Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry’s Discworld, a multicultural fantasy universe, was one of the primary inspirations for the world-building of my first novel. Guards, Guards! is the first book of the City Watch trilogy, one of the best entry points into Discworld. I wish Pratchett were still alive today — he’d have brought so much wisdom, empathy and humour to a world that really needs it.
Leave it to Psmith by PG Wodehouse
Wodehouse is very old-school nowadays, but this book has been a lifelong favourite. Reading it can still give you the same feeling seeing a dog GIF in the middle of a dozen terrible news reports can. I grew up on this.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
NK Jemisin swept all the fantasy/scifi awards for all three books in the trilogy that begins with The Fifth Season. In a time of climate change and other earth-shattering events, it’s also extremely contemporary and relevant, even though it’s completely timeless and possibly alternate-world. It’s hard to write a truly new and epic fantasy nowadays, but she does it.
The Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri
Carroll, Seuss/Gissell, Nash, Lear: Ray’s children’s classics match the best of these masters, and his other works reveal an immense ability for dark satire, both political and social. A lot is lost in translation, but what resonates when you read the originals is a confidence very few other Indian storytellers possess.
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