As we bid adieu to 2024, here’s a quick look at some of our best-read books and author interviews that India Currents readers like you enjoyed as well as some editor’s picks. The diversity in the list that addresses subjects like multi-culturalism, a retelling of epics like the Mahabharata, Islamophobia faced by Afghan American teens, a travelogue, and calorie counting for the Indian diet, speaks to the eclectic reading preferences of IC’s literary enthusiasts. 

Mixed Desis: Celebrating multiracial, multicultural diversity

Topping the list is Mixed Desis: Stories of Multiracial South Asians where the mother-son duo, Punita Khanna and Rahul Arjun John Yates document their own experiences – and of 70 other contributors – of living, nay celebrating, multiracial and diverse cultural identities in the United States. In an interview with Ashwini Gangal, Yates (19), who is a Harvard student and a Bharatnatyam dancer, said, “I noticed there was a lack of multiracial, South Asian representation. There was not a lot of literature about them. That was where we saw a need.”

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The Book of Vows: The Mahabharata Trilogy

The Book of Vows by Amit Majmudar
The Book of Vows by Amit Majmudar (image courtesy: India Currents)

Amit Majumdar’s The Book of Vows, The Mahabharata Trilogy, Volume 1, is a retelling  that in the author’s words, is intended to “recreate the feel, though not the form, of its poetry and its fate-haunted magical air.” Reviewer Raji Pillai calls the language “lyrical, and poetic; this is a Mahabharata like no other,” she says, “infused as it is with American references, contemporary colloquialisms, and modern-day slang.” 

Spilled Ink

In "Spilled Ink", U.S.-born author Nadia Hashimi (right) explores the joys, fears, and cultural chaos of being Afghan American teenager. (Images courtesy: Quill Tree Books)
In “Spilled Ink”, U.S.-born author Nadia Hashimi (right) explores the joys, fears, and cultural chaos of being an Afghan American teenager. (Images courtesy: Quill Tree Books)

Washington DC-based pediatrician turned international bestselling novelist Nadia Hashimi’s latest young adult novel, Spilled Ink, tells the story of a pair of Afghan American teenage siblings finding their footing in suburban America amidst the rising tide of Islamophobia and xenophobia. “The book has a personal and engaging style of storytelling and manages to convey a timely and relevant global message,” says reviewer  Neha Kirpal. 

Travel With Me To India

An excerpt of a travelog from a book Travel with me to India."
An excerpt of a travelog about Hemkund Sahib in Uttarakhand, from Travel with me to India.” (image credit: Pravin Varma)

In this delightful travelogue, Travel With Me to India, retired IRS officer and debut author, Pravin Varma, documents his experiential journeys and shares his rediscovered passion for travel to far-flung destinations in  India. Varma traveled with his wife Alpana to 61 locations in India in 2022 and 2023, including a border town in Nepal. “It’s a small volume – each small chapter is just 2-3 pages long and “can be read on the go”, says Varma. 

Carbohydrate Counting for the South Asian Diet

Ashwini Wagle, Department Chair of Food and Nutrition, San Jose State University, holding her book.
Ashwini Wagle, a Professor and Department Chairperson
Nutrition, Food Science and Packaging at the San Jose State University, California, with her book, Carbohydrate Counting. Picture courtesy: Ashwini Wagle.

Addressing an acute need in the area of dietary and nutrition research for South Asians, Ashwini Wagle, Ed.D, MS, RD, a Professor and Department Chairperson of Nutrition, Food Science, and Packaging at the San Jose State University (SJSU) in California, has authored a groundbreaking book titled Carbohydrate Counting: Traditional South Asian Food Lists for Management and Prevention of Diabetes Mellitus. Reviewer Mona Shah, who also interviewed the author says, “Wagle’s book is a fantastic resource, with detailed counts on every subgroup of foods from popular snacks like idli, pav bhaji, poha and batata vada to vegetarian protein sources, non-veg food and meal plans. 

Editor’s Picks

A man looking at the camera and a book cover.
Fareed Zakaria (image: CC license) with the book cover of the Age of Revolutions.

Age of Revolutions: Geopolitics Through A Historical Lens

In his review of Age of Revolutions: Geopolitics Through A Historical Lens by Fareed Zakaria, Dr. Mukund Acharya writes, “Fareed Zakaria’s latest book, Age of Revolutions provides a timely, thoughtful, and well-written commentary on a few select events – revolutions – from the past 500 years to help us understand the drivers of current-day change and unrest. It examines these events and how they played out, drawing parallels and differences with the present day.”

Brotherless Night: Family, Love & Civil War In Sri Lanka

A book cover (left) and a woman sitting (right)
V V Ganeshanathan and her book, Brotherless Night. Photo composite by IC Staff.

Award-winning Sri Lankan author V.V. Ganeshananthan’s novel Brotherless Night won the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Reviewer Raji Pillai describes it as an “uncompromising novel and a simply written account of enormous personal loss. It systematically documents the events, small and big, in the life of a family in Jaffna during the time of the Civil War in Sri Lanka from 1985-89”, she writes, “and the clashes between the Sinhalese government based in Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) based in Jaffna.”