For more than a hundred years now, Indians have watched movies made in the subcontinent, sung the songs and gossiped about the stars. Bollywood has been a passion, a popular tradition and a shared national conversation. In recent decades, as India has experienced economic and social change, both the film industry and the entertainment it produces have transformed themselves as well.

First Day First Show is Anupama Chopra's guide to this dazzling world of lights, cameras and stars but also to its shadowing darkness. She takes us into the lives of the stars and into the struggles of those who never make it to centre stage; she lets us participate in the making of legendary hits like Sholay and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and also the hard-won successes of independent film-makers; she shows us the glamour as well as the murky links with the underworld. There is also the odd story of the royal bodyguard of Bhutan who became a scriptwriter; of the embarrassed Pakistani soldiers at Wagah border who did not allow their favourite Indian superstars to shoot.

• As addictive as it gets -Bollywood Hungama - July 11, 2011
• Filmdom's Coming of Age: Businessworld - 21 June, 2011
• Glitter Warfare: Mint - May 24, 2011

Shah Rukh Khan is the superstar in the exploding $1.5 billion Bollywood industry. He is also the face of a glittering new India. Shah Rukh is an international phenomenonhe generates Beatlemania-like hysteria around the world, at appearances and performances across the U.S., throughout Europe, and beyond. Now, for the first time, his legendary success story is brought to life in KING OF BOLLYWOOD.

This book reveals how Shah Rukh Khan, a middle-class Muslim boy from Delhi, broke into the insular, nepotistic world of Bombay show business and emerged as a superstar. His larger-than-life tale takes us through the colorful and idiosyncratic Bollywood movie industry, where fantastic dreams and outrageous obsessions share the spotlight with extortion, murder, and corruption.

KING OF BOLLYWOOD is the first comprehensive narrative account of Bollywood published in the U.S., and the story of Shah Rukh Khans rise to the top serves as a scintillating introduction to Indias billion dollar film industry. Internationally renowned film critic Anupama Chopra combines her knowledge of the Bollywood industry with firsthand interviews and exclusive photographs for an exclusive, insiders look at Shah Rukh Khan and the world of Bollywood.

KING OF BOLLYWOOD is a sweeping portrait of a man who is worshipped as a modern-day God, a country finding its identity and a movie industry that helped to change the face of India

"The "Easy Rider Raging Bull" of the Bollywood industry and essential reading for any Shah Rukh Khan fan."
Emma Thompson

"The ultimate story of the outsider who became Bollywood's great insider. Chopra captures the snap, crackle and pop of celluloid dreams in this immensely readable bio of the great Khan's life...a bounty for cinema lovers everywhere."
Mira Nair, director of The Namesake and Monsoon Wedding

"King of Bollywood is the all-singing, all-dancing back stage pass to Bollywood. Anupama Chopra chronicles the political and cultural story of India with finesse and insight, through fly-on-wall access to one of its biggest, most charming and charismatic stars."
Gurinder Chadha, director of Bend it Like Beckham

"This smart and thoroughly researched book explores stardom - that most of mysterious of phenomena - and in telling the story of Shah Rukh Khan it also shows how a city, an industry and a star can be characters in a single urban epic. Anupama Chopra knows how to blend social analysis with the frisson of glamor and the insider's knowledge of one of the world's great dream machines."
Arjun Appadurai, John Dewey Professor in the Social Sciences The New School, New York

"India has changed more after economic liberalisation in 1991 than at any other time in its history. This elegant book is not only an intelligent guide to the charismatic superstar of this era, Shah Rukh Khan, but also to the the Indian film industry (Bollywood) and modern India itself. Long live King Khan!"
Dr Rachel Dwyer, Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema.

"I have always read Anupama Chopra’s books with relish. She has an educated and unbiased approach. Her work is always thought provoking and entertaining. Whoever reads this book will have a clear and insightful understanding of Bollywood and of course, me. Thanks Anu."
Shah Rukh Khan

Press

• Chopra explains Bollywood to America The Daily Collegian - December 12, 2007
• 'Lotus Reads' Review - October 26, 2007
• 'New York Times' Editor's Choice Review - October 14, 2007
• Star of India - By Charles Taylor, New York Times, United States
• In King Khan's Court - Verve
  
• If you wish upon a star - Hindustan Times
• Big Fish and Bigger Dreams, Asia Pacific Arts Online Magazine - Los Angeles, CA, USA
• King Khan: Hooray for Bollywood! - Toronto Globe and Mail
• Life and times of Shahrukh Khan, IndiaPost.com - Union City, CA, USA
• Publisher's Weekly, reviewed May 21, 2007
• Kirkus review, July 2007
• Library Journal review, July 1, 2007

The book won the National Award for best book on Cinema 2000. It is also the only film book to be featured in Penguin's 10,000 club (all Penguin titles that have sold over 10,000 copies upto March 31, 2003).

Released on 15 August 1975, Sholay ran in theatres for over five years, and altered the course of Indian cinema. Even today, it remains the box office gold standard, a reference point for both the Indian film-going audience and the film industry. For Sholay is not merely a film, it is the ultimate classic, it is myth. The characters - Veeru, Jai, Gabbar, the Thakur, Basanti, Radha, Soorma Bhopali and Sambha - are the stuff of folklore. Even the starring animal, Bhanno the mare, has been immortalized.

In this book, Anupama Chopra tells the fascinating story of how a four-line idea grew to become the greataest blockbuster of Indian cinema. Starting with the tricky process of casting, moving on to the actual filming over two years in a barren, rocky landscape, and finally the first few weeks after the film's release when the audience stayed away and the trade declared it a flop, this is a story as dramatic and entertaining as Sholay itself. With the skill of a consummate storyteller, Anupama Chopra describes Amitabh Bachchan's struggle to convince the Sippys to choose him, an actor with ten flops behind him, over the flamboyant Shatrughan Sinha; the last-minute confusion over dates that led to Danny Dengzongpa's exit from the film, handing the role of Gabbar Singh to Amjad Khan; and the budding romance between Hema Malini and Dharmendra during the shooting that made the spot boys some extra money and almost killed Amitabh.

Illustrated with over sixty colour and black-and-white photographs, this is a must buy for every lover of cinema.

There has never been a more defining film on the Indian screen. Indian film history can be divided into Sholay BC and Sholay AD."
Shekhar Kapoor

Sholay, the book, takes the reader on the same roller-coaster of emotions as the movie did. The only difference being whilst I had come out of the theatre with a heavy heart, after finishing the book, I feld a sense of triumph. That's because above all Anupama Chopra's debut book is a story of conviction and determination and the success which comes out of both......Sholay is a must, must and must read for all who have seen the film and thought films like this can just happen.
Ram Gopal Varma, India Today

A quarter of a century after Sholay achieved the critical creative and commercial mass and surpassed myth to become an Indian classic in its own right, a curious and credible soul asked: Kitne Aadmi The? The answer came in reams of poignant words, dripping with authentic and exact detail shorn of gossip, draped in emotions that rival the range in the film itself, at least in scale if not grandeur.
Harpal Singh, Indian Express

An engrossing page-turner that chronicles a slice of film history and captures the determined vision of a producer and director to make the grandest adventure film ever.
Poonam Saxena, Hindustan Times

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge ( " The Bravehearted Will Take the Bride " ), universally known as DDLJ, opened to huge popular acclaim in India in 1995. Audiences flocked back to see it again and again. Directed by first-time film-maker Aditya Chopra, it has since become the longest-running film in the history of Indian cinema - and changed the face of Bollywood. DDLJ was one of the earliest contemporary Hinid film to focus on Indian residents abroad (specifically, in this case, London). It's a heady cocktail of European locations, flashy cars, gorgeous mansions - a feast for a newly liberalised nation - and the hearty, rustic traditions of the Punjab. DDLJ has spawned numerous imitations and epitomised popular Indian cinema today.

But, as Anupama Chopra points out, it's a surprising film in that it upholds old-fashioned values of premarital chastity and family authority, affirming the idea that Westernisation need not affect an essential Indian identity.

DDLJ is a far cry from the work of an older generation of film-makers who often spoke against the oppressiveness of tradition, sometimes proposing radical alternatives. Whereas the lovers of a previous generation might attempt to flee from their interfering families, DDLJ's lovers need the approval of their elders.

Having conducted in-depth interviews with the film-makers, Chopra gives the definitive account of a Bollywood phenomenon.

Excellent monograph
A.O Scott, The New York Times

Smart and Useful monograph
Charles Taylor, Salon.com

Anupama Chopra's book is hugely informative and entertaining....Chopra's research is thorough and her understanding of storytelling keeps us connected to what might well be brushed off as facts about process.
Nasreen Munni Kabir, India Today

With this book, elusive director Aditya Chopra finally breaks his silence. He speaks at length about the genesis of the film, its production and why, despite its success, he remains media-phobic.
UNI