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From memoirs and fiction to politics, culture, and investing, these 10 books capture the ideas, debates, and inner lives that shaped 2025.
10 books you must read
As the year draws to an end, here’s a thoughtfully curated list of ten books to turn the final pages of 2025 with. Ideal for slowing down, looking back, and thinking ahead, these titles capture the spirit of the year while offering depth, escape, and insight. Ranging from intimate memoirs and evocative fiction to incisive political thought, cultural history, music writing, and gripping crime, the books invite reflection on memory, identity, ambition, democracy, motherhood, and the inner life. It’s a perfect list for curious, reflective, and wide-ranging readers.
Tatyasaheb: The Story of a Bombay Entrepreneur
Tejaswini Apte-Rahm
Tatyasaheb: The Story of a Bombay Entrepreneur traces the remarkable rise of Vaman Shridhar Apte, who arrived in Bombay in the late nineteenth century and rose from a chawl in Girgaon to a sea-facing mansion on Peddar Road. Known as Tatyasaheb, he built his fortune across three emerging industries, textiles, silent cinema, and sugar becoming a pioneering industrialist of the Bombay Presidency. Blending personal history with the story of a city in transformation, the book captures the grit, ambition, and risk-taking that shaped both a family’s legacy and Bombay’s emergence as a business powerhouse.
The Little Book of Goodbyes
Ravi Shankar Etteth
The Little Book of Goodbyes is a tender, evocative collection that reflects on love, memory, and parting through intimate stories of family, friends, and places near and far. Moving from Kerala and Delhi to Dresden, New York, and Mussoorie, it captures the quiet joys of friendship, affection, and laughter, while gently acknowledging the inevitability of farewell. Blurring fiction and autobiography, the book is warm, reflective, and quietly poignant.
About the Friend in My Heart
Dipna Daryanani
About the Friend in My Heart is a gentle, heart-warming picture book that introduces children to the idea that kindness already lives within them. Through simple, lyrical questions and a comforting inner voice, the story invites young readers to explore what kindness feels like, where it comes from, and how it quietly shapes who they are. With warmth and imagination, the book encourages children to trust their inner goodness and discover the quiet magic of empathy and compassion.
The Secret Master
Sumana Ramanan
The Secret Master is a lyrical musical detective story and a heartfelt tribute to khayal, the imagination-driven core of Hindustani classical music. Set in motion by a chance encounter with a little-known yet extraordinary maestro, Arun Kashalkar, the book explores his life on the fringes of the mainstream and the vibrant underground culture that keeps khayal alive. Through personal immersion, history, and aesthetic inquiry, Ramanan examines the art, discipline, and spirit of khayal while questioning how musical greatness is recognised and overlooked in contemporary India.
206 Bones: An Inspector Saralkar Mystery
Salil Desai
206 Bones sees Inspector Saralkar return in a chilling new murder mystery when a skeleton is discovered beneath a redeveloped ancestral bungalow. As Saralkar and his team race to identify the victim, layers of family secrets, long-buried guilt, and possible cover-ups emerge. With every clue raising more questions, the novel weaves a tense, fast-paced investigation that keeps readers guessing until its shocking end.
A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey
Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian
Jointly written by political scientist Devesh Kapur and economist Arvind Subramanian, this book offers a bold and incisive account of India’s uniquely “precocious” development journey. Blending political and economic insight, it examines how India pursued democracy before development, services over manufacturing, and a skewed globalisation with surprising and lasting consequences. At a critical global moment, the book traces India’s attempt to simultaneously build a state, an economy, a society, and a nation, making it a definitive and thought-provoking history of India’s development.
Citizen Under Siege
G. N. Devy
Citizen Under Siege is a timely and provocative reflection on democracy in an age of rising authoritarianism. G. N. Devy examines state overreach, the silencing of citizens, and the urgent need to uphold constitutional values, diversity, and tolerance in India and beyond, reminding readers that a fearless citizenry is the true soul of democracy.
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy
In her first work of memoir, Arundhati Roy offers a raw and deeply intimate exploration of her bond with her mother, Mary Roy. Written in the aftermath of her mother’s death, the book traces Roy’s journey from childhood in Kerala to becoming the writer she is today, shaped by love, conflict, and fierce independence. Blending emotional depth with clarity, humour, and insight, this is a powerful meditation on freedom, inheritance, and the complicated grace of motherhood.
Learning from Silence
Pico Iyer
Learning from Silence is a reflective and intimate meditation on the transformative power of solitude. Drawing on decades of silent retreats at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, Pico Iyer explores how stillness can reveal joy, clarity, and deeper truths amid life’s upheavals, loss, illness, and change. Blending personal insight with monastic wisdom, the book offers timeless guidance on living, loving, and finding meaning through silence.
Goddess Complex
Sanjena Sathian
Goddess Complex is a darkly funny, genre-bending novel about motherhood, choice, and identity. As Sanjana Satyananda attempts to rebuild her life after leaving her husband over the question of having children, she is stalled by his sudden disappearance and haunted by alternate versions of the life she didn’t choose. Blending psychological thriller with sharp feminist satire, the novel skewers procreative pressure, wellness culture, and social-media motherhood, offering a witty, unsettling look at modern anxieties around fertility, freedom, and selfhood.
Rare: Investing the Rakesh Jhunjhunwala Way
Nandini Vijayaraghavan
Rare: Investing the Rakesh Jhunjhunwala Way is a timely guide for anyone looking to become a more thoughtful and resilient investor in 2026 and beyond. By unpacking Jhunjhunwala’s long-term conviction, appetite for risk, and belief in India’s economic trajectory, Vijayaraghavan moves beyond headline-making bets to reveal the principles behind sustained wealth creation. Drawing on market cycles, personal insights, and rare interviews, the book offers a clear framework for patience, perspective, and decision-making in volatile markets.
Pivot: Between Two Options, Pick the Third
Harit Nagpal
Pivot: Between Two Options, Pick the Third is a concise, reflective guide to navigating career and life choices in a rapidly changing world. Through the story of Neel, Harit Nagpal challenges binary thinking and encourages readers to pause, ask better questions, and uncover alternative paths that lead to long-term growth. Grounded in real-world leadership experience, the book offers a mindset shift for staying adaptable, relevant, and purpose-driven in 2026 and beyond.
December 22, 2025, 21:44 IST