Book Recommendation

Every so often, I read a book that is so good that I need to share the news with others.  Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo is such a book.  This was a library book and I put it on hold at the library after reading a review of it.  The book arrived, the cover was intriguing, and I started reading the book even though I was currently reading a couple of other books.  This is one of those books that gradually drew me deeper into the book and by the end of the book, I knew it was something special. 

This book is a work of non-fiction but it reads like a story.  Ms. Boo tells the true story of Annawadi, a slum city of homemade huts located next to the Mumbai International Airport in India. 

From the book jacket: 

"Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget."

While I was reading the book, it reminded me of scenes from the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", only this is a true story, and no one in this slum becomes a millionaire.

A short video about the book from Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-undercity/dp/1400067553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334248373&sr=8-1

This book is available from both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and is also available from both places as an ebook.  I found the book at our library and it was also available at our ebook library. 

I highly recommend this book if you are curious about what it's like to live in a slum in modern-day India.