"When I was 12, I spent three weeks isolated on the island of Sardinia with my father and his young family. I found a copy of Clavell on the bookshelf in the home that we were renting and it saved me. Historical fiction became a lifelong love, and James Clavell a guide."

"There is nothing I can really say here that hasn’t been said before, or even add to that hasn’t been added. Safe to say, these books are as important to me as they have been to many. Two pivotal, historical works that will never rest happily at home upon a dusty shelf."

"There is nothing I can really say here that hasn’t been said before, or even add to that hasn’t been added. Safe to say, these books are as important to me as they have been to many. Two pivotal, historical works that will never rest happily at home upon a dusty shelf."

"Rushdie combines historical reality and mythical fiction to deliver a magnificent and magical account of India’s transition to independence and partition. It tells the story of a young man born along with hundreds of others at the very moment India becomes independent and through these new lives come hopes, dreams, curses and complication."