Midnight's Children
1981 · 560 pages
Saleem Sinai is born at the exact midnight India becomes independent, which gives him telepathy and welds his life to the country's. Sixty years of history arrive as one unreliable, delighted confession.
★ 8.7
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
A Passage to India
1924 · 322 pages
Something happens in the dark of the Marabar Caves, and an Englishwoman accuses the Indian doctor who brought her there. Forster watches a colonial society close ranks and goodwill count for nothing.
★ 8.5
Kim
1901 · 240 pages
Kim, a white orphan of the Lahore streets, serves two masters: a Tibetan lama searching for a sacred river, and the British officers who train him for the spy war against Russia.
★ 6.6
India After Gandhi
2007 · 960 pages
Guha carries India from independence in 1947 to the present and asks why it never broke apart, given partition, famine and insurgency. He calls it an unnatural nation and an unlikely democracy.
★ 6.4
Untouchable
1935 · 176 pages
One day in the life of Bakha, who cleans latrines in a small Indian town and is slapped for brushing against a high-caste man. Anand renders caste from its lowest rung.
★ 6.2
Clear Light of Day
1980 · 182 pages
In a decaying Old Delhi house, two sisters reopen everything the family did to each other in 1947, the year of Partition. Desai makes still summer afternoons unbearable.
★ 6.1
River of Colour
The India of Raghubir Singh
1998 · 168 pages
Serious photography meant black and white when Singh shot India in color, insisting a country this saturated demanded it. He packs pilgrims, monsoon light, and painted walls into frames borrowed from Indian painting.
★ 4.5