I had difficulty trimming my list of books about Bombay to the “top three” favourites. There were many ties, and many yet to be read. While it's my memories and love of the city that motivates my enthusiasm, the books reinforce and reignite those feelings. I’ve yet to find something relatable about Australia.

On my lengthy flight in to Sydney, I armed myself with Peter Carrey’s Oscar and Lucinda. It’s a book set in the mid nineteenth century, superficially, it’s about an Australian woman and Englishman meeting on a voyage to Australia and what their mutual gambling compulsions result in. Both that and Carey’s later novel about the Australian outlaw, Ned Kelly, were clinical reads for me. Neither did anything to help me connect or relate to the country I was hoping to make my new home.

I haven’t had the time or the inclination since to search out more Australiana reading material, and am looking for any suggestions. However, here are my Bombay-centric reading lists:

Top three faves

• Love and Longing in Bombay, Vikram Chandra
• Such a Long Journey, Rohinton Mistry
• City of Gold, Gillian Tindall

Close contenders

• A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
• A Son of the Circus, John Irving
• The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie

Reading wishlist

• Maximum City, Suketu Mehta
• Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra
• Bombay Time, Thrity Umrigar
• And the Bollywood-themed Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire by Vijay Mishra, a professor at Murdoch University.