Tilo is a young woman trained in the ways of spices and made immortal (in the form of an old woman) when she is sent out into the world (specifically, California) to use her knowledge of spices to help people.

Like the children’s book The Conch Bearer, which is the only other book of Divakaruni’s that I’ve read, the imagery is vivid and involving ( Read more... )

Anand’s family lived a happily middle-class life until his father disappeared and his sister became mute with shock after witnessing a violent death. Now he, his mother and his sister live in poverty in Kolkata, and Anand has had to drop out of school and take a job with a mean stall owner to make ends meet. But then he gives his last food to an ( Read more... )