India-Culture Smart!: the essential guide to customs & culture: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture Paperback – Import, 5 September 2006

I bought this guide because I think it is important to know something about a country's customs and etiquette practices before traveling there so one can be respectful of the country and its people. This book summarizes the customs and etiquette practices in an easy to use format and is also small enough to fit in your suitcase or to carry with you on your person.

This is a very good little book for people who dont know much about India but want to learn more probably because of visiting India or working with Indians. It explains all that is required very concisely and quite well. Ofcourse as you may expect there are lots of finer details missing but it still deserves a good rating for its content.One of my colleague who didnt know much about India or Indians went through the entire book (170 pages) in a 8 hour flight and by the end of his journey knew exactly what India is and how Indians behave.One point to note is that some of the statistics are not up to date and you may want to refer to CIA factbook for more updated details.

I agree with the other reviewers, but I wanted to let readers know that much of this book is repeated, verbatim, in __Customs & Etiquette Of India (Simple Guides Customs & Etiquette)__ by Venika Kingsland. (Not sure who plagiarized whom...) Culturesmart India is worth the extra few dollars.

I am preparing for my first trip to India. I purchased this book along with the Lonely Planet guides to India and Rajasthan. I must say that this book doesn't really give that much more by way of guidance than your basic wikipedia article or the section on etiquette in the LP guide. Most of the book consists in glosses on Indian religion, politics, and culture. While there is worthwhile advice to be found in this book, I do not recommend it as a way to understand Indian culture or to follow Indian norms. In both this book falls short. Instead, this is "India for Idiots", a banal and trifling discussion of the most basic Indian practices ('don't shake with your left hand, bring toilet paper and other boring suggestions are everywhere in this book).If you want a rough guide, use the web. Forums like IndiaMike provide more in-depth advice about Indian customs than books like this.

Excellent source of information. We'll written and easy to read.