I was drawn to the Alphabet Soup for Lovers after reading some of the excerpts posted by two of my bibliophile friends. The food allegories were so simple that they were tempting. I've never read any whole novel of Anita Nair before, and having heard praise for her from many friends, the excerpts had an immediate effect. I ran to Amazon the moment the prices dropped and bought myself a copy.

Neither did I wait too long to start reading the Alphabet Soup for Lovers. I started reading it in trai...