Illiterarty.com Book reviews and blogs by Bridget

If this was food, it would be a giant tub of fresh popcorn, covered in hot, molten butter, with an old-school choc top for dessert.

If this was funnier, contained no sex whatsoever, five times less interesting to look at, but only slightly more suitable for children, it would be a The Charles Schulz Story, published 1971. (Have you READ early Peanuts? Good grief.)

An incredibly candid exploration of a few of the religious and cultural elements of that great and varied nation, India. Love it or hate it, there's just something about it...

If this was one of its crisp, aphoristic sentences, it would be: "The lessons of history do not suit our wishes. If they did, they wouldn't be lessons, and history would be a fairy story."

If this was a musician, it would be Paul Weller. Note to reader: I know fuck-all about music.

If this was a restaurant, it would serve Springbok kebabs with a union jack spiked, half-jokingly, into the top.

If this was a Lonely Planet guide to Portland, Oregon, it would be the SHEEZY.

If this was a twenty year old man with Dad issues, too much money and half a pound of coke up his nose, it would be Brett Easton Ellis.

Twenty one years ago this year (2007), Salman Rushdie ventured into Nicaragua; a country in Central America known almost exclusively in the the first world due to the “fact” that “the communists” had “taken over” the country, and the CIA were funding the resistance movement.

If this was a radio station, it would be Triple J—fun and youthful yet respectful to age (it’s owned by the ABC, let’s remember) but occasionally frustrating in its equanimity while bringin’ the bad local hip-hop at seven AM.

If this was a book cover, it would be its own - flashy, fun, inviting, two-dimensional and with a really wanky subtitle.

Shooting to kill is part biography of Christine Vachon’s vault into Producer Super Stardom and part DIY manual for struggling indie film-makers.

If this was an apartment block, it would be a boxily majestic, curiously liveable design of indeterminate age, which deserves to be cleaned more often.

If this was a pizza, it would be the pizza I’m going to make when I get home, using Lebanese bread as a base so you can eat a whole one (pizza) with many toppings and still feel a bit hungry. Pizza. PIZZA!

If this was a bottle of wine, it would be a cheap and unprepossessing 2-year-old chardonnay from God-knows-where that grows in splendour right up to the final drop.

If this was a stand-up routine, it would be one of those “themed” ones from a festival which is, sometimes despite itself, funny, and actually stands up better than a lot of the other fluff going around.

If this was a videogame, it would be something like Rainbow Six: Vegas—great attention to detail, confidence in its audience, not funded by the Pentagon, but a bit too dry for my tastes (sorry to be so literal, but I know not everybody’s used to using first-person shooter metaphors in their day to day lives, hard as it is to believe).

If this was a member of the pre-war idle rich, it would be Bertie Wooster.

If this was an autobiography, it would be effing awesome, but I’d also like to imagine that Chuck will always be too busy out there doing stuff to pen his own memoirs.