Reading Recommendation

I just emailed ten friends (well, eight friends, two brothers) the following:

I don't normally recommend books unasked (at least, I don't think I do), but I feel compelled to in this case, since I just finished a book that I thought was really, really good: Sonia Faleiro, Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars.
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Thing-Sonia-Faleiro/dp/0857861697

I had some issues with the way the book handled non-English words and phrases - some were "translated," others weren't, and I couldn't always figure out from context what the characters were saying, which was a problem. But I also appreciated the way they were used to set the scene, so it might have been the right call on the author's & editors' parts. Maybe less of an issue for my Desi friends?
Overall it's an impressive book, though; incredibly funny, despite being about a prostitute - although just what she is, and isn't, is part of the story - in Bombay, and, obviously, also incredibly sad. "Leela," the main character, is just an amazing figure, though, the kind of subject I would think journalists spend their lives looking for (and the NY Times agrees - see their review). Not that this is strictly journalism, if that kind of distinction still holds in this day and age, but the book is based on the research the author did into the women who worked in Bombay's "dance bars" (kind of like clothes-on stripping, but generally stemming from sexual exploitation and poverty, and leading to more). And the relationship between the author and Leela is one of the best parts of the book.

So...anyways, of course no pressure to read it, but if anyone's looking for a book that is as easy to read as a novel, but is nonfiction, and totally engrossing, I vote for this one :)

The book really was fantastic. I want to write more, but the library called the book back, and I feel like it's so good it deserves a "review" written with book in hand, for checking stuff. So I think I will need to call it back myself.