Shantaram [Paperback]

Gregory David Roberts (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 936 pages
• Publisher: Scribe (2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 192076920X
• ISBN-13: 978-1920769208
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (544 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne, Australia. A gifted writer and student, he became addicted to heroin when his marriage collapsed and he lost the custody of his daughter. When he committed a series of robberies with an imitation pistol, he was described as the Gentleman Bandit. Sentenced to nineteen years in prison, he escaped and journeyed to New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and Europe. For ten of those fugitive years he lived in Bombay-where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for a branch of the Bombay mafia. Recaptured in Germany, he served out his sentence there and in Australian prisons. Upon his release, he established a successful multimedia company, and since the international publication of Shantaram, he is a full-time writer, at home in several countries.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do yourself a favor: read this book., January 23, 2005

By 

Michael Zwerdling (Palm Harbor, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shantaram: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have, in the last three years, read literally hundreds of books of fiction. I can quite easily list the three bodies of work which were the most enjoyable, instructive, and otherwise influential to me. In order they are: 1) the entire 21 book series of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin historic naval literature (probably the best series of books I have ever read), 2) the three books of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and the System of the World), each book being better than the previous one, and 3) Shantaram.

Shantaram is a love story from start to finish: love of mankind, love of friends, love of a woman, love of a country, love of a city, love of an adversary, love of a way of life, love of a people, love of adventure, love of a father, and, most apparent, love for the reader.

The protagonist (based on the writer himself) is a complex adventurer with a deep soul and a past which, though you and I can never fully appreciate it unless we have done similar things (highly unlikely...few of us have ever been tortured, for example, or kicked a heroin habit twice) is made accessible to us, complete with its feelings and lessons.

The writing is superb, the characters have depth, the setting descriptions place you right there, the plots are intriguing, and the emotions, including humor, I cannot adequately describe, since I have nowhere near the skills of the writer, Gregory Roberts.

I cannot recommend the book more highly. Please do yourself a favor and read it.

398 of 434 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marvel, October 22, 2004

By 

Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shantaram: A Novel (Hardcover)

Shantaram is one of those books that you wait to find for five years, even a decade. You know how it is. You read a really great book and, on coming to the end page, immediately want to find another book just as good to fill its place. So you go out looking for such a book, but cannot find it. You look for a week, then a month, then months turn to years, and finally,5 to 10 years later, you finally find a book that is a really great read.

Shantaram is such a book. It is an A+ story that captivates you on page one and sustains the pace through every one of its 920 pages. It overflows with a wide range of characters of every moral persuasion, good and bad. And it is rich with the big themes on the nature of humanity and the human struggle to survive and thrive, for better or worse. In addition, the actual writing is superb, descriptive and often beautiful, without ever descending into sentimental or maudlin. Roberts always manages to find the right phrase or word to bring into clear focus the incredible wide range of experiences he paints. I might add, this is one book that I do not want to see as a movie, because there is no way that a mere movie could be a fraction as good as this glorious, three dimensional work.

I'll be lucky if I have to wait only another 5 - 10 years to find another book this good.

149 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Measure All Other Books By, May 17, 2005

By 

Marion "[e-mail]" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shantaram: A Novel (Hardcover)

What a book! What a story! The characters are as real as your hand in front of your face and you'll want to hop on the next airplane to Bombay (Mumbai), India to drop in at Leopold's to chance a glimpse of the old gang.....

This book will rip your heart out, stomp on it, and put it back in your chest all repaired by the ending. It took me a week to read and it was the best week of my life. I cried when it was over and haven't been able to read another book since. Truly an epic masterpiece.