These Foolish Things

by Deborah Moggach (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $4.10

  Enticed by advertisements for a newly restored palatial hotel and filled with visions of a life of leisure, good weather and mango juice in their gin, a group of very different people leave England to begin a new life in India. On arrival they are dismayed to find the palace is a shell of its former self, the staff more than a little eccentric, and the days of the Raj long gone. But, as they soon discover, life and love can begin again, even in the most unexpected circumstances.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $4.33

  Dr Ravi Kapoor has reached the end of his tether. He is over-worked and exhausted; his South London hospital is out of funds; and reporters are hounding him about a pensioner, who for three days lay on a trolley in A and E, untended, the blood stiffening on her clothes. Even home life has become impossible, as his father-in-law, a disgusting and difficult old man, has been kicked out of his nursing home and has moved into Ravi's spare bedroom. But then that 'tip top man', his cousin, Sonny, has his brainwave, his 'great eureka'. These Foolish Things is about Dunroamin, a converted guesthouse in Bangalore, where Sonny opens a home for old people. Travel and set-up are inexpensive, staff willing and plentiful - and the British pensionsers can enjoy the hot weather and take mango juice with their gin. Skilfully inter-weaving the stories of the inhabitants of Dunroamin, their characters and their families, Deborah Moggach has created a world in which hilarity is matched with the poignancy of getting old, and comedy with the darker issues of care in the community.