Think Local, Eat Local

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/around-town/features/think-local-eat-local

Coverstory

It’s easy to be a locavore in Bangalore (people who choose to eat locallyproduced food, rather than food that’s travelled miles to reach the table). Our city is teeming with locally-grown vegetables and fruits, for instance. Vegetable or meat shopping isn’t a chore for us – a walk through the tarkari market is like a social visit, where we bemoan the price of tomatoes with the vendor or trade recipes with fellow shoppers. It may not be organic produce, but we do end up supporting local farmers. Many of us have pretty balconies, gardens and window sills, where we can grow fresh herbs. Concerned individuals and collectives have kick started local initiatives to ensure that our food is less jet lagged. Our city chefs proudly doff their hats to local foods, using them in their gorgeous creations – from millets to lesser-known leafy vegetables; they have figured it all out. At a time when food miles and communities are taking precedence, Time Outhelps you think local, shop local and eat local.

DVD Review: Epic

http://www.timeoutdelhi.net/film/dvd-reviews/dvd-review-epic

It’s a green, green world in Epic, one of the latest animated offerings from the creators of movies such as Ice Age. Teenager Mary Katherine, who goes by MK, is exasperated with her dad, an eccentric scientist who is convinced that the forest is teeming with tiny denizens. Of course he’s right and these miniature soldiers are called Leafmen, who ride humming birds and have one task in life – to protect the verdant forest from the Boggans, whose sole purpose is to cause decay on the forest. To the Leafmen, all humans are slow and stupid beings called stompers.

MK gets stuck in the middle of this tussle, when the forest queen Tara entrusts her with the all-important flower bud that will ultimately reveal the next heir of the jungle. In a manner that’s reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, MK is reduced to the size of the Leafmen. MK finds herself on a quest with Ronin, the rugged, taciturn chief of the Leafmen; Mub and Grub, the snail and slug who are thrown in for comic relief; and the handsome, rebellious Nod.

Epic presses all the right buttons – spectacular animation, a not-so-subtle message about conservation, and of course, dollops of romance and humour. A beautiful movie – with colourful flowers and gnarly trees dotting stunning landscapes– we can see that the 3D version must have been enthralling to watch on the big screen. Yet, there’s something missing in the movie. We already know that good will triumph over evil, and that means there’s just not enough drama to pull the film together.

We loved the DVD’s special features, but they are just five to ten minutes long. In Birds, Bugs and Slugs: Forest Explorer, children can learn about the animal world through the movie’s characters. For instance, Nim the caterpillar becomes a tool to explain that the insect has a ferocious appetite and can eat up to three times its body weight. In Rot Rocks, we take a look at the forest from its darker side and see the point of view of decay and rot. A back story about the making of Epic was sorely missed.

Excel Home Entertainment, R599.

By Bijal Vachharajani on October 25 2013 

The Cuckoo’s Calling

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/books/reviews/cuckoo%E2%80%99s-calling

Our copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling came with a carefully-stuck on round label, announcing that the book’s author is “JK Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith”. This little fact is now quite well-known, thanks to an anonymous tweet and some smart and meticulous reportage by London’s Sunday Times. But this nugget is purely incidental to the book, except that now that the identity of the author is known, The Cuckoo’s Calling is a bestselling book.

Rowling/Galbraith’s book is a fairly enjoyable read when it comes to the genre of crime novels. The story’s protagonist is the magnificently etched out Cormoran Strike, a war veteran turned private investigator. A massive hairy man, Strike resembles a grizzly bear, but his sharp memory and keen intellect are what make him intriguing. When the book starts, we find out that he is veering on the edge of bankruptcy and has once again broken up with his gorgeous but impetous girlfriend. He ends up living on a camp bed in his tiny office.

Yet little fazes Strike, including be-kittened death threats from a disgruntled former client (invoking the ghost of Dolores Umbridge for some). The perfect foil to Strike is Robin Ellacott, a temp secretary who ends up liking this strange detective work a lot.

Three months after Lula Landry, a beautiful but troubled model falls from the balcony of her posh Mayfair House, her brother approaches Strike to investigate the death. The police have dubbed it as a suicide but the brother John Bristow isn’t quite convinced. What follows is a journey into the seemingly lustrous world of modelling where designer labels and contracts are ominous objects of desire. Then, there’s Landry’s dysfunctional adopted family – a dead brother, an ailing mother, a charming but suspicious uncle. Strike, with Robin at hand, has to sift through multiple suspects including Landy’s famous boyfriend and an elusive girlfriend, but then he is a resourceful sort of bloke.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is Rowling’s second adult novel, after the much anticipated The Casual Vacancy. But it manages to engage the reader, mainly because of the meticulous detail that has gone into painting the characters. For instance, Bristow has “rabbity teeth and blotchy skin”, while Landry is “dark, luminous, fine-boned and fierce”. Physical appearances apart, most of the characters are complex enough to keep the page turning. Yet, there’s a pitfall – sometimes the story becomes too detailed and ponderous. Rowling/Galbraith isn’t always charitable, especially when it comes to writing about the bourgeoisie or members of the richer class.

The story visits the murky realms of drugs, alcoholism and racism, touching the subjects lightly. But what makes the book immensely readable is the chemistry between Strike and Robin, and the reader gets the sense that there’s more to come in future books. Rowling/ Galbraith has said there’s another book in the pipeline. We can’t wait.

Robert Galbraith Hachette India, R599

By Bijal Vachharajani on September 27 2013

The bone ultimatum

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/books/features/bone-ultimatum

Bijal Vachharajani spoke to the author of The Bone Season

 

In May 2013, The New York Times profiled a slew of 20-somethings who are on the brink of success or already successful. Rubbing shoulders with Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, and Alexander Wang, creative director of Balenciaga fashion house; was Samantha Shannon, a 21-year-old Oxford student. Shannon is the author of a seven-part literary fantasy series, The Bone Season, the first of which has just been published. The reason Shannon makes the list is that Bloomsbury, the British publishers of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, have given “Shannon a six-figure advance for the first three books, an unprecedented show of support for such an untested first-time author”.

The Bone Season revolves around Paige Mahoney, a 19-year-old who lives a double life in London because she’s clairvoyant. While her father thinks she works in an oxygen bar, she’s actually part of a syndicate that is full of people with psychic abilities, which is a crime under the Scion rule in London. Mahoney is a dream-walker, which means her spirit can go hurtling into the aether. Her life changes when she’s arrested and finds herself in an abandoned version of Oxford city where the Rephaim – cruel, infallible beings – dwell. Shades of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and George Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four emerge, as Mahoney discovers the truth behind the Rephaim regime.

The story isn’t very original, but what brings it to life is Shannon’s imagination – her inventiveness when it comes to the Rephaim-infested Oxford and the colourful details she weaves into her narrative. There’s also the good looking and mysterious Warden Arcturus, who happens to be Mahoney’s master. But the story falters towards the end. However, going by the vein of popular books today, The Bone Season is right on mark – dark, check; good-looking protagonists, check; magic and sci-fi, check. In an email interview with Time Out, Shannon talks about how her debut novel is “penny farthing futurism”.

Tell us about The Bone Season.
I started writing The Bone Season when I was 19 years old, shortly after completing an internship at David Godwin Associates, a literary agency in Seven Dials, a small district in London. While I was there, I had a vivid image of a girl having the same day at work as me, but she happened to be clairvoyant – and The Bone Season was born. I sent the finished book to the same agency in April 2012 and it was bought by Bloomsbury a month later.

You’re a student at Oxford and have placed your university into a disturbing dystopian world. Tell us about it.
The novel begins in 2059, 200 years after the day that triggered its events, but 1859 still shapes the world of Scion. The way I handle this in the book is through anachronism. You’ll see gramophones, Victorian clothes and herbal remedies in the same space as oxygen bars, data pads and advanced painkillers. I’ve tried to find a word that fits what I’m doing with the novel in this respect. One of the guys at Bloomsbury suggested “penny farthing futurism”, which I love. The idea of clairvoyant powers just came to me while I was working at Seven Dials.

On your blog, you mention that music is inherent to your writing process. How did you mix it into The Bone Season?
I’m a big fan of old music, from the Victorian era onwards. I’d love to own an antique gramophone. The Bone Season is set in 2059, but shaped by events occurring in 1859. I try to bridge the two timelines through anachronism, and weaving in some tunes from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries helped me create an “old world” atmosphere.

Your story comes on the heels of a slew of books set in dystopian worlds. Yet, there’s a vein of disturbing reality to it – politics, inclusiveness. How difficult was it to write two worlds?
It was surprisingly easy. Just as Paige operates on two levels – spirit world and physical world – I operate on “book level” and “reality level”. When I walk around London I see both my London and Paige’s. The two worlds overlap and blur together in my mind.

A seven-part series – how daunting is this, especially when everyone’s drawing parallels to Rowling?
It’s been overwhelming, to say the least. I’m a young, unknown author and there’s a lot of anticipation to live up to. Having said that, it’s been great to have so much early interest in The Bone Season.

I’m a huge fan of Harry Potter and devoured the books with every new release. I was born in 1991, so I’m very much part of the “Harry Potter generation” – those whose childhoods just wouldn’t have been the same without it. JK Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humour and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts.

I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does, but I didn’t think about Harry Potter when I wrote The Bone Season. The comparison just came from our similar deals: seven fantasy books with Bloomsbury.

The Bone Season, Bloomsbury, R499.

By Bijal Vachharajani on September 27 2013

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/restaurants-caf%C3%A9s/featuresfeatures/cooked-natural-history-transformation

Pollan dons an apron and heads into his home kitchen to understand the fundamentals of cooking

Fifty years ago, my mother, then a teenager, lived in a joint family in a flat in Bandra East in Mumbai. For her family, making nankhatai was something of a bonding ritual. My mother and her two sisters would prepare the dough for this soft biscuit. My grandmother would keep an eagle-eyed watch as they measured out plain flour, crushed sugar, mixed the ghee and finally crumbled in cardamom seeds. The pliant, fragrant dough would be worked into plump white balls and the sisters would hop onto a train to visit their local bakery in Andheri, five stations away. There, they would stand in line with other home bakers, waiting to place their miniature moons on beaten aluminium trays that would be hefted by the bakers into the bakery’s massive oven. My mother still remembers the taste of fresh nankhatai – fragile white balls with crisp, golden edges that dissolved into your mouth. My mother’s memories of nankhatai was on the edges of my mind as I read Michael Pollan’s latest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. A food activist and professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in California, Pollan has previously investigated the intimate relationship that humans share with their food sources, through books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World. This time, among other things that Pollan writes about cooking as a “much more sociable activity” than it is today. “Even today,” writes Pollan in Cooked, “in many Mediterranean villages, you find communal ovens, where people bring their proofed loaves, roasts, and braises, and pass the time in conversation while waiting for their dishes to come out of the oven.” For my mother and her sisters too, the nankhatai ritual was also a time to discuss mundane occurrences, share intimate stories, and bond.

How food is woven into a community’s social fabric is just one of the many ingredients in the elaborate recipe that is Cooked. For this new book, Pollan dons an apron and heads into his home kitchen to understand the fundamentals of cooking. His culinary journey looks at four basic elements – Fire, to understand which he goes back to the oldstyle barbecuing of meat slowly over fire; Water, which takes Pollan on a quest to make the perfect stew/braise; Air, which is understood through the workings of baking bread; and, Earth, for which the author experiments scientifically by brewing beer.

Through his experiments in the kitchen, Pollan puts together a compelling argument about cooking as an art, a survival skill and as “an essential, defining human activity”. He questions the futility of the processed foods that are now standard fare in our refrigerators and cupboards. Those cans and plastic boxes encroach upon our memories of food and its cultural vitality. He wonders why we spend less and less time in the kitchen and takes journeys to understand where his food comes from and how it is cooked. Pollan goes beyond the supermarket aisles and into the farmyards and some master kitchens. He also get us to chuckle at some of his trials, which include chopping pork until his arms grow rubbery. From the humble yeast to innocuous plant matter and the whole hog, Pollan gives the reader a taste of what it is like to get back into the kitchen and cook. Recipes from his culinary escapades are available in the concluding section.

Pollan’s book, though very North American, comes at a poignant time for India. He writes, “How’s it that at the precise historical moment when Americans were abandoning the kitchen, handing over the preparation of most of our meals to the food industry, we began spending so much of our time thinking about food and watching other people cook it on television?” This line could uncomfortably reverberate in many urban Indian households. Our supermarkets are packed with processed foods – from ready-to-eat dals to prepared ginger-garlic pastes and assembly-line bread to instant noodles. Of course, their popularity is fuelled by their easy accessibility as compared to more responsibly grown and healthier produce. Since they are mass-produced, it is cheaper to buy biscuits, than to prepare them at home. Not to mention the effort that goes into, say, baking a nankhatai. While we load our trolleys with precisely these foods in an attempt to cut our time in the kitchen, we spend more time watching TV shows such as Masterchef Australia, debating restaurant food reviews and Instagramming photos of meals. There seems to be time to do all of that, yet when it comes to cooking our meals, as Pollan points out, “fresh is a hassle” and “time is the missing ingredient in our recipes – and in our lives”. At the end of Cooked, Pollan manages to pique the reader’s interest in the intrinsic value and joy of making food in your home kitchen. While, I doubt that most readers will start baking bread or brewing beer after reading Pollan, I for one, am going to my oven to bake a batch of fresh nankhatai.

Michael Pollan Penguin,

By Bijal Vachharajani on September 27 2013

Book nook

http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/search%3Fkeyword%3Dmortality-doctrine-eye-minds

Mortality Doctrine: The Eye of Minds
Dashner, Random House, Rs866. Ages 14+. 

James Dashner is best known for his Maze Runner series – the postapocalyptic books are set in a labyrinth inhabited by a group of boys. Every night, the maze door is shut and the boys temporarily safe inside a space called the Glade. Outside the Glade, all kind of perils lurk. Dashner’s latest book series is not set in a maze but is reminiscent of his earlier books.The Eye of Minds is the first book in The Mortality Doctrine series, set in a futuristic high-tech world of gaming. Michael is one such gamer whose life revolves around the VirtNet, a hyperreality game which is played by encasing yourself inside a coffin and letting wires snake beneath your skin. Things change when the government enlists Michael to help them nab Kaine, a rogue gamer who’s hacking into players’ virtual lives and destroying their real ones. Young adults addicted to their Xboxes and PlayStations will love this futuristic world where gaming takes on a largerthan- life avatar. Yet, there are subtle plots at play here as real and fictional worlds blur together, throwing up questions about this addictive space, hacking, and the use of technology against the backdrop of cyber terrorism.  

The Screaming Staircase:Lockwood & Co
Jonathan Stroud, Random House, Rs550. Ages 12+.

Over the last few years, London has been plagued by some serious monsters when it comes to literary fiction. From dementors looming over the city in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series to zombies taking over the country in Charlie Higson’s The Enemy, it’s all been done. This time around, author Jonathan Stroud unleashes a world where Britain’s haunted by ghosts whose touch can kill a person Only some children have the ability to vanquish these spirits.

Lucy Carlyle is one such investigator who joins Lockwood & Co, London’s most nondescript ghost hunting agency, run by teenager Anthony Lockwood along with the nonchalant and sarcastic George. They go ghost-hunting with all sorts of equipment from iron filings to tea bags. The agency’s reputation is up in shambles after they botch up an assignment. They have a chance to redeem themselves, but it involves spending a night in a haunted house.

Stroud is the author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy. His new series is chilling and funny at the same time. The ghosts portrayed in the book are macabre and frighteningly real.Yet, it’s a compelling read, with endearing characters

Munch kin

Bijal Vachharajani leafs through the pages of a new handmade book

 

What is a wily but lazy jackal supposed to do when he’s hungry? According to a Rajasthani folk tale, he gobbles up a crane. And then he goes on to make a meal out of a slowpoke tortoise, a cheeky squirrel and pretty much most of the forest. They all end up inside his tummy. This humorous oral trickster folk tale, which subtly throws in themes of greediness and the perils of being idle, is now rendered lavishly in Tara Books’ latest offering, Gobble You Up! Adapted by Tara Books’ founder Gita Wolf in rhyme, the handmade book has been illustrated by Sunita, a Rajasthani Meena tribe artist. The book uses an art form called mandana, which is traditionally painted by women on the walls and floors of their village homes. “We make a paste of khadiya (chalk) with lime, and paint with our fingers using a cloth,” said Sunita, over the phone from Sawai Madhopur, where she lives with her husband Prabhat and two children.

Sunita’s style is fluid and each page is filled with striking illustrations. Since the mandana art form has nature as a recurring theme, Gobble You Up! also has bold yet intricate nature drawings. The richest image is that of the swollen jackal, his tummy full of a forestworth of animals. Sunita and her husband first met the people at Tara Books when the publishing house was creating Nurturing Walls, an art book based on wall paintings by Meena women. “We invited Sunita for a workshop on women’s everyday art in Chennai in February 2011,” said Wolf, over email from Chennai. “We were inspired by her art, and began to discuss a project. The theme of pregnant animals (one inside the other) as well as animals and their young is a common theme in Meena art, and helped to guide the direction of the project.”

Turning Sunita’s art into a book wasn’t easy. “The first challenge was to build a visual narrative sequence from a tradition which works predominantly with static images,” said Wolf. “The second was to retain the original feel of the wall art on a different (and smaller!) surface.” For that, Sunita squeezed diluted white acrylic paint fingers on brown paper. The book is also printed on the same kraft paper, since it “mirrors the mud walls of a traditional village setting,” said Wolf. To define the details of the animals, book designer Rathna Ramanathan split the images into two colours – the jackal is rendered in black and the creatures he swallows are in white. It’s all in the details – a modern Gotham typeface was used to complement the contemporary quality of the art work and the book was hand silkscreen printed in two colours and then hand-bound. For Sunita, this is the first time she’s stepped out of Rajasthan to work on an international publication. Sunita grew up in Ramsinghpura and learnt mandana from her maternal grandmother and cousin sister. “The women in our village would practice mandana especially during festivals like Diwali,” said Sunita. “I was fascinated by it and started learning from them.” Sunita and her family are excited about her book. “We get happy when we buy new clothes, and this is a book,” said Sunita. While this is an art book, Gobble You Up! is meant for children. “When you are working with art forms which are normally not used for children’s books, the balance has to be struck between retaining the essence of the form and communicating the story to children,” said Wolf. “We worked intensively with Sunita so that the essence of the story, and the sequence of images is easy for the child reader to comprehend.”

Gobble You Up! Tara Books, Rs850. Ages 3+.

 http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/books/features/munch-kin

By Bijal Vachharajani 

Book nook

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/book-nook

Time Out rounds up the latest children’s book releases

Bungee Cord Hair
Ching Yeung Russell, Scholastic, R175. Ages 12+.
Books in verse seem to be the newest form of young adult fiction to be lining the shelves of bookstores. Right after Inked’s Karma, comes another one, this time all the way from Hong Kong. A 12-year-old girl has to leave her grandmother in Mainland China to rejoin her family in Hong Kong. The narrator finds herself lost in this strange city, striving to continue her education while grappling with questions of identity and trying to understand where she actually belongs.

Set around the time when the Chinese government closed the door to Hong Kong, the book is a forceful read that deals with complex issues of immigration, displacement and growing up in the backdrop of political upheaval. In her author notes, Russell confesses that the protagonist reflects the struggles she faced as a child – “When I first came to Hong Kong at age 12, like most people who first immigrate to a new place, I faced quite a bit of discrimination (I didn’t even know that term then), which I had never anticipated.”

Russell writes compellingly, using simple words to sensitively portray how children feel when uprooted from familiar spaces and how little choice they actually have in matters that impact them hugely. Winner of the Scholastic Asian Book Award 2012, the book’s a sequel to Ching Yeung Russell’s Tofu Quilt. There’s a helpful glossary at the back which explains the lesserknown Chinese references.

The Diary of Amos Lee: Lights Camera, Superstar!
Adeline Foo, Hachette, R225. Ages 12+.
Yet another edition of Amos Lee’s out, the Wimpy Kid doppelganger who is based out of Singapore. This time around the school kid finds that his diaries have been stolen and the thief has gone ahead and published them online. Things start looking up when Lee gets tons of fan mail, thousands of people clamouring to be his friends on Facebook and a television director offering to make a show on his diaries. Of course, it’s Lee, so there’s plenty that can go awry, and it does. The end is kind of predictable, but by then we were too busy cracking up to actually mind. Adeline Foo’s writing is funny in parts, and there is a lot of restrained toilet humour predictably. But she manages to bring out tweenage angst well. Stephanie Wong’s illustrations make the book an easy read.

Hole books
Duckbill, R125 each. Ages 6+.
When we were children, a hole in our books would send us scurrying to our mommies in order to get rid of the culprits, those evil weevils and horrid silverfish in our cupboards. And now, Duckbill has introduced books that come with a hole. Only they aren’t of the alarming nature. Instead, the idea, as explained on the back cover is for kids to “Jump into reading through a Duckbill hole”. We couldn’t help but do that given how inviting the books looked. There are four books to choose from – Meera Nair’s Maya Saves the Day, Asha Nehemiah’s Trouble with Magic, Parinita Shetty’s The Monster Hunters and Sharanya Deepak’s The Vampire Boy. The books are beautifully illustrated, with an international feel.

The Maya of Nair’s imagination is a little girl who manages to meet an escaped tiger, rescue her little sister from being lost in a giant mall and also help out a few puppies along the way. In Shetty’s book, Abhay and Nitya take on a school project and decide to hunt down monsters which of course lead to some funny moments. Nehemiah writes an adorable tale of Veena and how her cockamamie ideas usually land her Aunt Malu into trouble. Deepak’s story tackles the familiar world of vampires, but with a quirky twist. All in all, a fun set of books. What’s the point of the hole? We will leave that to the kids to figure out.

By Bijal Vachharajani 

Hades and tales

Bijal Vachharajani spoke to author Rick Riordan about his newest book, House of Hades

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/books/features/interview-rick-riordan

At the start of his latest novel, American author Rick Riordan dedicates House of Hades to his readers, apologising for “that last cliff-hanger” on which the Heroes of Olympus’ third book, The Mark of Athena ended. We won’t play spoiler, but we do agree that he left us waiting anxiously for the next book. House of Hades is finally out and the quest continues where a motley crew of Roman and Greek demigods, including Percy Jackson, have to battle deadly monsters and infuriating gods, and even take on Cupid. The bestselling author mashes up mythology (at last count, it was Roman, Greek and Egyptian) with the contemporary world and the result is a series of roller coaster adventures that’re hilarious and insightful page turners. In House of Hades, the characters seem more mature, and while there’s plenty of action, there’s a tinge of melancholia as well. In an email interview with Time Out, Riordan spoke about writing contemporary mythology for young adults and on The House of Hades.

Tell us about your new novel.
The House of Hades is probably the most intense novel I’ve yet written. Two of my characters, Percy and Annabeth, must navigate Tartarus, the most dangerous part of the Underworld, while five of their friends must journey across the Mediterranean to find an ancient temple, the House of Hades, and find a way to bring Percy and Annabeth back to the world of the living.

Your novels bring together two disparate worlds – mythology and the modern world. Tell us about that.
I suppose they’re not as disparate as one might think. I like to take ancient myths and figure out what they have in common with the modern world. I have sons and daughters of the Greek gods running around in 21st-century America, fighting monsters and interacting with the Olympians. It’s a pretty easy match, actually. The myths are timeless and still relevant.

How do you craft characters such as ferocious cheerleaders and rebellious grain spirits? 
I have great fun bringing old monsters up to date. There are so many wonderful creatures from the classic myths. It’s just a matter of finding a way to make them colourful, funny    and engaging for modern kids. Vampire cheerleaders, evil grain spirits who look like babies with piranha teeth – why not?

How do you manage to extract humour from evil?
Humour is important to any story. It’s a leavening ingredient, and the more intense the threat, the more important it is to throw in a little comic relief. You see this in Hindu mythology as well, with Hanuman running around with his tail on fire. I think it’s just a natural human reaction, when faced with great darkness, to try lightening the mood with humour.

Despite the lead protagonist being male, your series has strong female characters. 
In my personal life, I am fortunate to be surrounded by strong women – my wife, my editors, my agent, my mother. They all advise me and have helped guide and shape my career. Given that, it would be very difficult for me to craft a weak, helpless female character. It simply wouldn’t ring true for me, and I’d get lots of grief about it if I tried!

When you started writing mythology-meets -the-contemporary world, how difficult was it to humanise these gods?
I love classic mythology but unless it is told very well it can seem remote to modern children. Setting the stories in the modern world can be very invigorating. As for humanising the gods, I’d argue that the Greek gods are very human to begin with. They have all the flaws humans do – jealousy, anger, envy, hatred etc. They are the human experience, only writ large.

You mentioned in an interview that if you could choose to be a god for a day , you would choose to be Hermes. 
Being Hermes would never get boring. He’s the god of so many things: communication, games of chance, commerce, trickery, ambassadors, thieves and travel. I love to travel. I’d also love to have his pair of winged shoes. That would save so much time in the airport.

How did you start writing children’s books?
My son Haley asked me to tell him some bedtime stories about Greek gods and heroes. I had taught Greek myths at the middle school level, so I was glad to comply. When I ran out of myths, he was disappointed and asked me if I could make up something new with the same characters. I thought about it for a few minutes. I remembered a creative writing project I used to do with my sixth-graders – I would let them create their own demigod hero, the son or daughter of any god they wanted, and have them describe a Greek-style quest for that hero. Off the top of my head, I made up Percy Jackson and told Haley all about his quest to recover Zeus’ lightning bolt in modern day America. It took about three nights to tell the whole story, and when I was done, Haley told me I should write it out as a book. I had a lot to do already, but I somehow found the time to write the first Percy Jackson book over the next year. I just really enjoyed writing it. The story was such fun, and so different from my adult fiction, that I found myself spending a lot of time on it. Now, I’m sure glad I did!

Tell us more about your crossover series, The Son of Sobek. Can we expect to see more?
The Son of Sobek was an experiment – combining the Greek world of Percy Jackson with the Ancient Egyptian mythology of the Kane Chronicles [Riordan’s Egyptian series]. I made it a short story, about forty pages, just to see what would happen, but it turned out so well and the fans reacted so positively I will be continuing the idea. I’m working on a second short work in which two other characters cross paths – Annabeth Chase and Sadie Kane.

Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades, Puffin, R499

By Bijal Vachharajani

Booked line and sinker

My interview with Cornelia Funke

http://www.timeoutdelhi.net/books/featuresfeaturesfeatures/booked-line-and-sinker