Between the Assassinations Paperback – June 1, 2010

I so loved White Tiger that I was thrilled to discover Between the Assassinations.This book is effectively a collection of short stories told from the perspective of different people all residing in the same town.What I liked about it:- occassionally characters meet (although dont expect much of this).- the author provides a choronological account of events that take place in India and Kittal which then relate to the short stories that you have read about. (However, I thought that this should have been put up front, as it would've made far more sense to the reader whilst progressing through the book).- accounts of India and Indian life are portrayed very well and doesnt make the reader work "too hard" to imagine him/herself immersed in the setting.What I didnt like about it:- no story line (this was "sort of" picked up with the chronology of events at the end, but by time I had gotten to this I had forgotten some relevant content in many of the stories so it was lost)- quite slow movingI think the author could've worked this better perhaps by developing relationships between the characters in the book or providing a bit more convincing storyline.In any event, I do recommend this book, just not highly. I didnt thoroughly enjoy it but it was readable.

I decided to read this book after having really enjoyed "The White Tiger". In this book, Aravind Adiga does another terrific job of describing the realities of India. I am not a big fan of short story formats as I prefer a longer and more comprehensive stories. I think the thing I did not like about these stories was the lack of respect people seem to have for each other in the Indian culture and the negative outcome that occurred to virtually all of the main characters in these short stories. I have been to India and met many Indians and I cannot fathom that it is as bad as portrayed by by the author. Nonetheless I appreciate his story telling skills and plan to read other of his books.

I was so happy to find other novels by Aravind Adiga. Read White Tiger a year or so ago and now I have two more earlier novels of his. He is wonderful at character development, writes very well and keeps the reader interested. In this book he showcases the different lives of the caste system in India and the different religions all clustered in one area. I enjoy learning about his culture through his novels. The next one Last Man in the Tower is even BETTER!

I enjoyed reading these stories. The author was able to bring to life a rainbow of characters set in an India that may or may not exist anymore - the world is changing very fast.The stories are an easy read. Rich characters and interesting narrative kept me looking for more. An easy way to step into the culture and custom of a nation. Most enjoyable read.

Enjoyed reading this IIs the second book that I have read by this authorUsually I like full stories rather than short stories but some of the short story books have changed my mind

I really have mixed feelings about this one. I read The White Tiger and I loved it. I had to read it for school and it turned out to be a book that I would want to read on my own. I have put this book down half way through and I will finish it but I don't know when. The White Tiger is 5 stars. This one may drop to a 2 star depending on the second half of the book...

A boatload of pencilled stars throughout the book. Annoying to say the least. Less than a big deal because I’ve alrrady read and this was a selection for my book club.

Adiga is a very good story teller. Most of the stories are compelling well written and full of some "real life" characters. Enjoyed most of the book except that the last couple of stories seem to unable to keep to the standard set by the earlier ones. Nevertheless a book worth reading.

The title of this book refers to the time between the assasination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in 1984 and the assasination of her son and successor, Rajiv Ghandi, in 1991. The substance of the book is a tourist guidebook to a fictional Indian town, interspersed within a collection of short stories. Each chapter is independent from the next, though they share the geography of the town and its environs.Each story is essentially about an individual and how their lives are lived in the town. The characters are mainly drawn from the marginalised and the poor, occasionally reaching into the lower middle-class. The rich and the powerful are largely minor bit-part players whose motives and stories we do not know; the corrupt local MP makes a cameo appearance in a few of the stories but doesn't have a chapter of his own, which is a shame since the corruption of the Indian political class features strongly in the stories of the other characters.This book reminded me strongly of James Joyce's  Dubliners , doing for an anonymous half-baked Indian town (to borrow a term from Adiga's previous book,  The White Tiger ) what Joyce did for turn of the century Dublin. Stretching the comparison with Joyce a little, where Homer's the Odyssey served as a framework to  Ulysses , Adiga borrows the framework of a late 20th century travel book.Set in the lat 1980s, this books describes everyday Indian life at a turning point - after the idealism of early post-independence socialism had died and started to rot but just before the destabilising turbo-capitalism of globalisation began to reimagine India, a story of continuity, change and dislocation that Adiga has already told in  The White Tiger . DublinersThe White TigerUlyssesThe White Tiger

This book is the story of a city, rather than of characters. It's essentially a collection of short stories, the only theme connecting them are that they all seem to examine the idea of class or caste divide in Indian society. Adiga seems fascinated with this concept as his last book followed this idea also. Some of the stories really allow you to get inside the heads of those who suffer through being poor in India; they examine how helpless a poor person really is to change their life. other stories seem to be fillers, which is a shame as there are some really powerful stories in here. My biggest criticism is that there is no tying together of the stories, I was hoping that there would be some conclusion to the book which brought all the stories together. With that, this would be a 5 star book.

I didn't like it but ploughed on with it thinking it was going to go somewhere but it didn't. Maybe the author wanted to portray the pointlessness of people's life in India, or that particular part of India, at the time. I read The White Tiger and bought this one on the strength of that whereas The White Tiger also had a streak of pointlessness running through it, in my mind that is, it had a more developed plot line. Between Assssination was a collection of narratives that with no connecting thread and all just left me feeling flat and thinking I will avoid this author now.

Great book. Full of great characters and descriptions of India. It was a page turner that I didn’t want to end. Definitely worth reading.

Delightful description of characters, sights and stories of small town in south India. Quite melancholic though. Read all by the author but White Tiger definitely the best