The Five Dollar Smile: And Other Stories

This touching and funny collection of stories showcases Tharoor’s daunting literary acumen, as well as the keen sensitivity that informs his ability to write profoundly and entertainingly on themes ranging from family conflict to death. In the title story—written in a lonely hotel room in Geneva soon after the author began his work with the United Nations—a young Indian orphan is on his way to visit America for the first time, and his anguish and longing in the airplane seem hardly different fro…