Book of the week - Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

The White Tiger is a first novel by Aravind Adiga, who was born in India in 1974 and raised partly in Australia. He attended Columbia and Oxford universities, and worked as a journalist for, among others, Time magazine. He lives in Mumbai, India. "Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. His family is too poor for him to afford for him to finish school and he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. But Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The White Tiger is as compelling for its subject matter as for the voice of its narrator - amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply endearing." Reviews have been generally positive, some very positive, and first novels set in India have done well in the Booker Prize in several previous years. Signed copies can still be found at cover price if you look around.