Recommended reading
Here's a selection of the books and magazines we read on our way around India. I'd recommend picking any of them up as they're all great reads, as well as being particularly evocative of specific areas and regions within India.
These all link through to Amazon, and if you click through from here to buy one I get a small percentage of the purchase price.
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, by Edward Luce
A precise analysis of India's economic history and future, and a deconstruction of what makes the country both unique and troubled.
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, by William Dalrymple
Astonishingly well researched, this history of Delhi drove us to visit various sites around the city to witness them first hand.
An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul
An acid, biting report from the past on the state of India, its people and its problems. Sad to see that some things have not progressed.
Step Across This Line, by Salman Rushdie
An angry, measured attack on those who would deny others freedom of speech in the name of rel…
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
Magical, surreal, inventive and appallingly sad. Roy's descriptions of the beautiful landscape of the Keralan backwaters will haunt you.
English, August: An Indian Story, by Upamanyu Chatterjee
I loved this book. It's so evocative of Indian bureaucracy and the inertia of life in hot, remote rural villages. Witty, honest, sardonic.
The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
We visited Kalimpong off the back of this book. Damp, rich and occasionally screwball, it will take you there too.
The Moor's Last Sigh, by Salman Rushdie
You can literally smell the spice markets of Kerala in Rushdie's contemporary fable.
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, by Kiran Desai
A quirky sideways look at people's willing susceptibility to gurus, and a forerunner of the rich characterisation of her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss.
The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
A wonderful novel about non-resident Indians, cultural acceptance, loss and the weight of traditi…
Red Earth and Pouring Rain, by Vikram Chandra
A wonderfully kaleidoscopic story about stories and storytelling, the history of India and the characters of men, and gods, at war.