Forecast 2024: Life and Past Times
Memoirs, histories and investigations that see anew
Nandini Nair
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05 Jan, 2024
(Illustration: Saurabh Singh)
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
Speaking out for the first time and in detail about August 12, 2022, Knife is Rushdie’s meditation on life, loss, love, the power of art, and resilience.
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury)
Dalrymple highlights India’s oft-forgotten position as a crucial economic and civilisational hub in the ancient and early medieval history of Eurasia. The Golden Road traces the cultural flow of Indian religions and cultures throughout the world, reinstating India as the intellectual and philosophical superpower of ancient Asia.
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan (William Morrow)
Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, pushes the frontiers of biology, to ask whether we must be mortal. Covering the recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting-edge efforts to extend lifespans by altering our physiology. What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever?
The Great Flap of 1942: How the British Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-Invasion by Mukund Padmanabhan (Penguin)
An account of the time when India was in a frightful panic, believing (mistakenly) that Japan would launch a full-scale invasion. The book shows how the events during this period shaped nationalist politics, British policy towards India, and charted the course towards Independence.
The Idolaters by Manu S Pillai (Penguin)
The book examines the influence of the West on Indian beliefs and culture. Through eighteenth and nineteenth-century Indian history, Pillai extrapolates how the colonial age continues to affect India even today.
The Cooking of Books: A Literary Memoir by Ramachandra Guha (Juggernaut)
It is not often that an author and his editor strike up a relationship, which survives decades of agreements and disagreements. The enduring and prickly friendship between the outspokenhistorian Guha and his reticent editor Rukun Advani is the subject of this literary memoir, which is Guha’s most personal book yet.
Modern Hindutva Concepts for the 21st Century by Subramanian Swamy (Rupa)
A record of the rediscovery of core Hindutva concepts developed in the last century, within the framework of the Constitution and Supreme Court judgements. The book provides a fresh look at Hinduism through a nationalist perspective.
A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Hachette)
Vietnamese-American professor and novelist Nguyen rewinds his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging refugeehood, colonisation, and ideas about Vietnam and America.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes (Hachette)
A narrative that includes the latest archaeological discoveries, bestselling historian Hughes walks through ancient and modern time. She asks why we wonder, why we create, why we choose to remember the wonders of others. She explores traces of the Seven Wonders themselves, reminding us that humans can make the impossible happen.
Provincials by Sumana Roy (Aleph)
Who are the provincials? What are their characteristics? Where are they from? To answer these and other questions about all those who hail from the small towns of India, Roy, who identifies as a provincial, goes into the psyche of small-town India to write a portrait of the provincials amongst us.
How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History by Josephine Quinn (Bloomsbury)
A new narrative that traces the millennia of global encounters and exchange that built what is now called the West. Quinn makes the case that understanding societies in isolation is both out-of-date and wrong. It is contact and connections, rather than solitary civilisations, that drive historical change.
The Lion and the Lily: Rise and Fall of Awadh by Ira Mukhoty (Aleph)
The story of how Awadh, through its begums and its nawabs, negotiated the eighteenth century—when France and Britain fought to establish their empires—to establish a luminous
court far from the chaos of Mughal Delhi, and the unexpected ways in which French adventurers, soldiers and artists shaped this journey.
The Showman: Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky by Simon Shuster (William Collins)
Time correspondent Shuster delivers the first inside account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, who granted him unprecedented access over four years.
Shashi Tharoor’s Wonderland of Words by Shashi Tharoor (Aleph)
Shashi Tharoor takes readers on a voyage of discovery through a rollercoaster ride of astounding words.
Waiting for the People: The Idea of Democracy in Indian Anticolonial Thought by Nazmul Sultan (Harvard University Press)
A reconstruction of how the debates over peoplehood defined Indian anticolonial thought, and a new framework for theorising democracy.
Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century by Sugata Bose (Harvard University Press)
A new history of a century of struggles to define Asian identity and express alternatives to European forms of universalism. Bose explores developments in Asian thought, art, and politics that defied Euro-American models, and defined Asianness.
Musk vs Bezos: The Trillion Dollar Space Race by Christian Davenport (John Blake)
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are leveraging their limitless wealth and power to build a new space economy from scratch. The results could forever alter the frontiers of human life. Davenport has access to both men, having been the lead space reporter at the Washington Post for over a decade.
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing (Picador)
Moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to John Clare’s enclosure elegies, Laing interrogates the costs and perks of making paradise on earth.
Capitalism and Crises: How to Fix Them by Colin Mayer (Oxford University Press)
An examination of how capitalism works and where it fails. And how profit drives the system.
Empireworld: How British Imperialism has Shaped the Globe by Sathnam Sanghera (Penguin)
Sanghera extends his examination of British imperial legacies beyond Britain. He explores the international legacies of the British Empire— from the creation of tea plantations across the globe, to environmental destruction. He demonstrates just how deeply British imperialism inks our world. And why it’s time Britain was finally honest with itself about the empire.
Iconic Trees of India by S Natesh (Roli Books)
The story of some of India’s oldest trees, told through the people, communities, and socio-political events surrounding the tree. These trees reveal the microhistories and stories of India as we know it today.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler (Allen Lane)
How a fear of gender is fuelling reactionary politics and right-wing movements across the world.
Mèla: Everyday Indian Aesthetic by Sayali Goyal (Roli Books)
A glimpse into everyday design and architecture, patterns and typography in India. The book delves into India’s design culture rooted in functionality and the daily needs of the people. Goyal prompts reflections on the universality of design, the choice of colours and community identities.
Snakes, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll by Romulus Whitaker and Janaki Lenin (HarperCollins)
The first volume of the memoirs of India’s ‘original gangster’ naturalists.
Holding Time Captive: A Biography of Ebrahim Alkazi by Amal Allana (Penguin)
Allana traces her father’s endeavours to create a modern theatre language. Both as a daughter and a theatre director, Allana reveals the source of many of Alkazi’s seminal ideas that contributed to his inclusive worldview for theatre.
Tilak by Vaibhav Purandare (Penguin)
The story of Lokmanya’ or ‘One Revered by the People’, throws light not only on an important era of the freedom movement but revisits a style of mass politics based on religious and cultural regeneration that resonates today.
Shattered by Hanif Kureishi (Hamish Hamilton)
On Boxing Day 2022, Kureishi had a paralysing fall. He has chronicled his trials on his blog. Shattered is his full account of the year that followed, with reflections on a life in writing
At the Wheel of Research: An Exclusive Biography of Dr Soumya Swaminathan by Anuradha Mascarenhas (Bloomsbury)
In this authorised biography of Soumya Swaminathan, the inaugural chief scientist at the World Health Organization who served during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mascarenhas tells the story of a career encompassing medicine, research, decision-making and philanthropy, through anecdotes and interviews.
Lords of the Seas by Anirudh Kanisetti (Juggernaut)
The author of Lords of the Deccan returns with a book on the Cholas.
Mafia Queens of India by S Hussain Zaidi (Simon & Schuster)
An account of female underworld/ mafia dons. Several of these women started as the victims of poverty, circumstances, and violence. But once they overcame their obstacles, they became the opposite. Some of the women featured in this anthology are Heera Gold group owner Aalima Nowhera Shaik, and Delhi’s high-class call girl Sonu Punjaban.
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