4. There are many groups of siblings in this book, some estranged, some close: Hari and Shiva; Meera and Leela; Bharati and Ash; Urvashi, Sunita, and Ram. What is the importance of the sibling relationship in the book?
5. Why do you think Ganesh has such an attachment to Leela? Why is it that he is concerned about her above all others?
6. The book presents two different explanations for Leela’s fainting at the wedding: seeing Bharati, or seeing Ganesh. Which do you think is right? Could they both be possible?
7. What is Ganesh’s relationship to Leela’s Book? Is the book he has Linda transcribe the very book that we are reading? If so, do you think Ganesh is a reliable narrator?
8. What do you think of Vyasa? Does your opinion of him change over the course of the story, and if so, how?
9. Why do you think Leela hides the secrets of her past from Hari? Why did she marry him in the first place?
10. Why does Shiva Prasad harbor political ambitions? Do you think his reputation will improve when he follows Dharma and retires to the forest?
11. One theme of the book is reconciliation, and by the end of the book there have been several notable reconciliations. However, there are notable conflicts and dilemmas that have not been resolved: the relationship between Aisha, Humayan, and his mother; the relationship between Ash and Ram. What do you think the future has in store for them?
12. The book ends with Leela’s promise that she will write a book for Bharati. Why do you think Leela is doing it, and what do you think its contents will be?
MORE NORTON BOOKS WITH READING GROUP GUIDES AVAILABLE
Diana Abu-Jaber
Birds of Paradise
Crescent
Origin
Diane Ackerman
The Zookeeper’s Wife
Rabih Alameddine
I, the Divine
Rupa Bajwa
The Sari Shop
Andrea Barrett
The Air We Breathe
The Voyage of the Narwhal
Peter C. Brown
The Fugitive Wife
Lan Samantha Chang
Hunger
Inheritance
Anne Cherian
A Good Indian Wife
Marilyn Chin
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen
Leah Hager Cohen
House Lights
Michael Cox
The Glass of Time
The Meaning of Night
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Andre Dubus III
The Garden of Last Days
John Dufresne
Louisiana Power & Light
Requiem, Mass.
Anne Enright
The Forgotten Waltz
Jennifer Cody Epstein
The Painter from Shanghai
Ellen Feldman
Lucy
Scottsboro
Susan Fletcher
Eve Green
Oystercatchers
Paula Fox
The Widow’s Children
Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique
Denise Giardina
Emily’s Ghost
Barbara Goldsmith
Obsessive Genius
Stephen Greenblatt
Will in the World
Helon Habila
Waiting for an Angel
Patricia Highsmith
Strangers on a Train
Ann Hood
The Knitting Circle
Dara Horn
All Other Nights
The World to Come
Janette Turner Hospital
Due Preparations for the Plague
Pam Houston
Contents May Have Shifted
Sight Hound
Helen Humphreys
Coventry
The Lost Garden
Wayne Johnston
The Custodian of Paradise
Erica Jong
Sappho’s Leap
N. M. Kelby
White Truffles in Winter
Peg Kingman
Not Yet Drown’d
Nicole Krauss
The History of Love*
Don Lee
Country of Origin
Ellen Litman
The Last Chicken in America
Vyvyane Loh
Breaking the Tongue
Benjamin Markovits
A Quiet Adjustment
Joe Meno
The Great Perhaps
Maaza Mengiste
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze
Emily Mitchell
The Last Summer of the World
Honor Moore
The Bishop’s Daughter
The White Blackbird
Liz Moore
Heft
Donna Morrissey
Sylvanus Now*
Daniyal Mueenuddin
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Patrick O’Brian
The Yellow Admiral*
Samantha Peale
The American Painter Emma Dial
Heidi Pitlor
The Birthdays
Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea
Mary Roach
Bonk
Spook*
Stiff
Gay Salisbury and
Laney Salisbury
The Cruelest Miles
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
The Snow Fox
Laura Schenone
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken
Jessica Shattuck
The Hazards of Good Breeding
Perfect Life
Frances Sherwood
The Book of Splendor
Joan Silber
Ideas of Heaven
The Size of the World
Johanna Skibsrud
The Sentimentalists
Dorothy Allred Solomon
Daughter of the Saints
Mark Strand and
Eavan Boland
The Making of a Poem*
Ellen Sussman (editor)
Bad Girls
Mary Helen Stefaniak
The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
Sara Stockbridge
The Fortunes of Grace Hammer
Brady Udall
The Lonely Polygamist
Barry Unsworth
Land of Marvels
Sacred Hunger
Brad Watson
The Heaven of Mercury*
Jenny White
The Abyssinian Proof
Belle Yang
Forget Sorrow
Alexi Zentner
Touch
*Available only on the Norton Web site: www.wwnorton.com/guides
Copyright © 2011 by Alice Albinia
First published as a Norton paperback 2013
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,
please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at
[email protected] or 800-233-4830
Manufacturing by Courier Westford
Production manager: Anna Oler
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Albinia, Alice, 1976–
Leela's book : a novel. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-08270-8 (hardcover)
1. Weddings—Fiction. 2. Ganesa (Hindu deity)—Fiction.
3. Delhi (India)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS6101.L42L44 2012
823'.92—dc23 2011040074
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
ISBN 978-0-393-34393-9 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-393-08349-1 (ebook)
<
br /> W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
Leela's Book Page 40
