Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

There is a strange group of pranksters who attend cinema screenings, only to collectively stand up and leave the moment that the film's title is spoken by a character, much to the bafflement of other audience members. Such folk would have no truck with this book, which repeats the terms "heat", "dust" or "heat and dust" countless times.

No problem though, this is a fine and considered book that won the Booker in 1975. There are two parallel stories; one of a British woman in colonial India who has a relationship with an Indian prince, the other of her great niece who is researching her family history. The stories compare and contrast nicely, and all those hot, dusty adjectives evoke the appropriate mood.