If you're feeling well and want to set yourself a challenge, focus on increasing the distance and frequency of runs rather than your speed. What happens next is a drive across India with rich descriptions of the country, its architecture, the people, the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty and the customs and ways that were so new to Baby, yet touched something deep in her soul. The Independent is among those reviewers who were mightily impressed, giving the book a 10/10 and reminding everyone that Rani’s tale pays respect to the South Asian mothers whose stories were often lost with them when they passed. The only criticism I have and it's a tiny niggle at that is the romance side of the book. Baby was on a journey to discover herself and her family's past. Did she really need to rely on a man to achieve this? Don't get me wrong I loved Sid but I would have appreciated the story more if it was just her standing by herself at the end of the story. Content and happy. But it's a tiny niggle as I said and doesn't take away from the brilliance of this book. He spoke too about the kerfuffle caused when Sir Salman Rushdie was set to attend in 2012 and when the festival invited two intellectuals from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), regarded as the champions of Hinduvta, to talk about their beliefs in 2017 at the festival. Roy said JLF was a festival principally of ideas and inclusive. He was in conversation with author Laline Paul at the India Club in The Strand and organised by thinktank Bridge India, on Wednesday July 19.

I particularly liked how amidst the scenic wonders Baby passes we hear her bum is suffering by the Indian style of driving! Anyway, it wasn't really a romance, it didn't really go into any depth about Partition (maybe if she ditched the romance and made it all about tracing what happened to Baby's grandfather's first wife and two children through Partition), it was a little bit Eat, Pray, Love in the way Baby 'found herself' travelling around a foreign country where she barely spoke the language, just because her grandparents and mother were born there. TBH it felt a bit like when Americans claim they are Irish because their great-great grandparents were Irish (and I know I few English people who do the same). Maybe worst of all, most of the book felt like we were being told things rather than seeing them. Even the exhaustive lists of food at every meal felt like it was being rammed down the reader's throat.I would have loved to see more of her cousin Ruchi. Would gladly read a follow up dedicated to just her. And you see Baby go through with her mother and aunts trying to set her up with an arranged marriage.

This all makes it sound quite heavy but it’s a much lighter book than it might seem – and of course, there’s the blossoming romance with Sid....Baby Does A Runner is a brilliant story about Baby, or Simran; a British-born Sikh woman who is single, in her 30s and struggling a bit with not getting the same opportunities in life as her male counterparts at work, and with the loss of her father. Following the discovery of some love letters to her grandfather from an unknown woman, she decides to go to India and find out about her grandfather's first wife.