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Booksrss

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Progress at a price

7 April 2010
Vietnam: Rising Dragon Bill Hayton

Yale, pp.272, 20

I was sitting recently with a former US marine by one of the huge open windows on the top floor of the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon. Our drinks were being… Read more

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Land of eternal euphemism

24 March 2010
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea Barbara Demick

Granta, pp.314, 14.99

If it wasn’t for the sheer misery of most of its luckless inhabitants, wouldn’t the world be a duller place without North Korea? If it wasn’t for the sheer misery… Read more

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The day the music died

15 April 2009
The Immortals Amit Chaudhuri

Picador, pp.404, 16.99

An earnest young man upbraids his singing teacher. ‘Why don’t you sing classical more often?’ It is Bombay in the early Eighties. The young man’s father has enjoyed a successful… Read more

Division and misrule

29 December 2008
The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power Tariq Ali

Simon & Schuster, pp.304, 17.99

‘The 20th century was not kind to Pakistan’, Tariq Ali says in the first sentence of his latest book on his native land. ‘The 20th century was not kind to… Read more