The books Shashi Tharoor, Twinkle Khanna, Jim Sarbh and other newsmakers recommend this year

Jim Sarbh International Emmy-nominated actor “John Kennedy Toole’s ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ transports you to 1980s New Orleans, capturing colourfully the peculiarities and dialects of the vibrant, diverse characters. The book is hilarious. Our lead character, Ignatius J. Reilly, is a misanthropic, lazy, self-aggrandising narcissist who lives with his sweet, potentially alcoholic, mother. It had me chuckling to myself through its entirety.”[As told to Tanushree Ghosh] Amitav Ghosh Jnanpith award-winning author “It’s not easy to pick out just one book for the whole year, but if I had to do it, I would say it is ‘Demon Copperhead’ by Barbara Kingsolver. Set against the background of the opioid crisis in the United States, ‘Demon Copperhead’ is a haunting, moving, and at times, heartbreaking novel. But one of the great rewards of reading Kingsolver is that there is always a reassuring sense of being in the hands of a writer who is deeply kind - and so she is once again with her Demon.” Soumya Swaminathan Chairperson, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, and Former Chief Scientist, World Health Organization “I really enjoyed reading ‘The Day the Chariot Moved’ by Subroto Bagchi. It’s an inspiring book that describes the nature and complexities of transformational change, especially of government institutions. The style is simple, honest, full of humour and you immediately identify with the characters being described. Bagchi travels through rural and tribal Odisha looking for young boys and girls who, despite all odds, followed their passion and found careers their parents could not dream of. Most of all, it is an uplifting read that shows how political will and an empowered leader with the vision and right team can change the lives of ordinary Indians in unimaginable ways. The story of the Odisha Skill Development Authority and creation of the World Skill Centre in Bhubaneswar, which has transformed the concept of “skilling” and vocational education to provide the trainees with the self esteem and confidence they lacked when graduating from regular training institutes, is fascinating.”[As told to Zubeda Hamid] Shashi Tharoor Lok Sabha MP and former diplomat “I do try to read and sometimes, unfortunately, time being scarce, one skims. But I would say that the ones that stand out certainly are two women writers: Arundhati Roy’s rather searing memoir, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’, and Kiran Desai’s novel, ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’. Then there’s this rather startling book, ‘Operation Sindoor: The Untold Story of India’s Deep Strikes Inside Pakistan’ by Lt. Gen. K.J.S. Dhillon (Retd.). In the case of Roy, her writing is magical; she just knows how to command the words and make them dance for her. With Desai, there is tremendous feeling, emotion, and I think, some serious levels of personal experience, embedded in the story. And Gen. Dhillon, of course, it is his knowledge, as well as his action, as well as his astonishing insights on something that has just happened.”[As told to Preeti Zachariah] Twinkle Khanna Author and talk show host “My absolute favourite this year...

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