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Book summary and reviews of Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey

Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey

Climbing the Mango Trees

A Memoir of a Childhood in India

by Madhur Jaffrey

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Oct 2006
    320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Today’s most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Upon finishing this splendid memoir, the reader will delight in the 30 "family-style" recipes included as lagniappe at the end." - PW, starred review.

"Readers will lap up this mouthwatering memoir and hungrily await a sequel." - Kirkus.

This information about Climbing the Mango Trees was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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More Information

The word lagniappe, as used by the PW reviewer, means "an extra or unexpected gift or benefit." It derives from the New World Spanish word "la ñapa", (the gift), which in turn comes from Quechuan* word "yapay" (to give more). It acquired its French style spelling as a result of having been absorbed into the Creole dialect of New Orleans!

*Quechua was the language of the Inca Empire, and is still spoken, in various dialects, by about 10 million people in South America, making it the most widely spoken American Indian language.

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