Sukey's Favorite

For Matrimonial Purposes
By Kavita Daswani
Brilliance Audio, $29.95
7 hours unabridged, CD, ISBN 1590869443

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A nice Indian boy—that's all Anju wants and that's all her family is praying for. But he has to be from the right caste and the right family, have no bad habits, etc., etc. As Kavita Daswani's thoroughly charming debut novel For Matrimonial Purposes opens, Anju is 33 years old and husbandless. Best efforts, including fortune-tellers, matchmakers and relatives galore, have not turned up a suitable spouse. In the meantime, Anju has left Bombay—and the accusatory eyes of her many aunties—and become a successful fashion publicist in New York. And though she's broken away from many of the confining customs of her country, she still wants to please her loving parents and honor tradition. Can she do it? You'll have much fun finding out and, once more, you'll be treated to an inside look at another culture and its fascinating foibles. Anne Flosnik reads and does a super job with a subtle range of subcontinental accents.

America's founding fathers

REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD

Founding Father fever swept the country a few years ago. It shows no signs of abating, and new biographies crop up each season to feed the fervor. Benjamin Franklin has been the worthy subject of four recent books, and more are on the way. The latest, and one of the best, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, has been recorded by the always eloquent Boyd Gaines and makes for engaging, enlightening, entertaining listening. The Franklin who comes to life here is the quintessential American self-made man and more: he was an energetic entrepreneur, a writer and humorist, a self-publicist who reveled in reinventing himself, a man of the people who believed in unifying for the common good, an inventor, a brilliant scientist, savvy politician and diplomat. Franklin seems to have had a very good time doing all that he did, and you'll have a very good time being with him.

John Adams, our philosopher-president, was, until recently, overshadowed by many of his founding brothers. But, as consummately demonstrates in his new biographical study, John Adams, consummately read by Richard Rohan, Adams was a prescient leader who valued government and hated politics, who resolutely defended the Supreme Court, the Senate and the military. He was the first president to see the executive branch as the one office that could be held accountable—the place where the buck stopped. He wasn't warm and fuzzy and never courted popularity, but was a man of true integrity who oversaw "that one brief moment when the thought of truth shamed the tumult of politics."


On the beat in Botswana

It's not often that one can call a detective series delightful, but that's the right adjective for the four books in Alexander McCall Smith's series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, now available on CD and perfectly narrated in the softly lilting cadences of southern Africa by Lisette Lecat. Precious Ramotswe is the first and only lady detective in her beloved Botswana, and when we meet her in the number one book in the series, not surprisingly called The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, she has just opened her little office. "She was a good detective and good woman. A good woman in a good country" who felt called to help her countrymen solve the mysteries in their lives. Mma Ramotswe, as she is properly addressed, endowed with an abundance of intuition, intelligence and compassion, solves those mysteries, both simple and complex, but she is the most compelling character, and it is she who shows us her country and her culture and she who totally delights. I hope Mr. Smith is hard at work on the next installment.


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