India: travel books to read before you go

Oct 1, 2010 11:40:41 AM

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The excerpt from Lonely Planet’s India guide lists 8 travel literature books to enhance your trip.

Bedazzled by wizardry since childhood, Tahir Shah travels through India to learn the art of illusion under the guidance of a mysterious master magician. Sorcerer’s Apprentice chronicles his most extraordinary journey.

William Dalrymple’s beautifully written travelogue, City of Djinns, traverses time to unpeel Delhi’s intriguing layers, while The Age of Kali is a compilation of Dalrymple’s insights gleaned from a decade of travelling the subcontinent.

Christopher Kremmer’s Inhaling the Mahatma reveals the Australian author’s multifarious encounters with India – that include a hijacking, riots, and falling in love – during and beyond his stint as a Delhi-based foreign correspondent in the early 1990s.

Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola amusingly and cynically illustrates the cultural collision as India looks to the West for technology and modern methods, and the West descends upon India in search of wisdom and enlightenment.

An Area of Darkness, by VS Naipaul, published in 1964, describes the Nobel and Booker Prize–winning author’s first visit to the subcontinent. Opinionated and unflinching, it’s certainly a thought-provoking read as is his later travelogue, India: A Million Mutinies Now, published in 1990.

Chasing the Monsoon by Alexander Frater is an Englishman’s story of his monsoon-chasing journey from Kovalam to Meghalaya, offering a captivating window into the monsoon’s impact.

More travel literature reading lists for other destinations can be found here.

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Comments

19 October 2010 5:00AM laurenstefano Report this comment
For me, two must reads are: Shantaram, set in a sleazy Bombay with an unforgetable cast of characters. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, set in the backwaters of Kerala. This is a poetic mystery, a book that I can read over and over, and enjoy each time.
22 April 2011 1:39PM danielpriego Report this comment
I'm currently reading Anand Giridharadas' India Calling book and I'd say it's a very recommended title before going to India.
Well... I haven't been there but going this 2011 and I'm loving that book.
2 November 2011 6:15AM zarahburgess Report this comment
"Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie is another great read, particularly for history buffs (although it is a fictional novel). The story spans the decades of British colonial rule, independence and partition. Definitely recommended!