| A.G.Krishnamurthy |
Dhirubaism |
- |
| A.K. Ramanujan |
The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan |
This book, which was being taught in Delhi University, contains an essay which allegedly describes a version of Ramayana in which Rama and Sita were siblings. Following a court case, an expert panel was formed to look into the matter. Though the panel voted for the retention of the essay, the University dropped it from the course in 2011. |
| Abul Fazl |
Akbarnama |
Official chronicle of the reign of Akbar. It was commissioned by Akbar himself. |
| Abul Fazl |
Ain-i-Akbari |
- |
| Adam Smith |
The Wealth of Nations |
Magnum Opus (Greatest work) of Adam Smith. One of world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations’ wealth. |
| Adolf Hitler |
Mein Kampf |
Autobiographical manifesto of Adolf Hitler. Published in two volumes (in 1925 and 1926) |
| Agatha Christie |
And Then There Were None |
Widely considered to be the fifth largest selling book of all time |
| Al Gore |
The Assault on Reason |
- |
| Al Gore |
An Inconvenient Truth |
Published concurrently with the documentary by the same name in 2006. Sequel to this book is ‘Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis’ |
| Albert Camus |
The Outsider; The Plague; The Rebel; Ideas and Opinions |
The Outsider tops the Le Monde’s (a Paris newspaper) 100 Books of the Century list. Camus was also awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. |
| Alec Guinness |
Blessing in Disguise |
- |
| Alexander Dumas |
The Three Musketeers |
- |
| Ali Smith |
The Accidental |
- |
| Alice Walker |
The Colour Purple |
- |
| Amartya Sen |
The Argumentative Indian |
- |
| Amis Martin |
Experience |
- |
| Amrita Pritam |
Death of a City; 49 days; Pinjar |
Popular writer Khushwant Singh translated Pinjar into English. It wasrelso adapted into a movie by the same name in 2003. |
| Anant Pai |
Amar Chitra Katha (comic book series); Tinkle |
Anant Pai was also known as ‘Uncle Pai’ |
| Anna Sewell |
Black Beauty |
- |
| Anne Enright |
The Gathering |
- |
| Anne Frank |
The Diary of Anne Frank |
Written by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands |
| Anthony West |
Heritage |
- |
| A.P.J. Abdul Kalam |
Ignited Minds; Wings of Fire |
- |
| Aravind Adiga |
The White Tiger; Between the Assassinations |
The White Tiger is the winner of 40th Man Booker Prize |
| Aristotle |
Poetics |
- |
| Arnold Toynbee |
A Study of History; Mankind and Mother Earth |
- |
| Arthur C Clarke |
Rendezvous with Rama; Astounding Days |
- |
| Arthur Conan Doyle |
Sherlock Holmes Series |
Dr Joseph Bell, a Scottish lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh, was the inspiration for the fictional character Sherlock Holmes |
| Arun Shourie |
The Parliamentary System |
- |
| Arundhati Roy |
The Algebra of Infinite Justice; The God of Small Things |
The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997 |
| Babur |
Baburnama |
- |
| Banabhatta |
Harshacharita; Kadambari |
Harshacharitra is the biography of King Harsha Vardhana. Kadambari is one of the earliest published novels in the world |
| Bankim Chandra |
Durgeshnandini; Anandmath; Rajsingha; Kapalkundala |
- |
| Barack Obama |
Dreams from My Father |
- |
| Benazir Bhutto |
Reconciliation - Islam, Democracy and the West; Pakistan: The Gathering Storm, Daughter of the East |
- |
| Bertrand Russell |
Analysis of Mind; Principia Mathematica |
- |
| Bill Clinton |
My Life |
For this book, Clinton had received what was at that time world’s highest book advance fees |
| Bill Cosby |
Time Flies |
- |
| Bill Gates |
Business @ the Speed of Thought; The Road Ahead |
- |
| Bimal Jalan |
The Future of India |
- |
| Boris Becker |
Boris Becker |
- |
| Brian Lara |
Beating the Field |
- |
| Brinda Charry |
Naked In the Wind |
- |
| C.K. Prahalad |
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid; The New Age of Innovation |
- |
| C.S. Lewis |
The Chronicles of Narnia |
Series of seven high fantasy novels |
| Chanakya |
Arthashastra |
Written under the pseudonym ‘Kautilya’ and ‘Vishnugupta’, both names traditionally identified with Chanakya |
| Charles Darwin |
On the Origin of Species; Descent of Man |
On the Origin of Species is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology |
| Charles de Gaulle |
Memories of Hope |
- |
| Charles Dickens |
A Tale of Two Cities |
Often considered to be the bestselling book of all time |
| Charlie Chaplin |
My Autobiography |
- |
| Chinua Achebe |
Arrow of God; Things Fall Apart |
Things Fall Apart is the most widely read book in modern African literature |
| D.B.C. Pierre |
Vernon God Little |
- |
| D.H. Lawrence |
Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Sons and Lovers; Woman in Love |
An Indian bookseller (Ranjit Udeshi) was prosecuted for selling Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The Supreme Court in this case declared the law on the subject of when a book can be regarded as obscene. |
| Dan Brown |
The Da Vinci Code; Angels and Demons |
Both the books have been converted into high grossing movies. The Da Vinci Code was banned in Nagaland for allegedly containing blasphemous remarks about Jesus |
| Dante Aligheri |
Divine Comedy |
- |
| David Davidar |
The House of Blue Mangoes; The Solitude of Emperors |
- |
| Dinabandhu Mitra |
Nil - Darpana |
- |
| Donald Trump |
How To Get Rich; Think Like a Billionaire |
- |
| Edmund Burke |
Reflections on the French Revolution |
- |
| Eric Segal |
Love Story |
Interestingly, former Vice-President of United States Al Gore has always stated that this book is based on his life at Harvard, though Eric Segal clarified in 1997 that it is actually based on Gore’s roommate’s life! |
| Ernest Hemingway |
For Whom the Bell Tolls; Garden of Eden; The Old Man and the Sea; A Farewell to Arms |
Hemingway also won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the year 1954 |
| Franklin Miles |
My Brilliant Career |
- |
| Frederick Douglass |
Narrative of the Life of an American Slave |
- |
| Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
One Hundred Years of Solitude |
- |
| Geoffrey Chaucher |
The Canterbury Tales |
- |
| George Eliot |
Mill on the Floss |
- |
| George Orwell |
Animal Farm; Nineteen Eighty Four |
Nineteen Eighty Four is one of the most critically acclaimed novels of all time and words such as Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, 2 + 2 = 5 entered everyday use after its publication in 1949 |
| Gore Vidal |
Creation |
- |
| Gregory David Roberts |
Shantaram |
- |
| Gurucharan Das |
India Unbound |
A largely accurate account of India’s economic journey after its independence |
| Gustav Flaubert |
Madam Bovary; A Simple Soul |
- |
| Guy de Maupassant |
A Woman’s Life; The Necklace |
- |
| H.S. Wells |
Invisible Man |
- |
| H.S. Vatsyayan |
A Sense of Time Time |
- |
| H.G. Wells |
Machine |
Generally credited with popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively |
| Hanif Kureishi |
Something To Tell You; Intimacy |
- |
| Harold Evans |
Good Times; Bad Times |
- |
| Harper Lee |
To Kill a Mocking Bird |
Won Pulitzer Prize (1961). Topped the ‘Books to read before you die’ list released by British librarians, even ahead of The Bible |
| Helen Keller |
The Story of My Life |
- |
| Henry Fielding |
Tom Jones |
- |
| Henry Kissinger |
Diplomacy; Years of Upheaval |
- |
| Herman Hesse |
Siddhartha |
- |
| Homer |
The llliad; The Odyssey |
- |
| llija Trojanow |
Along the Ganga |
- |
| Immanuel Kant |
A Critique of Pure Reason |
One of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Followed by ‘Critique of Practical Reason’ and ‘Critique of Judgment’ |
| Indira Gandhi |
My Truth |
- |
| Iris Murdoch |
The Good Apprentice |
- |
| Irving Stone |
Passions of the Mind; The Agony and the Ecstasy |
- |
| J.D. Salinger |
The Catcher in the Rye |
Most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States between 1961 and 1972. Ironically, in 1981, it was the ‘most censored book’ and ‘second most taught book’ in public schools at the same time! Novel’s protagonist Holden Caulfield has become an icon for teenage rebellion |
| J.M. Barrie |
Peter Pan |
- |
| J.R.R. Tolkien |
The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings; The Silmarillion |
With over 150 million copies sold, The Lord of the Rings is the second best-selling novel ever written |
| James Herriot |
All Things Bright and Beautiful |
- |
| Jaswant Singh |
A Call to Honour |
- |
| Jay Mcinerney |
The Story of My Life |
- |
| Jay Prakash Narayan |
Prison Diary |
- |
| Jaydev |
Geetgovinda |
- |
| Jean Jacques Rousseau |
Confessions; Emile |
- |
| Jenny Donham |
Before 1 Die |
- |
| Jerome K Jerome |
Three Men in a Boat |
- |
| Jhumpa Lahiri |
The Namesake; Interpreter of Maladies; Unaccustomed Earth |
Interpreter of Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1999) and Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (2000). Also chosen as The New Yorker’s Best Debut of the Year award and is also on Oprah Winfrey’s Top Ten Book List. |
| Jim Corbett |
Man-Eaters of Kumaon; Jungle Lore |
The book Man-Eaters of Kumoun details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of (now) Uttarakhand, where he was often called by the government to kill man-eating tigers |
| Jimmy Carter |
The Hornet’s Nest |
- |
| John Banville |
The Sea |
- |
| John Buchanan |
If Better is Possible |
- |
| John Bunyan |
The Pilgrim’s Progress |
- |
| John F Kennedy |
Profiles in Courage |
- |
| John Galsworthy |
Man of Property; The Forsyth Saga |
- |
| John Grisham |
The Testament |
- |
| John Kenneth Galbraith |
The Affluent Society |
- |
| John Milton |
Lycidas |
- |
| John Milton |
Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained |
- |
| John Osborne |
Look Back In Anger |
- |
| Jonathan Swift |
Gulliver’s Travels |
The word ‘Yahoo’, from which popular website yahoo.com’s name is derived was actually derived from the name of a character from Gulliver’s Travels |
| Joseph Lelyveld |
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India |
The book is banned in the state of Gujarat |
| Julian Barnes |
The Sense of an Ending |
Winner of Man Booker Prize 2011 |
| Jung Chang |
Wild Swans |
- |
| K. Govindan Kutty |
Seshan |
- |
| K.P.S. Menon |
Many Worlds |
- |
| Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels |
The Communist Manifesto |
One of world’s most influential political manuscripts. It also briefly featured the ideas of Marx and Engels on how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism and eventually communism |
| Katherine Frank |
Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi |
- |
| Katherine Hepburn |
Me |
- |
| Katherine Mayo |
Mother India |
- |
| Khaled Hosseini |
A Thousand Splendid Suns; The Kite Runner; And the Mountains Echoed |
- |
| Kiran Desai |
Hullabaloo in a Guava Orchard; The Inheritance of Loss |
The Inheritance of Loss won Man Booker Prize 2006 |
| Kuldip Nayar |
The Judgment |
The book chronicles the state of India during the Emergency phase of the 1970s |
