The Hungry Tide

One of the great delights of reading a novel by the likes of Ghosh or Salman Rushdie is imagining their dialogue emerging in the mellifluous tones of the Indian-accented English spoken by their characters. In this audiobook, narrator Bamji accomplishes that task with skill, credibly rendering the lilting flavor of subcontinental English and reveling in the musicality of Ghosh's tale, set in a remote sector of India. Bamji invests most of his resources into the rich, ringing cadences of Kanai, the translator and intellectual at the heart of the book. Kanai, a striver looking to pull himself up by his bootstraps, possesses a certain comic charm, and Bamji embraces the role with panache. He also alternates smoothly between Kanai's dulcet tones and the flatness of Indian-American scientist Piyali, who encounters Kanai by chance when traveling to investigate Indian marine life. Ghosh's book evocatively imagines an India poised between past and present, and Bamji brings out the enormous range of voices clamoring for attention in this unfamiliar setting. Simultaneous release with the Houghton Mifflin hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 14). (May)