HT Editors pick their favourite reads of 2023

HT Editors have been reading everything from books on migration, art movements, and India’s perfume tradition to tales of survival and volumes on the dawn of globalisation. Click on the link under each picture to learn about that editor’s favourite read of the year

R SUKUMAR

Books on Gaza, the global economy, space exploration, Twitter, surrealist art, Nepal’s feminist history, and memoirs that touch on caste prejudice and human trafficking all feature in the HT Editors’ collective list of great reads of the year. (Monica Gupta)

A tale of survival that’s also an appreciation of life: The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (HT PHOTO)

About humankind and the wild and how one interacts with and shapes the other

ANUP GUPTA

Creative tales from the Raj: This Is Not An Art Book by Raj Kamal Aich (Courtesy the subject)

A collection of amazing visuals by an artist with an exceptional command over form

DHRUBOJYOTI

A brutal memoir of longing, loneliness and learning: Water in a Broken Pot by Yogesh Maitreya (HT PHOTO)

An outstanding chronicle of the author’s struggle to get himself educated and pull his family out of poverty

In a broken and desperate land: Failing Peace; Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Sara Roy + A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story by Nathan Thrall (HT PHOTO)

Attempting to understand what is happening in Gaza by looking back at the many works on the subject that provide a deep understanding into the origins of the conflict

MANJULA NARAYAN

Scents and sensibility; from Bow Bazaar to Kannauj: The Last Courtesan by Manish Gaekwad + The Perfume Project by Divrina Dhingra (Courtesy the subject)

A memoir that spotlights the lives of tawaifs and dancing girls in 1980s India and a volume on the continuing vitality of the ancient Indian perfume trade

MEENAL BAGHEL

Of old masters and modern greats: The Lives of the Surrealists by Desmond Morris + Goya by Robert Hughes (Courtesy the subject)

An observant and entertaining book that includes profiles of 32 surrealist artists and another that looks at the life of one of the last great masters

PAROMA MUKHERJEE

A visual archive of a nation’s feminist history: The Public Life of Women; A Feminist Memory Project by the Nepal Picture Library (Courtesy the subject)

An archive of Nepal’s feminist history that includes photographs and documents that show how that country’s women pioneered education as a tool for collective empowerment

RACHEL LOPEZ

Rock & roll and lapis lazuli: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid + Vermeer’s Hat; The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook (HT PHOTO)

A novel inspired by Fleetwood Mac that follows a fictitious 1970s band through their music, interpersonal drama and eventual breakup

RHYTHMA KAUL

Across the universe: The Future of Geography — How Power And Politics in Space Will Change Our World by Tim Marshal (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

A book that provides a detailed insight into the past and future of the space world

ROSHAN KISHORE

The dialectics of political economy: Clara E Mattei’s The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism + The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR by Chris Miller + The Triumph of Broken Promises by Fritz Bartel (HT Photo)

A simple account of what went wrong in the Soviet economy, an interesting take on how the capitalist block pivoted to neoliberalism, and another on the rightward tilt in politics in Britain and Italy during the interwar period

VISHAL MATHUR

The designs of tomorrow: Breaking Twitter by Ben Mezrich + User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant (Courtesy the subject)

A book that follows Elon Musk’s rapid personality transformation, and a volume that picks historic moments pivotal to defining the designs of tomorrow

ZARA MURAO

A sweeping look at a species that has always been on the move: Migrants; The Story of Us All by Sam Miller + Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (HT PHOTO)

An interesting study of human migration and a fictional family saga that starts out in a small fishing village in Korea and unfolds across generations

ZIA HAQ

Putting growth in its place: Unequal by Swati Narayan (HT PHOTO)

On why India, even as it surges ahead as the fastest-growing economy in the world, needs to learn from poorer neighbours and invest in social welfare