GUJARATI WRITER TOPPLES CHETAN BHAGAT IN APRIL BEST SELLER BOOK LIST

Ronnie Screwvala Tops The List, Followed By Aashu Patel & Chetan Bhagat

Mumbai: Top five best seller list for the month of April 2015 released by India’s leading book store, Granth, features debutant writer Ronnie Screwvala and Gujarati author Aashu Patel in the top two slots, ahead of India’s top rated writer Chetan Bhagat. In less than half a month of its release Aashu Patel’s thriller ‘Madam X’ is emerging as the most picked-up book, but is ranked second in the list. Ronnie Screwvala’s ‘Dream With Your Eyes Open’ tops the list with Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Half Girlfriend’ and Gillian Flynn’s ‘Dark Places’ marking the third and fourth spot respectively.

Aashu Patel is a renowned Indian writer who has written over twenty-five books in Gujarati has also been a leading journalist and editor of prominent Gujarati media. Madam X is a first in English for the best-selling Indian author that was released on April 15, 2015. A saga on Mumbai underworld, the book was launched by the renowned director Tigmanshu Dulia who also has formally announced his plans on adapting the book into a Bollywood film.

“Back in the nineties while I was into journalism, I extensively studied and tracked the underworld. It is during this period that I got acquainted with people from the underworld and this gave me the edge when I began writing plots around the subject. Madam X is perhaps the only female protagonist in the otherwise male dominated underworld,” says the author. “The story is about how a small-town girl’s ambition to make it big takes her on an unexpected, roller-coaster journey to becoming the protégé of an infamous don to eventually becoming the most dreaded gangster of the underworld.”

Aashu Patel after starting his career as a journalist in Gujarati, made his mark as a columnist and later a writer. He has 26 published books to his credit including a coffee table book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Top 5 titles of April, 2015 (Granth Bookstore):

1. ‘Dream with your eyes open’ by Ronnie Screwvala
2. ‘Madam X’ by Aashu Patel
3. ‘Half girlfriend’ by Chetan Bhagat
4. ‘Dark places’ by Gillian Flynn
5. ‘Something happened on the way to heaven’ by Sudha Murthy