Love Indian Locomotives? Readers share 100 books like Indian Locomotives...

Approaching the subject not as an imperial historian but as a specialist on transport, Wolmar dismantles the lie at the heart of a thousand TV documentaries: that the British bestowed railways on India in an act of benevolence.

Every TV commissioner in Britain should be made to read this.

This is another book on the same subject written by an eminent historian and economist. I am recommending this book because of the clear and categorical historical decade-wise demarcations since the inception of railways in India since the 1830s. The 20th century is summarised in one entire chapter, bringing a contemporary context. One of the best parts of the book is a timeline of the government policies and committees on Indian Railways in a tabular form that gives a quick summary of how the organization progressed in its different forms, including the seamless transfer from old colonial railways to national railways adding the current reforms and policies. Another key feature of the book is that it gives a timeline of the various railway companies and railway lines spread across India.

I am also proud to mention that the book liberally quotes my first book when it mentions India’s railway… show more.

This is a key book on the mountain railways of India. While all other history books look at the overall context of Indian Railways, this one, in particular, focuses on the “Ghat sections” of Indian Railways that were built as early as the 1860s with primitive technology, labour and sheer hard work. I personally recommend this work because it explores a not-so-popular yet very important part of the construction of the first railway lines in India. The book has minute details of the labour numbers, the various communities involved, and how work went ahead in the difficult most terrain and tropical weather. I am also proud to be associated with late Kerr during his research visits to India and assist him in his work.

This out-of-the-box book that takes you on a very Indian train trip on the lines of the iconic work of eminent Jules Verne has been my instant favourite right from the title and idea. The author, the Indian British Tourist went on a trip to the sub-continent on trains and has covered everything from commuter trains to hospital trains. I personally love this book for the various narratives and the “people stories” that reflect as the author goes on trips across the country in trains. The small stories capture the essence of India and bring out the magnitude of railways and how deeply it is connected to Indian social life. As one of my favorite rail authors Ian J. Kerr once told me in a historical context, “No railways, no India.” on how the iron web of railways brought together a nation.

This is ostensibly a travel book, a journey of discovery for VS Naipaul, a product of the Indian diaspora deeply imbued with Western Anglo values. It's also reportage, essay, and passionate horror-filled screed. It's not a fair or objective portrait of his homeland, but it is brilliantly observed and profoundly argued. 

Those who know the field of religious violence may find my choice of Ashis Nandy’s book of essays to be a peculiar one since it deals with a variety of issues besides religious violence. But one of his essays, “The Discrete Charms of Indian Terrorists,” is worth the price of the book. In it, Nandy describes the remarkably civil behavior of young Sikh activists who hijacked an Indian plane in the 1980s. He then goes on to disagree with Gandhi that terrorism necessarily absolutizes a conflict, and he rejects the common perspective, especially in the West, that terrorism is always evil. Though Nandy’s analysis does not fit all, or perhaps most, instances of religion-related terrorism it makes us reconsider our assumptions about the use of violence in certain situations.

I love multigenerational stories in general, and this one centers 3 generations, not only the grandparent and grandchild. This story reminded me of all the times I spent with my mother and my abuela, the 3 women of the family, and how we would bond over our trips together.

I also love books that show the world as I love to travel and I enjoyed accompanying these three beautiful characters on their journey. I also love how this story expertly reveals how this shared experience is perceived differently by each member of the family. And the theme of returning to a homeland is also one that resonates with me.

My mother is a member of the exact same generation as Rushdie, kids born at the moment when India gained independence, so I grew up in the shadow of that legacy—the optimism, the violence, the huge historical question mark. But when I picked up Rushdie’s magical-realist novel, it was the prose that spoke to me first: vivid, exaggerated, a cacophony, evoking India itself.

Our narrator, Saleem Sinai, was switched at birth with another child, and throughout the novel, images and phrases recur in different contexts. Often, these are puns that, by the second or third time they appear, have accumulated the weight of metaphor. I’ve read this book half a dozen times, and find more to enjoy with each reading.

Can a memoir be a thriller? I say this one is. It is truly an amazing and inspiring account of an immigrant’s tenacious, fearless journey to success, from humble beginnings in a small town in India to earning a PhD in the US and becoming a multimillionaire entrepreneur.

While not exactly a historical thriller, The Blue Suitcase took me on a roller coaster ride full of fascinating cultural insights and nuances and the serendipities that shaped Thanedar’s journey. 

This book is a riveting exploration of the major goddess festival in India, Navaratri, and a follow-up volume of the popular Nine Nights of the Goddess.

I love this book because it dives into the regional diversity of the festival, taking me on a journey into the many ways that the goddess is celebrated throughout India and into the lives of her devotees. What I find so mesmerizing about Nine Nights of Power is the balance between breadth and depth that gives me a flavor of the diversity of the traditions with deep dives into the individual case studies.