An (overly) optimistic reading list for 2023… but it’s not even January yet, so perhaps making this list is not altogether a bad thing. It’s a live list and will keep growing, I think – so if you have something interesting on your reading list, let’s hear it!!! Overloaded with poetry and non-fiction but there’s a couple of novels in there as well.
1. Apeirogon – Colum McCann (reading now)
2. The Professor – Charlotte Bronte (my year-end classic ritual, last year I read MiddleMarch by George Eliot)
3. Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Shehan Karunatilaka (can’t wait to read this one)
4. The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
5. West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games – Talmiz Ahmad
6. In a Strange Room – Damon Galgut
7. Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet – George Monbiot
8. The Earth Transformed: An Untold History – Peter Frankopan
9. A River Dies of Thirst – Mahmoud Darwish
10. Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
11. Ambedkar: A Life – Shashi Tharoor
12. All the Light we Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
13. Horizon – Barry Lopez
Updated: Feb 07, 2023
14. Prison Days – Agyeya
15. A life in the shadows – A S Dulat
16. Underground – Haruki Murakami
17. The new life- Tom Crewe
18. Blood and Sand- Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower’s Campaign for Peace – Alex Von Tunzelmann
19. Indian Summer – Alex Von Tunzelmann
20. India is broken – Ashoka Mody
21. The World – Simon Sebag Montefiore (Part I and Part II)
22. Letters: Summer 1926 – Boris Pasternak , Marina Tsvetayeva, Rainer Maria Rilke
23. The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac
24. Breaking into Pentridge Prison – Rosemary Nissen-Wade
25. SM-1 – Sherry Marr (memoir) (to be published)
Updated Mar 12, 2023
26. Hot tea across India – Rishad Saam Mehta
27. Tagore and Gandhi: Walking alone, Walking Together – Rudrangshu Mukherjee
28. The Doctor and the Saint – Arundhati Roy
29. 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare – James Shapiro
30. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
31. Caste Matters – Suraj Yengde
Updated: Apr 01, 2023
32. A Dismantled State – Anuradha Bhasin
33. The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom – P. Sainath
34. Where the gods dwell – Manu Pillai
Updated: May 07,2023
35. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
36. All Down Darkness Wide – Seán Hewitt
37. England’s Green – Zaffar Kunial
38. Black Butterflies – Priscilla Morris
Updated: May 30, 2023
39. Japanese death poems – Yoel Hoffmann
40. Midnight’s Borders – Suchitra Vijayan
Updated: Jun 12, 2023
41. My Story – Kamala Das
Updated: Jun 29, 2023
42. A case of exploding mangoes – Mohammed Hanif
Updated: Jul 11, 2023
43. First Overland – Tim Slessor
44. The Last Overland: Singapore to London: – Alex Bescoby
Updated: Jul 19, 2023
45. Farthest Field – Raghu Karnad
Updated: Sep 01, 2023
46: Lie with me – Philippe Besson/ Molly Ringwald (Translator)
47: The Sufi’s nightingale – Sarabpreet Singh
Updated: Oct 01, 2023
48: Immortality – Milan Kundera
Updated: Oct 23, 2023
49. This city is empty – Rovshan Abdullaoglu
50. Intimacies – Katie Kitamura
51. Poems of love and War – A. K. Ramanujan
Updated: Oct 08, 2023
52. The Jakarta Method – Vincent Bevins
53. Things you may find hidden in my ear – Mosab Abu Toha
Updated: Dec 16, 2023
54: For whom the bell tolls – Ernest Hemingway
THOUGHT PURGE 
What a wonderful list. Of course, it will be ever-growing. But trying to catch up on reading these is the best problem to have, imo 😀
I’m ashamed to say I only have one of these books, and that remains in my own unread pile! (Murakami’s Norwegian Wood).
LikeLike
Thank you, Sunra. I started Norwegian Wood several years ago and abandoned it. This is my Murakami rediscovery phase… and it is going better than the first attempt!! 🙂
LikeLike
All the Light We Cannot See is a great book. I try to read a few classics during the year, too. I’d not heard of The Professor, I will have to look it up. Thanks!
LikeLike
Thank you. I found The Professor in the bookstore…hadn’t heard about it before, either. Am looking forward to All the light… many people seem to be praising the book!
LikeLike
I’ll have to look those up, I am not familiar with any of them!
LikeLike
Such a great list
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you… 🙏
LikeLike
An ambitious list. I don’t know any of those.
LikeLike
Hope to read a few, at least!
LikeLike
Apeirogon has special meaning for me on a personal and activist level, and it is a beautifully written book. I have read it twice and have become involved (in a very small way) in the efforts of Parents Circle – Families Forum and the American Friends of PCFF. I have never been disappointed by anything written by Ocean Vuong. The same is true of Victoria Chang. Thanks for sharing your list; I may add a few of them to my own. Oh, and Gregory Orr’s “Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved” and “How Beautiful the Beloved” are both evocative, transcendent.
LikeLike
Agree.. am half way through Apeirogon and the writing is fantastic as is the message. One can only hope the work people are doing for peace will bear fruit. Will look up Chang and Orr. Thank you for the suggestions, Catherine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reading your list reminds me how much I miss hanging out in bookstores.
LikeLiked by 1 person
True that… first place am going once I’m fully recovered!!!
LikeLike
Thank you Rajani, I was seeking fresh book ideas.
LikeLike
Most welcome, TioStib. I hope I manage to read at least a few of these!!! 🙂
LikeLike
I have read two of these – the Ocean Vuong one, and All the Light We Cannot See – both excellent. The other titles look very interesting too. I could see a prompt at earthweal on the topic of feeding the world without devouring the planet. A wonderful list.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Sherry. I’ve read Vuong’s “On earth we are briefly gorgeous” but this one has been on a wishlist for a long time!!
LikeLiked by 1 person