Understanding India and Southeast Asia Public

Destined to be a classic, this book looks at the rise of Auroville, an intentional utopian community in Pondicherry built around the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Probably the best book I've read on the origins of religious communities and what happens after the death of their founders.

A bit of an esoteric choice but I like it because it gives the reader an insight into Jainism, one of the great religious traditions of India. What makes this collection interesting is that you often have Jain-inflected variations on classic Indian stories.

Probably on many lists of books about India, I put it here not because it won the Booker Prize but because I think it captures a certain hunger present in contemporary India and the complicated lines between class and caste in modern India.

Recommended for understanding the complicated conflict in Kashmir. Part journalistic retelling, part memoir.

An old novel written by one of my favorite novelists. While others have written good books about India, I think this one captures the contradictions and tensions inherent in British colonialism in a way that few novels have really been able to do.

A heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful book that chronicles the destruction of traditional Ladakhi culture with the coming of globalization and modern India.

A novel written about eight years after the Partition of India and Pakistan, this books captures the sheer madness and mindless violence surrounding the largest mass movement of people in history.

An AMAZING exploration of the development of Indian cuisine - the chapters on Chai blew my mind and is one of the best examinations of mercantilism, colonialism, and marketing you'll ever read.

A classic of Urdu literature in the style of "1001 Nights," this is a great demonstration of Indo-Islamic culture. Also really fun and entertaining!

This book puts the anticolonial struggle in South Asia in a larger, pan-Asian context and shows the development of nationalism in response to colonialism. While it shows it politics a bit, it is a pretty masterful intellectual history and might make you interested in looking at other Asian histories

Tagore was one of India's great artists and thinkers. An absolute polymath, this collection presents another view of nationalism generally and of Indian nationalism in particular. His conception, more rooted in a cosmopolitan cultural engagement with the world, is deeply relevant for today.

More of a work of Environmental history, I put it here because Guha, at least in some of the earlier chapters, places Indian thinkers in a global context and shows the impact of Indian environmental movements on the world. A bit of an esoteric choice - feel free to skip.

The first of Narayan's Malgudi novels, Swami and Friends is a classic comedy about the adventures of a young boy living in a small-town in South India. Really funny and touching. Great to pair with Ruskin Bond's "The Room on the Roof" for an Indian coming-of-age novel.

The first novel from one of India's best-loved authors. An Anglo-Indian author who chose to stay in India, Bond's novel captures the feeling of growing up and finding home. Great to pair with "Swami and Friends."

A powerful novel written originally in Kannada from South India, the novel gives the reader a South Indian perspective on religion and culture. Deeply moving - the kind of book that burrows into your brain.