William Dalrymple's Book Recommendations (Updated for 2026)

1

Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire

ALEX VON TUNZELMANN

4.2

A re-creation of one of the key moments of twentieth-century history: the partition and independence of India, and the final days of the Raj.

Recommended by William Dalrymple.

William Dalrymple

Partition is a very complicated story. Many people have tried to tell it before, but this is far and away the best book I’ve read on Partition. I don’t think she had particular access to any brand-new material. She certainly didn’t get her hands on the material she would most have liked, the love letters between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten wife of Lord Mountbatten, last Viceroy of India. Because she does two things at once: she’s telling the love story of Mountbatten and Nehru – this extraordinary love triangle at the close of British India – and the extraordinary end to 300 years of what was often extremely violent imperial conquest. To have it ending with India’s first independent prime minister falling in love with the wife of the last viceroy – it’s an utterly amazing and extraordinary story. It’s not terribly clear whether their love was consummated at the time, although most people tend to believe that it probably was consummated at some point later. [source]

Cover unavailable

2

In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India

Edward Luce

4.0

As the world's largest democracy and a rising international economic power, India has long been heralded for its great strides in technology and trade. Yet it is also plagued by poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and a vast array of other social and economic issues. Here, noted journalist and former Financial Times South Asia bureau chief Edward Luce travels throughout India's many regions, cultur

Recommended by William Dalrymple.

William Dalrymple

Like Partition, this story has been much told, but Edward Luce’s account is authoritative, balanced, sensible and enjoyable. If there is a businessman going to India who wants to get a hang of the economics of the country in an accessible form, this is the book, no question. Luce was the Financial Times correspondent, married to an Indian, and really got under the skin of the place, really travelled. And most of all, he can write. A rare combination. I’m a non-economist. I don’t really understand money but he explained it to me most lucidly, more so than any other book. [source]

3

The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

Amartya Sen

4.0

A Nobel Laureate offers a dazzling new book about his native country
India is a country with many distinct traditions, widely divergent customs, vastly different convictions, and a veritable feast of viewpoints. In The Argumentative Indian," Amartya Sen draws on a lifetime study of his country's history and culture to suggest the ways we must understand India today in the light of its rich, long ar

Recommended by David Marquand, Kaushik Basu, Mark Tully, and 2 others.

William Dalrymple

It’s definitely not the first book you should read on India, it’s for someone who knows the country well, but it’s a wonderfully erudite, discursive, witty, clever book. [source]

David Marquand

He shows that in fact there were roots of a democratic culture in India long before the British ever got there, and that is what he means by the ‘argumentative Indian’. [source]

Kaushik Basu

Depending how you count, almost any nation could be portrayed as argumentative. But he uses this central theme to range over an amazing breadth of scholarship [source]

4

The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

4.1

Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s debut novel is a modern classic that has been read and loved worldwide. Equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama, it is the story of an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in 1969. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevokably by t

Recommended by William Dalrymple.

William Dalrymple

Of all the great modern Indian novels, of which there has been a flood, Arundhati Roy is the one I enjoyed most. It’s got that fabulous quality, in the literal sense. It has a craftsmanship to it, and one of the greatest endings to any novel. There are so few modern novels which end perfectly, with that perfect click into place, the lock clicking shut. But it has that, and it’s a very well-worked, well-written novel. I hope she repeats it at some point in the future. [source]

5

The Mahabharata

Anonymous, John D. Smith

4.5

Originally published in the year 1951, the huge popularity of the book has resulted in the book being re-printed several times. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." But even now, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life.

Recommended by William Dalrymple.

William Dalrymple

It’s one of the world’s great myths, an epic poem. It’s eight times the length of the Bible, one of the great works of literature of mankind. I came to it via the Peter Brook film, and read the script subsequently, and it is every bit as good as it’s made out to be. A very rare thing. It has a sort of Shakespearian ambiguity; you feel as much for the baddies as for the goodies. No one is pure. The bad guys aren’t entirely bad, the good guys aren’t entirely good. It’s brilliantly done, and the most gripping story ever told. [source]