Maximum City

Reviews / Votes

'Mehta delivers a fresh and mesmerising look at contemporary Bombay.' Buzz! -- Buzz! 'In Suketu Mehta [Bombay] has found a biographer fully worthy of its vitality, its monstrousness and its Byzantine complexity. Destined to become a classic of its kind...like the best of novels, it transcends geographical and historical particularities to become a startlingly life-affirming portrait of humanity itself.' Daily Mail 08/04/2005 -- Daily Mail 20050408 'Reveals stories of exceptional depth and interest... a substantial achievement' -- The Sunday Times (Patrick French) 20050227 'Mehta's tales... read like a modern Arabian Nights, only crueller, more poignant, more real... MAXIMUM CITY is a tour de force' -- The Times 20050205 'Suketu Mehta writes ... with the observant eye of a journalist and the colour and energy of a novelist... He takes his time and he does it brilliantly. No one will try to write another portrait of Bombay for a very long time' -- Hampstead & Highgate Express 20050205 'Compulsively readable... the best non-fiction book on India in a couple of decades' -- FT magazine 20050226 'Reveals a melting pot of punchy, tangible characters... a gripping portrait of life in the hopeful city that hits you like the first burning blast of India's air' -- Observer 20050227 'Mehta's primary interest is in capturing the city as he experienced it during his stay... he records the moment with perfect clarity' -- Daily Telegraph 20050227 'A compelling, funny, poignant debut... he places his enthusiastic and intrepid self at the centre of his narrative and weaves a squalid, glittering, courageous, spectacular, grotesque, redemptive tapesty' -- Observer 20050130 'Remarkable... In these pages, densely packed with facts, observations, vignettes and insights, he brings the city alive with love, longing and sadness' -- Independent (Salil Tripathi) 20050204 'The reader is alternately horrified, dazzled and overwhelmed... This is a magnificent work, which has '"epic" written all over it' -- Northern Echo 18991230 'Bombay deserves a big bustling book and this is it... Any suspicion of voyeurism or gossip is handsomely refuted by Mehta's candour as an observer and his considerable virtuosity as a writer' Literary Review 01/04/2005 -- Literary Review 20050401 'This isn't just a history of Bombay, it's a tell-all biography, an undercover investigation and a personal odyssey. Mehta doesn't just interview people, he "Louis-Therouxs" them. .. For sheer richness and vitality it's closer to a Rushdie novel than the text most will compare it to - Naipaul's "India: A million Mutinies now"' Time Out, May 11-18 2005 -- Time Out London 20050511 ...unquestionably one of the most memorable non-fiction books to come out of India for many years, and there is little question that it will become the classic study of Bombay.' -- William Dalrymple 'MAXIMUM CITY is part nightmare and part millennial hallucination... Suketu Mehta has taken travel writing to an entirely new level. This is a gripping, compellingly readable account of a love affair with a city: I couldn't put it down ' -- Amitav Ghosh 'one of the best books to travel to India with.' -- Observer