Max Pzoras is a young man living the American dream but after his mother’s death, he becomes disillusioned with life. He meets an Indian man working at a food cart.  It’s bitter cold and the man isn’t even wearing a shirt and is barefoot.  Max offers the man his coat but the man says he’s not cold.  He then tells Max about the yogis at the top of the Himalayan Mountains who can walk on water and live to be hundreds of years old.  This sparks an interest in Max that leads him to India in search of his own enlightenment.

This book is a No. 1 bestseller in India. It reads as a memoir and is so realistic that it’s hard to remember that it’s fictional.  Actually, some of this novel is based on the author’s real-life experiences.  The author is extremely talented and you’ll not only read about Max’s journey but you’ll be with him as he hikes up the Himalayan Mountains in the winter, you’ll smell the smells and hear the sounds of the night market, you’ll suffer with Max in his cave.  Your feet will ache with the cold as Max walks barefoot on ice, you’ll feel his hunger as he fasts, you’ll feel the heat of the Indian sun burning his head.

Not many books have touched my heart and soul like this one has. Reading it was such a beautiful experience.  I didn’t just read it, I lived every moment of it with Max.  Take this spiritual journey with Max so you can see for yourself the many wonders of the spiritual world.  It’s much too deep a book to give it justice in a review.

Highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher through First to Read in return for an honest review.

 Max is a determined guy. The son of an impoverished, immigrant, single mother living in the war zone that is the South Bronx he manages to survive and prosper getting scholarships to ivy league schools.

Before you know it he's pulling down the big bucks working for a private equity firm on Wall Street.

When his mother dies, Max experiences one of those "what's life all about" moments and an unlikely conversation with an Indian food cart owner sends him on a spiritual quest to the Himalayas.

Right about here, that would be page thirty, I'm about ready to abandon The Yoga of Max's Discontent. Though well-written and fast paced the opening is a cliché and do I really want to read the male version of Elizabeth Gilbert's specious Love, Eat, Pray?

However, author Karan Bajaj is Indian so maybe (I hope) his story will become more original once his protagonist reaches more familiar terrain.

It does.

Max's journey through the sub-continent searching for a guru to teach him the road to enlightenment is enhanced by memorable characters and stunning imagery. His internal journey to see "the unborn, un-aging, un-ailing, sorrowless, and deathless face-to-face" is fascinating.

Despite dealing with mystical concepts and practices, this reader never found it didactic though it might not appeal to those looking for romance and high-adventure.

As Max's travails increase and transcendence continues to elude him I actually became concerned with how Bajaj would end this novel.

Would the author renounce all his remarkable insight, seemingly authentic experience and intensive research to accommodate a Hollywood ending? Would the novel be bookended by clichés?

He doesn't. It isn't.

The ending is brilliant, appropriate, even inspiring and, I have to say, somewhat courageous on the part of the author.

There are books for different times of your life. The Yoga of Max's Discontent resonated for me, now.

In case you don't know, and why would you, I write a fair number of book reviews.

They're broken into two categories:

- Reviews of new, self-published authors, and

- Reviews of new, traditionally published Canadian authors.

I post these reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, BookLikes, LibraryThing, Smashwords and Google Books as well as my local library subject to the book being available on or through these sites. For example, if a book is not listed on Smashwords, no review is posted.

With new self-published authors I also post the review as a video on my YouTube channel Not Your Family, Not Your Friend Book Reviews https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH45n8K4BVmT248LBTpfARQ

I've chosen these two categories to review because I am them (or is it they are me) and I know how difficult it is to get reviewed and acknowledged.

I'm not a top Amazon reviewer - my actual ranking is 323,578. My YouTube channel has one hundred and ninety views, half of them probably me trying to get it right, and one subscriber. So I was a bit surprised to receive this email:

Dear Rod,

As a quick introduction, I was the #1 bestselling novelist in India in 2008 (Keep off the Grass, HarperCollins India) and 2010 (Johnny Gone down, HarperCollins India) with 200,000+ copies of my novels in print. Both novels have been optioned into major films, currently in different stages of development.

Penguin Random House publishes my first international novel, THE YOGA OF MAX’S DISCONTENT, worldwide in Spring 2016. The book is about a Wall Street investment banker who becomes a yogi in the Himalayas and is both a page turning adventure through the hidden underbelly of India and a journey of tremendous inner transformation. I was looking at books with similar themes i.e. contemporary fiction or international voices on Amazon and saw you had reviewed The Lowland.

Would you be interested in receiving a free advance review copy of my novel? We're sharing them with a small handful of interested international readers for their honest reviews in advance of the The Yoga of Max's Discontent’s worldwide release.

I'd be obliged if you could let me know of your interest.

Thank you,

Karan Bajaj

I'm not going to flatter myself by thinking I was personally chosen, or that I'm even part of "a small handful of interested international readers" since there are already twenty-eight advance reviews for the novel posted on Goodreads. More likely there's a software program that selected me because I reviewed The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Though this novel doesn't fit into my review criteria I'm going to accept the author's offer of an advance reading copy (ARC) for an honest review.

I sent out ARCs prior to self-publishing my last two books, The BIG PICTURE - A Camera, A Young Woman, An Uncompromising Ethic and FOREST - Love, Loss, Legend. Each time about one hundred and fifty people who'd previously expressed an interest in my work received an e-book . Altogether I doubt I got a half a dozen reviews.

It's interesting that an author with considerable success and a powerhouse traditional publisher behind him is doing what appears to be the same hands on book flogging a nobody like me resorts to.

I'll keep you posted on the process and my review.

Stay calm, be brave, watch for the signs

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