Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

I haven't watched TV in 9 months. The entire time I've been back in the USA. Eric's Palm Beach house had not TV. Malinda's farm had no TV. Walter's apartment in Williamsburg has no TV. I really don't miss it, because I've taken up reading instead of mindlessly worshipping the offerings of western consumerism..

When I was a kid, my father used to say, "You'll end up a loser watching that crap."

And he was right, so I have abandoned television for literature and recently read Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. This 2008 novel about the opium trade between India and China is a ruthless indictment on the high-minded cruelty of the British Empire echoing harshly in America for our involvement in the heroin trade throughout the world at present. Fortunes are made and lost through the nefarious trade. Mostly made by the nabobs and lost by the natives. This first book of a trilogy recreates the 1830s through a maze of characters destined by coincidence to travel across the 'black water' to a land of demons.

The author's power to bring the reader back in time is a gift without the power of CGI-film. reality based on words and dialogue.

Nothing like it on prime-time or at the cineplex, although SLUMDOG BILLIONAIRE might come close. Certainly not FRIDAY THE 13TH rehash. go to your library and ask for SEA OF POPPIES. It ain't poopie.