NONFICTION
Sprawling, epic, vibrant—and more than a little scary—Maximum City does justice to its monumental subject, the city of Bombay. After 21 years abroad, author Suketu Mehta revisited the city where he lived as a child and spent two years exploring the heights and depths of the crowded and complex metropolis. He interviewed politicians and poets, movie stars and transvestite bar dancers, crusading activists and small-time thugs, and as they tell their fascinating stories, each voice rises clearly above the urban din. Though this book is over 500 pages long, there's not a boring moment as Mehta's sparkling prose and prodigious descriptive powers make the distant city seem as vital to us as the neighborhood in which we live.
