My Favourite Reads

Alyce over at At Home With Books has started a brand new meme: her favourite books! Each week she will feature one of her favourite books from the past and invites everyone to join in! I think that this is a great meme, and I'm excited to participate. When I think about my favourite books, many possibilities come to mind, and I had a hard time deciding which one to feature today, so I will continue to participate- there are so many great books and so little time! Most of my favourite books are women's fiction or fiction, but there are a few non-fiction books that I've loved as well. My choice for this week, First Darling of the Morning by Thrity Umrigar is a collection of Umrigar's memories from her childhood in Bombay.

From the Publisher's Website:

First Darling of the Morning is the powerful and poignant memoir of bestselling author Thrity Umrigar, tracing the arc of her Bombay childhood and adolescence from her earliest memories to her eventual departure to the United States at age twenty-one. It is an evocative, emotionally charged story of a young life steeped in paradox; of a middle-class Parsi girl attending Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu city; of a guilt-ridden stranger in her own land, an affluent child in a country mired in absymal poverty. She reveals intimate secrets and offers an unflinching look at family issues once considered unspeakable as she interweaves two fascinating coming of age stories- one of a small child, one of a nation.

Why I Chose This Book:

Thrity Umrigar is not only a great writer, but a great woman. Her stories were fascinating, and because the book ends right before she leaves to study in the United States, I was left wanting more. In fact, if she ever decides to write a memoir about her time in the United States I will certainly buy it. Her stories were concise, and they certainly transported me to Bombay while I was reading them. The fact that they were all true certainly made it inetersting.

Her latest fiction novel is "The Weight of Heaven" and although I purchased it quite some time ago, I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I'm excited about it, though, and as soon as I'm done reading my pile of "books to review" I will be reading it and posting my review here.

Thanks, Alyce, for a thought-provoking meme topic! I look forward to participating in the future as well!