Recommendations, please!

I'm looking for book recommendations. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of free time to browse through the bookstore or library, so am hoping to get some suggestions here.

My favorite books are those that take place in a foreign country and tell about the culture and people through the characters. Right now I am reading Song of the Cuckoo Bird by Amulya Malladi and I'm really enjoying it.

I'm very drawn towards India and places further east. But I would be excited to read a novel set anywhere if the story were good!

Thanks in advance.

For starters:

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar
The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Thank you!

I've read The Kite Runner and really enjoyed that. I'll definitely get the others you've mentioned.

I'm very excited! I'll let you know after I've finished them.

Happy reading! 

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 
Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur


 
 

I must be the only person on the planet who hated the Kite Runner.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 
Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur

Thanks, Mort! Those all look very good.

I read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (and saw the movie) - will definitely get Interpreter of Maladies.

Also, this isn't exactly the region you asked for (set in Mexico), and I'm not sure if you like magical realism, but if you do, try Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. It's a super short book, and a quick read.
 

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 

How could I have forgotten that one? I just finished re-reading it last week!

I heartily recommend an autobiography: Daughter of Perisa by Sattareh Farman Farmaian

http://www.powells.com/biblio/0307339742?&PID=25822

Also, To the Is-land (and the two sequals) by Janet Frame, although that is much more about her life than the country.

http://www.biography-clarebooks.co.uk/item4623.htm

Life of Pi bu Yann Martell

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Also, this isn't exactly the region you asked for (set in Mexico), and I'm not sure if you like magical realism, but if you do, try Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. It's a super short book, and a quick read.

I read it and saw the movie a hundred times. I love that story.

Thank you, everyone, for the suggestions. They all look really good! 

Far Afield by Susana Kaysen.  If you can find it.  I've wanted to re-read it recently and have been having a hard time finding it.  I read it a year or two after it first came out, and it's the source of me bugging Mr. Moggs constantly that our first long holiday outside the UK should be to the Faroe Islands.