25 books that brought back the joy of reading in 2025

The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra (Juggernaut)

As Gaza continued to suffer under Israel’s genocide this year, this scholarly but accessible book felt like a lighthouse to me. Amid all the hate-mongering, distortion of reality and fake news, it is a must-read for anyone looking for a beacon of light. Mishra connects the past and present with nuance, complexity and clarity to explain the ongoing crisis in West Asia. —SG

Every Room Has a View by Sujit Saraf (Speaking Tiger)

Sujit Saraf’s novel, Island, based on the real incident of a missionary’s death in the Andamans, was one of my favourites last year. In 2025, he returned with yet another engaging story, set among Indians in the US. The protagonist, Naveen Gupta, dies in the Silicon Valley after living there for 30 years. And his peculiar last wish throws off his family and friends. —SG

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Penguin Random House)

A doorstopper, after a gap of 19 years, may feel like a risky gamble, but Kiran Desai’s comeback novel was everything I had hoped for. I don’t remember the last time I read 700-odd pages in feverish anticipation, or expressed my feelings aloud all the way. Love, class, politics, art and identity—everything comes together beautifully in this epic novel. —SG

Giants by Huthuka Sumi (HarperCollins India)

Filled with fantastical images, this book delves into the life of Kato, a mute boy navigating school and life in Nagaland. Growing up on his mother’s stories about timi-la, a giant that protects humans, Kato longs to be found by him. And one day, he is. The author uses stories to connect the past and present, honouring age-old Naga storytelling traditions. —AB

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Penguin Random House)

Arundhati Roy’s first memoir blew my mind. Funny, sad, chatty, intimate—Mother Mary Comes to Me feels like a heady cocktail I’m yet to sober up from. If the mother-daughter story at its core remains unforgettable, so do the little details—about writing, living, friendship, love and community—strewn all over its riveting pages. —SG

Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya (Bloomsbury)

In a world that races along, this is a curiously analogue novel, set between 1961 and 1992, long before “hustle” became a way of living. The bureaucracy, life and joy of the Railways forms its cornerstone and the Census its buttresses. We usually read about 1960s-90s India in broad, sweeping terms—socialism, Green Revolution, Emergency, liberalization, women’s rights, communalism—but as Bhattacharya’s protagonist Charu grows into Miss Chitol and then Smt. Chitol, we see how policy decisions actually affected everyday life. —SU

Half Light by Mahesh Rao (Penguin Random House)

Two young men meet in 2014, have an affair, then meet again in 2018. It’s a simple premise—but Mahesh Rao weaves in not just the nebulous tension of living in a society that criminalised, and still stigmatises, homosexuality but also the impact of class, caste, inherited privilege and entitlement on relationships. The minor characters—aunts, mothers, colleagues, friends—are beautifully etched too, reflecting similar concerns. Convention extracts far too much from us, Rao seems to say, even as joy glimmers through the novel’s scenes of individual independence and learning to live as oneself. —SU

Audition by Katie Kitamura (Penguin Random House)

Books with a surreal touch are often described as fever dreams, and this novel feels like one. With intertwined narratives about an actor and her relationship with a young man, it forces the reader to confront what’s real and what’s performed. It reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s best work, where the mundane and the absurd keep slipping into each other. —SB

Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang (Simon and Schuster)

If you enjoy dark novels about assumed identities, such as RF Kuang’s Yellowface, this story about a twin stepping into her sibling’s shoes would be right up your street. Set in the high-glamour world of influencer marketing, it gets deliciously creepy as the protagonist finds she may have bitten off more than she can chew when she made her Faustian bargain. —SB

The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (Penguin Random House)

Over 35 years, Pullman’s alternate universe, featuring Lyra, her daemon Pantalaimon, and a host of ordinary and fantastical characters have enthralled us. The epic story came to close with The Rose Field. Although it left us with more questions, Lyra’s search for her lost imagination curiously reflects the world today. There’s nothing like it in modern fiction. —SB

Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan (Penguin Random House)

It’s 2026 and architect Sara Machina has been commissioned to build a luxury apartment block in Tokyo over the next four years to house convicted criminals. It’s a classic dilemma—can one do honest work when one doesn’t believe in the project itself? Translated into English this year by Jesse Kirkwood, this is a novel of conflicting ideas that reflect the age we live in, not only because it was part written by ChatGPT and caused a whorl of controversy when it was published in Japanese and won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. —SU

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (Penguin)

The third instalment in Horowitz’s literary murder series featuring editor Susan Ryeland is the best. Not just because you get two mysteries in one—a contemporary murder and a book-within-a-book set in the 1950s. Ryeland tracks down an author’s killer using clues from his unfinished book and unravels the secrets of his dysfunctional family, descended from a beloved and flawed children’s writer (a send-up of Enid Blyton). This clever novel will hit different if you’re a fan of Golden Age crime fiction. —SB

The Tesla Files by Sonke Iwersen and Michael Verfurden (Penguin Random House)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Elon Musk’s corporations are all fraught with controversies and scandals. But until I read this expose by two investigative reporters, aided by a whistleblower, I had no idea about the extent of misgovernance in one of the world’s biggest and most influential companies. Paced like a thriller, this book was hard to put down—and deeply disturbing for the picture of greed, harm and sheer perfidy it paints. —SG

Murder Most Foul by Guy Jenkin (Legend Press)

Playwright Christopher Marlowe’s death in 1593 in a supposed bar brawl has exercised literary imaginations for centuries. In this book, Shakespeare teams up with Marlowe’s sister Ann to crack the case. This is an unusual crime novel for palates jaded by twee, paint-by-numbers cosy mysteries featuring pensioners and Asian grandmothers playing detective. —SB

Called by the Hills by Anuradha Roy (Hachette India)

As someone who dreams of leaving Delhi’s toxic air for the clean mountain life, this book was music to my ears. Anuradha Roy writes lyrically of her life far from the madding crowd, without underplaying the challenges of living in remote places. Looking back on her decision to leave Delhi, she not only reflects on personal victories and setbacks but also the shifting landscape of the Himalayas under climate change. The water colour illustrations by her, and others, make this book a joy. —SG

A Teashop in Kamalapura and Other Classic Kannada Stories (HarperCollins India)

This collection of 18 stories spans nearly a century of Kannada writing. Edited by Mini Krishnan and translated by Susheela Punitha, it’s a great introduction to Karnataka’s modern literary heritage. The stories capture religious insecurities, regionalism and language politics, as well as love, joy and community. —SU

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Penguin Random House)

If Megha Majumdar’s debut novel, A Burning, revealed a glimmer of her potential, her new book hits all the right spots. Apocalyptic climate-fiction meets dark fantasy, this was a satisfying read for the propulsive storytelling, tight plot, and the poignant strain of loss that runs through the story. Reading this novel, I did several double takes about how fast the gap between reality and fiction is narrowing in today’s dystopic world. —SG

The World With Its Mouth Wide Open by Zahid Rafiq (Penguin Random House)

There is no gunfire, no flaming buildings, no fireballs of vehicles in Zahid Rafiq’s debut book about life in Kashmir. Yet every one of these 11 short stories is mired in violence, every character is imprinted with the generational trauma and resilience of living with fear, dread and danger. One character talks without pause, another is blinded by suspicion, a third obsesses over a man with a suitcase. In spite of wringing emotion out of readers, Rafiq’s writing is exact, controlled and uncomplicated. —SU

Shilpa Gupta’s Everyday Art by Shilpa Gupta with Sara Vetteth (Tulika)

Artist Shilpa Gupta met art educator Sara Vetteth at the 2018 Kochi Biennale. That’s how this collaboration came about. Readers get to engage with Gupta’s art, such as 100 Hand Drawn Maps of My Country. They are introduced to the process of creation underlying each series. The book comes with activities as well. For instance, after an introduction to Gupta’s work For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, readers are led to a poem by Palestinian writer Dareen Tatour and urged to reflect on what it says to them. —AB

AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor (Princeton University Press)

AI is changing every aspect of life. In this landscape of rapid evolution, we need a clear understanding of the basics to demand accountability from the techbros promoting AI. Other books this year, like Karen Hao’s Empire of AI, may be more readable, but this one, published in India in 2025, walks a lay AI user through the differences between generative and predictive AI, the pros and cons, where we are headed, and helps you understand the emotions that AI stirs. —SU

—Compiled by Somak Ghoshal, Shalini Umachandran, Avantika Bhuyan and Shrabonti Bagchi

HIGH FIVE5 books for young readers we loved

All the Missing Socks

by Easterine Kire and illustrated by Ogin Nayam (Pratham), is a picture book for 4-8 year olds, told in verse. The story doesn’t just unravel the case of the errant socks, but also introduces “Aunt Tilly’s tasselled twins, Cousin Beth’s tattle toes, Brother Bob’s neon duo….” Nayam leaves little clues in his exquisite watercolour illustrations, a great introduction to the art and craft of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, where he is from.

Ganesh Haloi: Colours of Home

by Likla Lall and Eva Sanchez Gomez (Art1st), is based on the artist’s reflections on times gone by. Lall met Haloi on several occasions in Kolkata and Mumbai and found him open to sharing his story. His life, spanning pre-Independence India to the present, brings alive a slice of history for young readers. The art mirrors Haloi’s style, dream-like yet familiar. He sees different phases of his life in distinct colours, which is woven into this book.

The Poisoned King

by Katherine Rundell (Bloomsbury), the second book in the Impossible Creatures series, is impossible to put down. This sequel takes you back to the Archipelago, a secret cluster of islands, where mythological creatures of all shapes and forms thrive. But the islands face the danger from a strange poison. The reader is taken through thrilling adventures and rescue missions. Though written for middle graders, it will bring joy to people across ages.

This is Who I Am

by Rashmi Sirdeshpande and illustrated by Ruchi Mhasane (Andersen), is a book about belonging. A little girl is conflicted by ideas of home and identity, faced with two cultures—one rooted in India, where her family comes from, and the other in the UK, where her parents have moved to, making it her new home. Through music, food, sights and sounds, she looks at shared histories and discovers that special mix that makes her uniquely herself.

Song of the Asunam

(HarperCollins India) is the latest collaboration between C.G. Salamander and Rajiv Eipe, who have worked together since 2015 on the Maithili and the Minotaur series. They continue to explore their fascination with mythological creatures, such as a music-loving beast with rainbow scales and sharp talons. There are other fantastical creatures carrying a tiffin box and monsters dancing to Tamil film songs.

—Compiled by Avantika Bhuyan