Vikram Seth

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND MODERN CLASSIC: NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES 'A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel' Evening Standard ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD A modern classic, this epic tale of families, romance and political intrigue, set in India, never loses its power to delight and enchant readers. At its core, A Suitable Boy is a love story: the tale of Lata - and her mother's - attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. At the same time, it is the story of India, newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis as a sixth of the world's population faces its first great general election and the chance to map its own destiny. 'Seth is the best writer of his generation' The Times 'Fiction on a grand scale. By the time you reach the last page you will have absorbed a splendid story, full of the tangle and perfume of India' Sunday Telegraph 'The greatness of the novel, its unassailable truthfulness, owes less to research than to imagination, an instinctive knowledge of the human heart' Observer 'You should make time for it. It will keep you company for the rest of your life' The Times

The Classic Bestseller

A Suitable Boy

Sarah Campbell

I'm haunted by a tender passion, The ghost of which will never die. 

The leaves of autumn have grown ashen: I'm haunted by a tender passion. 

And spring-time too, in its own fashion, Burns me with love's sweet song — so I —

I’m haunted by a tender passion, The ghost of which will never die. 

 this does not confound a steadfast man. 

“I sometimes feel that it’s a consolation in times of deep grief to know that the world, by and large, does not care.”

When the world has been unkind, when life's troubles cloud your mind, 

Don't sit down and frown and sigh and moon and mope. 

Take a walk along the square, fill your lungs with God's fresh air, 

Then go whistling back to work and smile and hope.

“There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction. One that merely excites, unsettles, and makes you uneasy: The other that - 

Well, I can't remember exactly, but he talks about a calmer, less frantic love, which helps you to grow where you were already growing, "to live where as yet I had languished" - I just read it yesterday, it isn't in my head yet, but it said everything that I couldn't express on my own. Do you understand what I mean? ... Malati?"

A Suitable Boy quotes

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