Ten Indian Books Listed

Times Now marked World Book Day on April 23 with a list of 10 Indian books published between 2021 and 2025, pitching it as a shelf of recent writing “inside the country.” (timesnownews.com) The article, by Girish Shukla and updated at 09:33 Indian Standard Time on April 23, 2026, says many international reading lists still center diaspora names such as Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Its counter-list instead highlights writers working in India, including Geetanjali Shree and Manu S. Pillai. (timesnownews.com) The timing tracks UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day, which is observed each year on April 23. Times Now used the date to frame a reading list around books from the last five years rather than around a prize shortlist or a single genre. (un.org, timesnownews.com) Two of the best-known titles on the list come with recent award and publishing markers. Geetanjali Shree’s *Tomb of Sand* won the 2022 International Booker Prize, and Manu S. Pillai’s *Gods, Guns and Missionaries* was published by Penguin Random House India in November 2024. (thebookerprizes.com, penguin.co.in) Times Now also includes William Dalrymple’s *The Golden Road*, a 2024 history book that Bloomsbury says traces the spread of Indian ideas across Asia, and Aanchal Malhotra’s *The Book of Everlasting Things*, released on December 27, 2022. Those choices put narrative history beside literary fiction in the same roundup. (bloomsbury.com, harpercollins.co.in, timesnownews.com) The list also lands after another recent milestone for Indian-language writing in translation. Banu Mushtaq’s *Heart Lamp*, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, won the 2025 International Booker Prize on May 20, 2025. (thebookerprizes.com, penguin.co.in) That recent awards run helps explain the emphasis on books written in Indian languages or translated into English. Times Now says the books on its list are meant to show “what has actually been happening in Indian literature over the last five years,” not just the titles most visible in global English-language publishing. (timesnownews.com) The roundup is a reading list, not a prize or sales ranking, and it does not claim to be comprehensive. Its narrower point is calendar-driven and simple: on April 23, it offers 10 recent Indian books as a quick starting shelf. (timesnownews.com)