Rating: 
Summary: Informative and Engaging
Review: I had heard of William Dalrymple from various people who recommended that I read his books.
Finally, while on an extended trip to Bangalore, India, I picked up a couple of his books. I started with the "City of Djinns," since I had lived and studied in New Delhi and was a history buff.
This book provides is a succinct history of the ancient city of Delhi as seen through the eyes of the author who spent a year in Delhi.
Dalrymple peels back the layers of this old city in an interesting manner and gives us an interesting and dynamic glimpse of what the city must have looked like then. What is interesting is that he unravels the past history of Delhi through the eyes of informed denizens of the city. There is a tinge of nostalgia and poignancy when he unravels the history and introduces us to the old and fast disappering history and culture of Delhi. In this process we get to read about the idiosyncrasies of Lutyens (the Britisher who envisioned and built new Delhi), and we meet the last surviving members of the powerful Mughal Empire and how their existence is reduce to one of penury.We get an understanding of how the eunuch culture came into existence and how it continues to survive in modern day Delhi.
Since the book falls under the Travelogue category, I would recommend this as a must read book for those who want to know more about Delhi. The next time you visit Delhi step away from the usual tourist circuit and explore some of the areas that Dalrymple talks about in his book.
But, even if you are not traveling to India, this is a good read that helps us understand how cities are fast morphing into new entities and in this process a lot of the intricate social and cultural underpinnings of the society are being replaced by new social and cultural norms.
Rating:
Summary: Simply said - BUY IT !
Review: Seldom does ince come across an author like Dalrymple. This travel book is extraordinary - part history, part travel, part philosophy, but never didactic or critical. A wonderful description of what lays beneath modern day and unexciting Delhi...
Rating:
Summary: Great account of the past and the present
Review: This book concerns the year Dalrymple spends in Delhi, attempting to uncover the secrets and hidden past of this once-great city. Dalrymple skillfully weaves the accounts of his daily life with the history of Delhi. One moment, you are reading about a harrowing taxi-cab ride, and the next page, an account of Shah Jehan's life begins. Few writers can change the pace so suddenly and get away with it, but Dalrymple is able to segue into and out of topics effortlessly.
The pacing and tone of the book is great, and he injects enough humor to keep the reader chuckling from time to time. An overall great read.
This book is definitely one you should read if you are at all interested in India.
Rating: 
Summary: is really so easy?
Review: this book is great.I really like the way W.D. describes his living in Delhi, he is funny and he never patronizes.
I found strange how he always finds this amazing people there just to help him.
he is very educated but sometimes I think he shows off all his knowledge..
anyway my next trip to india will be to delhi
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting and lots of fun
Review: This is definitely one of the best books I have read. Dalrymple has a fascinating way of writing. He does not just drab on about a place in a matter of the fact way as the usual travel books do. He speaks to the people and gets the different emotions of the place out of them. Inspite of being from India-Bombay, I was never lucky enough to explore Delhi for a longer period of time. This book very interestingly goes backwards into the history of the city of Delhi. The Mughal part and the part on partition had me hooked on to the book. The writer visits Karachi, Shimla, Daulatabad and a number of othe places to get the essence of Delhi. Unfortunately for those planning to go to Delhi, while the City of Djinns makes fascinating reading, most of today's Delhi is a big mess. All the people from Delhi I have met, only have bad words about it. The population, crime rate, congestion, pollution are all very high. The once beautiful city of high Dehli- Urdu culture and tehzeeb (manners), has now been overtaken by a host of nouveau riche Punjabi immigrants who have given the city financial prosperity but made it lose its essence..... its heart.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful panoramic view of the history of Delhi and India
Review: William Dalrymple has a great writing style and a deep apetite for understanding the historical and cultural context. He neither takes the clinical distant approach to his subjects neither does he use a patronizing attitude to India. If you have been to Delhi, the book will be a great reading; if are planning to go there, it should be required reading. You will enjoy your trip so much more. Even if you don't go to Delhi, it is just a wonderful reading. Olivia has done a great job in her illustrations.
Rating:
Summary: twilight in Delhi
Review: William Dalrymple is a historian and brings considerable authority to the field of architecture as well and architecture in Delhi is the chronicle in stone from which the cities long and turbulent history can be read.
Djinns are ghosts and there are those that believe there are many in Delhi, Dalrymple gets the ghosts of the city to speak of the past by going through endless archives. One of the richest archives it turns out was nearer to him than he thought. His wife Olivia Fraser is a descendant of William Fraser who was a legendary figure in early nineteenth century Delhi at a time when Delhi was a place of perpetual conflict at the outermost edges of the empire. Fraser raised his own army made up of the strongest warriors from each successive tribe that he conquered and he ruled Delhi in a way not incomparible to Conrad's Kurtz(Dalrymple makes the comparison). William and Olivia stayed in the Fraser residence in Inverness, Scotland before leaving for Delhi only to find that one room away from where they were sleeping were stacks and stacks of William Fraser's old letters.
Dalrymple discusses at length the many great figures of Delhis past including James Forbes, Fraser, Sir David Ochterlony and James Skinner and after investigating them in books he then ventures out to find what remains of the forts and palaces they resided in.
Also there is much from Delhis more recent past. Dalrymple interviews many still living Djinns who remember the great atrocities that followed the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan where vast numbers of people migrating in opposite directions(Hindus into India, Muslims to Pakistan)began killing each other. Virtually all of old Delhi, once famous for its high degree of Urdu culture was displaced by a largely peasant population of Punjabi immigrants which completely changed every aspect of the city, including the language. A fascinating colony of the old Delhi-wallahs lives on in exile in Karachi and Dalrymple heads there to hear stories from the exiled Djinns, the last remaining voices of a once great city.
Making his way further into the past through the travel narratives of the Italian Niccolao Manucci, the Frenchmen Francois Bernier and the Moroccan Ibn Battuta, Dalrymple brings to life the 17th century Delhi of Shah Jehan and the 14th century Delhi of Tughluk then explores what remains of the great cities that Delhi was(Delhi was rebuilt time and again, at least eight different cities one on top of the other)and finds sometimes tucked away beneath or within one of the modern structures of this much more utilitarian and mundane age, evidence of a once magnificent Mogul palace or courtyard or zenana.
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