Jerry Pinto Books

In a tiny flat in Bombay Imelda Mendes - Em to her family - is by turns flamboyant, maniacally affectionate and cruelly candid. Her husband - Augustine, the 'Big Hoom' - and two children must endure her 'microweathers': swings from searing joy to brooding malevolence. And here is the story of how this family of four came to be. Of how Imelda was courted by Augustine - 'Hello, Buttercup' - and of how with the passage of time and the arrival of her children she slowly turned into Em, loving and loathing a world terrified of her extravagant excesses . . . 'Profoundly moving. I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this.' Amitav Ghosh 'Hilarious, reckless, brilliant.' Kiran Desai 'A near-perfect account of a psychologically troubled mother. Touching and funny.' Irish Times 'Delightful. Pinto is quite a genius with dialogue.' Guardian

Leela Naidu was listed as one of the five most beautiful women in the world by Vogue magazine. But she was much more than that. She was the fine-boned, haunting face in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anuradha, in Merchant-Ivorys The Householder and in Shyam Benegal's Trikaal. She was the woman who refused to sign Raj Kapoor's films four times, and the actor who asked for a script long before the phrase bound script became Bollywood clich. Jean Renoir taught her acting and Salvador Dali used her as a model for a Madonna. Leela was married, the mother of twins and divorced before she was twenty. Later, she was Dom Moraess muse, his unpaid secretary, his best friend and, when he was interviewing Indira Gandhi, his translator (interpreting his mumbling questions). Through this time she also edited magazines and dubbed Hong Kong action movies, was Kumar Shahani's first producer, and when JRD Tata wanted a film on how to use the washroom on a plane, she made it for him. A Patchwork Life is a memoir that is charming, idiosyncratic and a window to a world of Chopin, red elephants, lampshades made of human skin, moss gardens and much more: a world where a naked Russian count turns up in a French garden, plush hotels offer porcupine quills as toothpicks and an assistant director sends his female lead an inflatable rubber bra. Leela's life was about staying in the moment. Everyone who met her has a Leela Naidu story. This is her version.

A paying guest seems like a win-win proposition to the Joshi family. He's ready with the rent, he's willing to lend a hand when he can and he's happy to listen to Mrs Joshi on the imminent collapse of our culture. But he's also a man of mystery. He has no last name. He has no family, no friends, no history and no plans for the future. The siblings Tanay and Anuja are smitten by him. He overturns their lives and when he vanishes, he breaks their hearts. Elegantly wrought and exquisitely spare, Cobalt Blue is a tale of rapturous love and fierce heartbreak told with tenderness and unsparing clarity.