After two decades of sifting through manuscriptssome brilliant, many mediocre and the majority awfulDavid Davidar, editor and publisher of Penguin India, knows something about what makes a good read. So when it came time to write his first book, The House of Blue Mangoesa novel that he tinkered with for nearly ten yearshe went back to basics, offering up a straightforward but gripping narrative, an epic saga that has had publishers worldwide scrambling to buy it. Released in India last month and slated for the U.S. in March, the novel is already being called the "book of the year" and compared...
