Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge

Thank you Alice Carey for the Q&A with me.  My only regret is that I didn't, ahem, milk the whole Buffalo, New York line.  I came up with Buffalo, New York as an example quite unconsciously.  But heck, it would have been nice to add something like "I mean, how can you sit in Buffalo, New York, and compete for family approval with a cousin who has gone and bought a cow?" and then, one beat later, "I mean, you can say that she may have bought a cow but I live in a city named after a larger bovine."  [...]

  JAN 26, 2018 Now that all the drama over Fire and Fury has started to subside, life in the world of nonfiction seems to be getting back to normal. This week I’ve got a couple of new books – one that I’ve actually read! – along with news about the Best American series and an award going to a very deserving doctor. But before we jump in, make sure you enter our giveaway for your very own library cart! Enter here! Sponsored by Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland, published by Sarah Crichton [...]

Like most everyone, I am in two minds about "marketing" my book.  On the one hand, I get that it is necessary and the done thing.  On the other, I get that it is a bit much to plug the book everyday.  It feels like tooting your own horn which isn't nice.  But Algonquin makes it so easy for me.  Everyday, I get one or two things from the publicity folks there.  It is one step to post it on my personal blog which then automatically "shares" to Twitter, Facebook, etc.  For a while, I started a separate "books" page [...]

I listen to NPR even from here in Bangalore.  Really happy to get this news.  And interesting to see the names of the people who "liked" this post. Hi Shoba, Your book is featured on the NPR Books Tumblr! Check it out: http://nprbooks.tumblr.com/post/170115378528/shoba-narayan-is-a-writer-who-once-lived-with-her Shoba Narayan is a writer who once lived with her husband and kids in Manhattan. Then she moved back to India and ran into her milk lady’s cow in her apartment elevator. Literally. In her memoir The Milk Lady of Bangalore, Narayan gives the outsider a deeper look into what at first appears to just be a strange (and [...]

Algonquin is amazing.  Jacqueline Burke, Brooke Czuka, Amy Gash....thank you thank you thank you. Jacquelynn Burke Publicity Manager,  Algonquin and Algonquin Young Readers Publicity update for The Milk Lady of Bangalore by Shoba Narayan (on sale January 23, 2018) A Barnes and Noble Spring 2018 Discover Selection Recent coverage: Library Journal Starred review February 15, 2018 “[Author Shoba Narayan’s] stories radiate with compassion…An absolute joy to read. Through her close encounters with the bovine kind, Narayan shows how Indian traditions are incorporated into her contemporary way of life.” BookPage Review February 2018 issue “Udderly delight­ful…A herd of often funny and always fascinating bovine [...]

Three books...and mine is one of them.  Thank you Newsday for the inclusion.  Link here and pasted below James Patterson on the Aaron Hernandez story, a mystery from Germany, a memoir of India "Babylon Berlin" by Volker Kutscher. Photo Credit: Picador By Tom Beer [email protected]  @TomBeerBooks Updated January 23, 2018 4:32 PM BABYLON BERLIN, by Volker Kutscher. The first book in a German mystery series, translated by Niall Sellar, is the basis for the Netflix series of the same name. The setting is Berlin in 1929 — decadent capital of Weimar Germany — and the protagonist is vice squad detective Gereon [...]

Normally, publications excerpt the first pages of the book.  That is when the writing is brisk, and draws the readers.  Or at least, that's the assumption. Lit Hub, which I love (along with Maria Popova's Brain Pickings), went against the grain. They excerpted a different section pasted below-- lovely photo of a Desi cow and linked here   MILK, MOTHERHOOD, AND THE LAST REFUGE OF THE SACRED COW SHOBA NARAYAN EXPLORES THE MYTHS OF MILK AND THE BACKSTREETS OF BANGALORE January 23, 2018  By Shoba Narayan Why is milk considered sacred in several cultures, not just in Indian culture? Is it because we begin [...]