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Two Lives
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
6 posts | 7 read | 9 to read
Vikram Seth'S Captivating Book Is The Story Of A Century And Of A Love Affair Across A Racial Divide Shanti Behari Seth Was Born On The Eighth Day Of The Eighth Month In The Eighth Year Of The Twentieth Century; He Died Two Years Before Its Close. He Was Brought Up In India In The Late Years Of The Raj, And Was Sent By His Family In The 1930S To Berlin Though He Could Not Speak A Word Of German To Study Medicine And Dentistry. It Was Here, Before He Migrated To Britain, That Shanti'S Path First Crossed That Of His Future Wife. Henny Gerda Caro Was Also Born In 1908, In Berlin, To A Jewish Family, Cultured, Patriotic And Intensely German. When The Family Decided To Have Shanti As A Lodger, Henny S First Reaction Was, 'Don'T Take The Black Man!' But A Friendship Flowered, And When Henny Fled Hitler'S Germany For England, Just One Month Before The War Broke Out, She Was Met At Victoria Station By The Only Person She Knew In The Country: Shanti. Vikram Seth, Their Great-Nephew From India, Arrived In This Childless Couple'S Life As A Teenage Student. Now He Has Woven Together The Astonishing Story Of Shanti And Henny, And The Result Is An Extraordinary Tapestry Of India, The Third Reich And The Second World War, Auschwitz And The Holocaust, Israel And Palestine, Postwar Germany And 1970S Britain. Two Lives Is Both A History Of A Violent Country Seen Through The Eyes Of Two Survivors As Well As An Intimate Portrait Of Their Friendship, Marriage And Abiding Yet Complex Love. Part Biography, Part Memoir, Part Meditation On Our Times, This Is The True Tale Of Two Remarkable Lives A Masterful Telling From One Of Our Greatest Living Writers. Click Here To See Vikram Seth'S Microsite
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ponyflorist
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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This is a double biography of the authors aunt and uncle.. which also tells a bit of Seth's life.. it's peppered with excerpts from letters and interviews etc.. I couldn't put it down.

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MrBook
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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Today‘s author spotlight: Vikram Seth! The 67-year-old was born in Calcutta, India. He studied at Oxford & Stanford. He was commissioned by the English National Opera to write a Greek myth-based libretto, which was first performed in 1994. He received a Q9.4 mil advance for his novel “Two Lives”, far more than the 6a8,000 for “A Suitable Boy”. He lives in poet George Herbert‘s former home. He is gay & an activist. #AuthorPotpourri #TheMoreYouKnow

Amiable LOVED “A Suitable Boy.“ Have been awaiting a sequel! 5y
ljuliel Holy Smokes ! That‘s a lot of money for one book. I know nothing about what authors make, so maybe lots of them get million dollar deals ? 5y
BookFreakOut @ljuliel Based on some discussion I've seen (among YA authors) a more typical advance would be $5000-15,000/book for a debut, the splashy bug deals are uncommon but often more visible. 5y
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BookFreakOut @ljuliel *big deals, can't type today! And I believe advances are typically split into 3 payments: contract signed, book delivered, book published. Minus agent percentage if applicable and taxes each time, many say it's hard to quit the day job because the payments are infrequent and you never know what kind of advance the next book might get. 5y
ljuliel Thanks for the info @BookFreakOut . I guess I‘ve never heard anything about dollar amounts. I suppose it‘d depend on the author, how popular, etc. like Stephen King probably gets millions for every book .. it‘d be a great job if you could break through with a bestseller , but hard if you kept writing and never hit it big. 5y
ValerieAndBooks A Suitable Boy is one of my favorites and have been long awaiting the sequel! @ljuliel @BookFreakOut I actually just finished reading a book that covers writers and money and things like how advances work! Very interesting. 5y
ljuliel Thanks. I just put it in my reminder area. @ValerieAndBooks 5y
69 likes7 comments
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Jas16
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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RadicalReader @Jas16 what's deckled edged? 8y
38 likes1 comment
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Jas16
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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This is a is certainly a memoir I love. I sent my brother the copy I originally read as soon as I finished it (even though he had asked me to stop sending him books. I guess my packages were taking over his home. I have never had to tell anyone anything even remotely similar ) and then bought it in hard cover. #memoirlove #17booklove

Cinfhen This sounds like something I would love! Stacked!!! 8y
Jas16 @Cinfhen hope you like it! 8y
31 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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Erynecki
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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I've got just 100 pages left in this memoir about friendship, immigration, an Indian student, and a German Jewish woman he befriended and later married. It's the history of the war years (WWII) told through the intimate details of one family's tale. Loved the first section, found that the middle section dragged a bit, and finding the last section engaging.

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Erynecki
Two Lives | Vikram Seth
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A good friend just loaned me this book and I'm looking forward to starting it.

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