10 great books to sink into as the monsoon begins. Preview them here

What to read next? We’re teasing the hottest new books to fill up your Kindle and get you through the #BrunchBookChallenge. Dive right in!

FICTION

How to Fall Out of Love Madly

Jana Casale

We’re teasing 10 new reads from India’s most exciting authors. A RAW hitman tells his fiery tale, the Sultans of Oman open up, short stories are translated into English for the first time. (Illustration by Malay Karmakar)

This is for anyone looking for a book that’s funny, smart and hard-hitting, and enjoys reading about women and their many relationships—with one another, their mothers, work, men, and themselves.

Let me tell you something about my stomach. It’s big and I hate it. I think about it all the time. I think about the way it looks in shirts and dresses, the way it sits over my jeans and hangs over the edge. When I’m sitting, it juts out in the most hideous way with big folds. There’s no flattering way for me to sit with it so I think about ways to not sit, and I think about sucking it in whenever it is that I am sitting.

This is for anyone with an interest in the history of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and South Asia. This historical account of the Sultans of Oman details their battles, daring expeditions, epic triumphs and ingenious politics in the nineteenth century.

In 1842, Sayyid Sa‘īd (1791–1856), the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar, checked with the British Consul at Muscat if it would be disrespectful to recycle to the Nizam of Hyderabad, in India, a carriage and harness that was gifted to him by Queen Victoria. He said he had not made any use of it, as there were no roads of any description in Zanzibar where he could use it. As a result, the carriage remained in its packing case. He once got it taken out to have a look at it and then got it repacked.

This is for anyone wanting to go on a journey to the past with the protagonist as she tries to figure out a mystery amid the secrets her dementia-afflicted mother has started to spill.

June 2024.

This is for anyone looking for interesting insights into our relationship with eating, and wants to read more about what, how and where Indians are producing and trading food.

It was a Monday when I met restaurant entrepreneur Rohit Khattar for lunch at Indian Accent, the pre-eminent eatery in his Delhi portfolio, esteemed for its menu of contemporary interpretations of classic Indian dishes and regional specialities served in chic surroundings. The elegant dining room was respectably patronized on what is the quietest day of the week for the hospitality industry, and with the socially fabulous (usually prominent here) at home recovering from the weekend, this left Khattar free to give our conversation his undivided attention.

This for you if, like this author, you believe that everything happens for a reason, his characters, who meet through subtle parallels and strange coincidences will strike a chord. Pick this one up to examine the question, ‘How free are we, truly?’

WELCOME MY FRIEND, WHAT CHANCE HAS BROUGHT YOU HERE?

This for you if you would like to follow an immigrant’s story of survival, forgiveness and moving on. And anyone who wants to read the Michelin-starred chef’s new book before the movie (with Shabana Azmi and Prateik Babbar) comes out.

Dust swirled around the sandstone pillars of the Jama Masjid, as the sun made its white domes glow. It was 1975 in Old Delhi, and an excitable crowd stood huddled around a transistor radio, waiting to hear whether India had successfully launched its first satellite, Aryabhata, named after the Indian astronomer, into space. Amid the traffic and flag-waving throngs, a young girl, who couldn’t have been older than ten, with the complexion of dried sugarcane and the rounded, hopeful features of a cherub, held a ragged bouquet of orange paper flowers in her hands.

This is for you if you enjoy Ruskin Bond and want to immerse themselves in a quick, easy read that will transport them to a time that was simpler and slower, with characters that are quirky yet lovable.

Dear reader, welcome to this book. Where I will take you to a sleepy little town, tucked away in the majestic hills of Himachal. The town is called Aaraampur. And no, that’s not a spelling mistake. It’s not Rampur.

This is for you if intrigue and deceit sound like great hooks, and if true stories seem better than fiction. It is based upon the double murder of gangsters Raju Pargai and Amit Arya in Uttarakhand, in September 2011.

6th September 2011, Nainital, Uttarakhand

This is for anyone looking for a solid anthology of contemporary Malayalam stories, which have finally been translated into English. The stories move in and out of homes and take readers into convents and panchayats, airports and tourist resorts, from the highlands to coastal areas and the urban cities.

Yama