece.