Blah’s year in reading: 2025

This is a year where my non fiction reading was more powerful and literary than my fiction reading. 

Book of the year: 

The Elsewhereans by Jeet Thayil. 

Blending fiction and non fiction, autobiography and documentary, myth making and deconstruction, memory and imagination, this is like no book I’ve ever read. 

Best books, non fiction:

1. The Elsewhereans - Jeet Thayil
2. The many lives of Syeda X - Neha Dixit 
3. Modi’s India - Christophe Jaffrelot
4. The Lucky Ones - Zara Chowdhary

Best books, fiction:

1. Waterland - Graham Swift 
2. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart 
3. Hanmet - Maggie O’Farrell
4. The Master and Margarita - Mikhael Bulakov 

The first two were emotionally devastating. The third, not as powerful but with more beautiful writing. The fourth a masterpiece of intellect and imagination.

Books read in 2025: 

1. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
2. The Lucky Ones - Zara Chowdhary
3. Cathedral - Raymond carver 
4. Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl
5. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart 
6. The many lives of Syeda X - Neha Dixit 
7. Enders game - orson Scott card 
8. Careless people - Sarah wynn Williams 
9. Rumours of spring - Farah Bashir 
10. Heart lamp - Banu Mushtaq
11. 60 songs that explain the 90’s - Rob Harvilla 
12. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers 
13. The Return- Roberto Bolano 
14. The Master and Margarita - Mikhael Bulakov 
15. Seven Years In Tibet - Heinrich Harrer
16. Waterland - Graham Swift 
17. The infatuations - Javier Marais 
18. Neither Here Nor There: Travels Through Europe - Bill Bryson 
19. Modi’s India - Christophe Jaffrelot
20. The Elsewhereans - Jeet Thayil
21. The Latehomecomer and other essential stories - Mavis Gallant 
22. American Pastoral - Phillip Roth 
23. Hanmet - Maggie O’Farrell
24. The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro 
25. The Hindi Heartland - Ghazala Wahab