Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Hardcover)

'Mehta fills his kaleidoscopic portrait of "the biggest, fastest, richest city in India" with captivating moments of danger and dismay' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Mehta delivers a fresh and mesmerising look at contemporary Bombay.' Buzz! (Buzz! 20050204)

'In Suketu Mehta [Bombay] has found a biographer fully worthy of its vitality, its monstrousness and its Byzantine complexity. Destined to become a classic of its kind...like the best of novels, it transcends geographical and historical particularities to become a startlingly life-affirming portrait of humanity itself.' Daily Mail 08/04/2005 (Daily Mail 18991230)

'Reveals stories of exceptional depth and interest... a substantial achievement' (The Sunday Times (Patrick French) 20050401)

'Mehta's tales... read like a modern Arabian Nights, only crueller, more poignant, more real... MAXIMUM CITY is a tour de force' (The Times 20050511)

'Suketu Mehta writes ... with the observant eye of a journalist and the colour and energy of a novelist... He takes his time and he does it brilliantly. No one will try to write another portrait of Bombay for a very long time' (Hampstead & Highgate Express )

'Compulsively readable... the best non-fiction book on India in a couple of decades' (FT magazine )

'Reveals a melting pot of punchy, tangible characters... a gripping portrait of life in the hopeful city that hits you like the first burning blast of India's air' (Observer )

'Mehta's primary interest is in capturing the city as he experienced it during his stay... he records the moment with perfect clarity' (Daily Telegraph )

'A compelling, funny, poignant debut... he places his enthusiastic and intrepid self at the centre of his narrative and weaves a squalid, glittering, courageous, spectacular, grotesque, redemptive tapesty' (Observer )

'Remarkable... In these pages, densely packed with facts, observations, vignettes and insights, he brings the city alive with love, longing and sadness' (Independent (Salil Tripathi) )

'The reader is alternately horrified, dazzled and overwhelmed... This is a magnificent work, which has '"epic" written all over it' (Northern Echo )

'Bombay deserves a big bustling book and this is it... Any suspicion of voyeurism or gossip is handsomely refuted by Mehta's candour as an observer and his considerable virtuosity as a writer' Literary Review 01/04/2005 (Literary Review )

'This isn't just a history of Bombay, it's a tell-all biography, an undercover investigation and a personal odyssey. Mehta doesn't just interview people, he "Louis-Therouxs" them. .. For sheer richness and vitality it's closer to a Rushdie novel than the text most will compare it to - Naipaul's "India: A million Mutinies now"' Time Out, May 11-18 2005 (Time Out London )

...unquestionably one of the most memorable non-fiction books to come out of India for many years, and there is little question that it will become the classic study of Bombay.' (William Dalrymple )

'MAXIMUM CITY is part nightmare and part millennial hallucination... Suketu Mehta has taken travel writing to an entirely new level. This is a gripping, compellingly readable account of a love affair with a city: I couldn't put it down ‘ (Amitav Ghosh )

'one of the best books to travel to India with.' (Observer ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.