Fans pick 100 books like Running in the Family

This is a Gothic suspense classic, but the suspense is gradual in the most delicious way. The book begins with a 1930s meet-cute in which a young paid companion to a rich and unpleasant woman meets a wealthy, unhappy widower at a resort. The young woman befriends the man while her employer is bedridden with a cold, and the two share some funny and touching moments.

The Gothic part comes when he unexpectedly proposes marriage, and they return to his gargantuan family estate, Manderley, which was formerly run by his late wife, Rebecca. Now, the spookiness permeates the story, from the shadowy corners of the mansion to the constant watchfulness of the very creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Rebecca has been in print for almost a hundred years, and that alone is evidence of its awesomeness.

In this modern feminist era, Maxim DeWinter might seem horribly patriarchal, but it’s utterly believable… show more.

There is nothing like this groundbreaking memoir—it is as good as it gets—and it has probably influenced every memoir since (including my own).

Kingston is a poet, and I find it impossible not to sink into the striking, gorgeous language and imagery as she describes growing up between multiple worlds: the China her parents emigrated from, the California of a first-generation daughter of immigrants, the ghost-filled China of her mother’s “talk stories,” and her inner life and growing awareness. She weaves family stories, famous myths, and her own girlhood experiences into a beautiful and unforgettable narrative.

I probably re-read it once a year.

I am a historian by day. But I have always believed that artists—whether writers, painters, or musicians—capture the human experience of history and, moreover, convey it in an enduring form for future generations far more effectively than historians. 

Historians have to present a single line of analysis or argument, which inevitably and properly makes events of a particular historical period meaningful to the particular moment in time when they are writing. A true artist can transcend both of those times. In my view, Rushdie’s book achieves that for the period, or generation, after Indian independence in 1947.

I have lived in India and written a lot about Indian history myself, including a book about Bombay, where Rushdie was partly raised. So, I have enjoyed and admired many of his earlier books, but this one remains his great achievement as a work of historical art.

This book! Condé has based her novel’s titular narrator on a real enslaved woman who was a victim in the Salem witch trials and conjured a first-person account of her life as a free woman born in Barbados to one enslaved in a cold, foreign Massachusetts village.

“I can look for my story among those of the witches of Salem, but it isn’t there,” laments Tituba. She longs for the love of men who don’t deserve her, for the comfort of ancestors far away, for a returned sense of freedom and joy.

I am in love with this magical, tragic story and this defiant narrator full of compassion even when she’s been mistreated terribly. 

If you already know a lot about India and are interested in an unusual insight into the role of temples in the history, culture, architecture, and myths of the subcontinent, then this is for you. It will also introduce you to thirteen writers who include journalists, academics, and authors. Each one was asked to write about one temple, recounting its origins and the mythology and history surrounding it. It’s beautifully illustrated by Mistunee Choudhury. You can enhance the experience by googling the locations. It has introduced me to some must-see places to go on my want to visit list. I visited the unforgettable temples of Khajuraho and they appear in my own book.

This is a book by a former top diplomat of India that lays out in a clear and concise fashion India’s priorities, its interests, and its concerns. Real life examples are cited to explain the choices India made, or didn’t make, and the reasons behind those decisions. As someone who is passionate about foreign policy, and who loves archival research, I loved reading a book written by a practitioner in which he tells you about the challenges they face and the real-life choices they have to make.

Justin Moore, the creator of the Lotus and the Artichoke website and recipe book series, has spent years traveling the globe and joining locals in their kitchens, learning directly from them how to prepare their traditional dishes. All in vegan versions, of course!

This is the book that kicked off the series of cookbooks back in 2012, and it offers a great overview of delicious, authentic vegan dishes from around the world. If you’re interested in a specific cuisine, you may also want to check out Justin’s vegan recipe books on Mexican, Sri Lankan, Malaysian, Indian and Ethiopian cuisines.

He’s currently crowdfunding an update to the original book too, so keep an eye out for it when it hits the shelves!

This book is about the most horrifying loss imaginable: the author loses her parents, her husband, and her two young sons all at once, in the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the day after Christmas, 2004. She and her family were spending the holiday in Sri Lanka when the wave hit and overtook the jeep in which they were attempting to flee. I can’t come up with a better justification for suicide than this—she’s lost everyone; she wonders why she was spared, just to suffer these losses every minute of every hour of every day. The book is both a horror story and a testament to human strength. I assure you, you won’t be able to put it down. 

The scale of this ancient Indian epic is off the charts, fusing Hindu iconography with story beats of startling familiarity. Monkeys build a bridge between India and Sri Lanka, an army of demons takes on the vanguard of the gods and the villain is felled by a celestial bow. An influence on storytelling down the ages – notably Star Wars – it’s a tale as exciting as it is charming, with a surprisingly downbeat coda, as Queen Sita discovers that being rescued by her divine husband isn’t enough to survive the prejudices of her age.

Which version to read? Arshia Sattar’s 1996 translation is available in Penguin translation. I can’t testify to its accuracy, but it’s a magnificent read.

I love the combination of a historical mystery with a little-known location, but this book also charmed me with a spare but fluid writing style. Ceylon in the 1930s under British rule (today Ceylon is the independent nation of Sri Lanka) sets the first book in the addictive Inspector Shanti de Silva mystery series in a riveting yet mostly overlooked moment in history. Add a superbly written cast of characters and set them at odds against each other, and I’m hooked on the whole series.

De Silva is the head of a 3-person police force in the smallish city of Nuala where he must straddle the divide between the local population and his British bosses. Reports of a cruel tea plantation owner lead to a missing worker and the owner’s suspicious debt. A dubious business associate, a frazzled wife, and a chatty mynah bird all combine to add layers of… show more.