In two volumes, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the world’s great families. The historian speaks about combining the span of world history with the grit of human biography

Revisiting Don Diego’s greatest moment

Moni Mohsin returns with her party-going, status-chasing, protagonist. She tells Bhavya Dore why she looks at Pakistani society through a gossipy socialite

Irwin Allan Sealy’s new book is about Ashoka. The novelist tells Bhavya Dore why his king belongs to the modern times

Sonia Faleiro’s true crime reads like a thriller and tells of north India’s many faultlines

Rutger C Bregman’s new book questions our shared assumptions about humanity. The bestselling historian tells Bhavya Dore why he remains optimistic

SD Tucker chronicles the strangest scientific experiments from the wreckage of history

Browsing through fanfiction on the internet has become a lockdown escape

Bhanwar Meghwanshi tells Bhavya Dore how he has become a non-Hindu

Shehan Karunatilaka’s new novel is a whodunnit set in the afterlife. He tells Bhavya Dore that Sri Lanka is crawling with ghosts

CELESTIAL HEROISM IS a bestseller, unless it is badly made. In it merges great survivor dramas and the romance of breaching the boundaries of human…