India, Feb. 1 -- Dear Reader,

I stand in a circle of people. Opposite me is a young couple - both slim and fair with light brown hair. The girl holds a pile of books to give away: Passage To India, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, China: A History, and Ask the Dust, a story about a writer in LA.

"Honestly we didn't like Passage to India, we wanted to read about India and it popped up in the Google search", the man confesses. "But this one, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, ignore the strangeness of the title, it's really very good"

It is a recent Sunday morning and I am with friends. It was meant to be a book club meeting, sitting in the bookstore cafe, but it ended up being just the three of us. The others have dropped out - one is...