ISBN: 9780143418955    Publisher: Penguin Year of publishing: 2012     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 248        Language: English

Shashi Tharoor began reading books--Enid Blyton's Noddy series--when he was three. For many years afterwards, he read a book a day. Bookless in Baghdad brings together pieces written by this compulsive reader and prolific writer on the subject closest to his heart: reading. Tharoor takes us on a delightful journey of discovery, as he wanders the book souk in a Baghdad under sanctions where the middle-class are selling their volumes so that they can afford to live, and drives around Huesca looking to pay an idiosyncratic tribute to George Orwell.

Read less

Shashi Tharoor is the prize-winning author of ten books, both fiction and non-fiction, and a widely published critic, commentator and columnist (including for The Hindu, Times of India and Newsweek). In 2007 he concluded a nearly twenty-nine-year career with the United Nations, including working for refugees in South-East Asia at the peak of the 'boat people' crisis, handling peace-keeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, and culminating as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. In 2006 he was India's candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General, and emerged a strong second out of seven contenders. Dr Tharoor earned his PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at the age of twenty-two, and was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998 as a 'Global Leader of Tomorrow'. He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India's highest honour for overseas Indians.
Read less