City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
★★★★★Read Apr 2, 2015
Read this along with a trip to India. Or tried to, it took three goes to finish. I liked the book and am hugely impressed with Dalrymple's scholarship, but the writing is a bit uneven. Parts are an amusing travelogue, parts are a slightly tedious recitation of history, and the whole doesn't quite hold together for me. Also was a bit bugged by the way he was channelling Mark Twain's "Tramp Abroad" in some of his amusing anecdotes about the natives. Overall it should be a fantastic book, Dalrymple's knowledge and intelligence makes for a unique and compelling perspective. But somehow it just didn't quite get there for me.
Goodreads readers give it 4.13★, from 13,697 ratings. I gave it 3★, −1.1, where I'm usually −0.9: I rated it like most.
Readers call it India, Travel, History, Memoir, Travelogue, Asia, Indian Literature, Historical.
Won Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 1994, Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award 1994.