Tillotama Shome, actor
My friend Jim Sarbh gave me Irene Solà’s When I Sing, Mountains Dance even though he was dying to read it himself. I thought that was very kind. Because I used to be the kind of person who bought a bunch of books and hoarded them, without sharing, until I finished them all first. I liked the sound of Solà’s book over the others on offer that evening because it is set in the mountains and I was going away to the mountains, so I thought it would be very atmospheric. Jim read out the opening passage to me, just as his musician friend Isaac Fosl-van Wyke had done for him. Is that not wonderful?
ALSO READ: The Hindu’s top 10 non-fiction books of 2022
In the book, the mountains plead, “Don’t come looking for me... You have no need for my voice nor my perspective. Leave me be.” And there I was, going away to the mountains, needing its voice and its perspective. This book is extra special, because I have not been able to make time to read fiction. But I will finish this before the year is out. And I am afraid if i wait any longer, I will lose a good friend.
Sachin Pilot, Congress leader
Some of the things in life that we take for granted need to be nurtured, fostered and appreciated a lot more than we do. In his newest book Unstoppable Us, historian Yuval Noah Harari lucidly explains to the younger generation why human beings have succeeded and the responsibility that comes with success. I also managed to read his earlier books, Sapiens and Homo Deus, both of which I found fascinating, factual and informative. The author has captured human evolution and history with wonderful data and scientific reasoning.
Saba Karim, former cricketer
Grappling with a burning desire to find out more about myself — if not a cricketer, then what — I was pulled towards Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, a fantasy novel that makes us ponder the infinite possibilities in life and the choices one makes. It allows readers to chart a personal course with their own conclusion, and more importantly, offers peace and meaning to one’s existence. No wonder then that this is the most borrowed book of 2022 at the New York Public Library.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson, Biocon Ltd.
The book that most impressed me this year is Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Song of the Cell. It is a priceless chronicle of how scientists discovered cells, how they began to understand cell biology, and are now using that knowledge to usher in revolutionary changes through biomedicine and cell therapy. Mukherjee brings his own experience as a scientist, doctor and brilliant writer to this fascinating story of cells.
An immaculately researched book, it inspires the reader to delve deeper into the mysteries of cellular science and to hope for a better future as greater understanding of cellular science helps unravel the diseases that still afflict us and our ability to treat them. I believe it should be a prescribed textbook in every high school.
K.K. Shailaja, former health minister of Kerala
Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai’s The Soviet Woman, which I read again this year, can help us in our attempts to grapple with the social and political puzzles of our times. The distinction between bourgeois feminism and socialist feminism, as she carefully explains, is more relevant today as we see almost everybody, in the garb of a feminist, fighting off progressive ideals that would bring about a change in society. Her thoughts can strengthen the fight against gender disparity and decadence, provided they are not interpreted in a bourgeois society as promoting free sex.
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David Abraham, designer
For my birthday this year, a very thoughtful friend gifted me a copy of Conversations, a compilation of short essays by art historian B.N. Goswamy. Erudite, wise and witty, the writings cover art, philosophy, history and the multiple manifestations of culture that celebrate human ingenuity. I found myself immersed in them, reading one after the other with a sense of delicious anticipation at the beginning of each new essay. And I have to admit that I was equally delighted that reading them effortlessly replaced some of the hours of screen time that digital entertainment has insidiously extorted from my reading habit!
From the iridescence of beetle wings in Pahari paintings and the mathematical magic of Patola weaving in Patan to the aesthetics of tea, the sheer breadth of Goswamy’s lively prose illuminates the rich diversity of our culture from a perspective that is both generous and even-handed. Qualities sadly, that seem to be in retreat today in most cultural discourses.
Prashant Kishor, political strategist
Kojo Koram’s Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire shows how the economic and political battles that took place in Britain’s former colonies a few decades ago, created the conditions for many of the problems the country is facing today.
Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist, WHO
Before reading his powerful memoir In the Wars, I had met Waheed Arian — who fled Afghanistan as a young boy and became a doctor in the U.K., and now runs a charity telehealth service for refugees — at the WHO, when the world report on refugees and migrants was released earlier this year. People who have faced adversity often are the most generous; they give back the most. Arian’s book shows us that the human spirit is indomitable and every human being (especially the marginalised and stigmatised) deserves a chance, and given that chance, many will succeed and become productive members of society.
Janice Pariat, author
Sharmistha Mohanty’s writing never fails to surprise and startle. From her novel Five Movements in Praise to her collection of poem-prayers, The Gods Came Afterwards, to her latest offering, Extinctions — her work challenges everything I’ve come to expect from shorter pieces of prose. These vignettes lie in between prose and poetry, image and word, fiction and non-fiction, alive and urgent, functioning as moments of pause and breath and gestures.
A grandmother tilting the face of a younger woman towards her, or a beloved aunt making a kantha for someone they love, Mohanty’s language lies on the water, fresh and elemental, taking you on long journeys that she makes sound so seamless. Varied as these vignettes might be, these pieces are held together by recurring motifs — the zebra, the forest, the wind — and a thematic exploration around the idea of “extinction”, of passing and passing away, of losing in a deliberate way, for all time.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, academic
I found Swami Medhananda’s Vivekananda’s Vedantic Cosmopolitanism brilliant and path-breaking. It is quite simply the best study of one of the most influential figures in modern India, with unusual philosophical depth, religious insight, and a serious engagement with intellectual history.
All modern Hindu thought in some way seeks to inculcate a philosophy of action, and affirm the reality of religious experience while overcoming narcissism. The book defends Vivekananda’s views of salvific pluralism and is the best introduction to modern Hindu thought. Profound and deep, this is one title that will repay repeated reading.
K.R. Meera, author
Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and soulfully translated by Daisy Rockwell, is my favourite book this year. It is after many years that a book has compelled me to reread it, as it is the kind that refuses to reveal all its layers in one go. It offers a new meaning and a new theme with each reading. Here is an 80-year-old Ma who travels to Pakistan to unwind and heal her teenage experience of Partition. And her daughter, like her younger self, cannot but follow and accompany her from the present to the past because the lives of women over centuries are intertwined, supporting as well as challenging one another.
It is one of the most creative works of fiction that I have come across in recent years. This book on borders and identity is crafted in a way that blurs the borders of fiction and history, philosophy and politics. Reading it, I was excited and devastated at the same time as I recalled the chapters of my unfinished work from 2018, on a daughter who goes to Lahore in search of her mother, who had gone searching for her lover lost during Partition.
K.M. Chandrasekhar, former Cabinet Secretary
Dr. C.B. Satpathy’s New Findings on Shirdi Sai Baba is an intriguing one that expands the world of ‘Sai literature’. Satpathy himself is an unusual character, a retired IPS officer, who has written 52 books and is known to be a spiritual master in his own right. The book conveys new information about this enigmatic saint, now a cult figure known all over the world, who lived in Shirdi for many decades, was simplicity personified, spoke in rustic Marathi and became widely known only in the last decade of his life. He talks about the torment the saint faced when he was exploited by unscrupulous people and had to beseech one of his great followers, Sathe, a deputy collector, to bring some order to the administration of the masjid. The book is both well-researched and well-written.
(Inputs from Sandeep Phukan, Vijay Lokapally, Bageshree S., S. Anandan, Nistula Hebbar, Jacob Koshy, Sreeparna Chakrabarty, T. Nandakumar and Rosella Stephen)
