ME & MY SHELF

Historian and foreign policy analyst, Narayani Basu is the author of the critically acclaimed biography V. P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India (2020) and Allegiance: Azaadi and the End of Empire (2022). Her most recent release is A Man For All Seasons: The Life Of K. M. Panikkar.

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The Return

BY HISHAM MATAR, Penguin, ₹799

At its heart, this is not a memoir. It's a journey, not just back to Libya to try and understand the truth behind a father's disappearance, but through loss and love. It's also about home—about the different versions of it we find or build in our lifetimes. I love all of Matar's writing, but this one has stayed with me for a long time.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

BY BEN MACINTYRE, Bloomsbury, ₹1331

Espionage is one of my favourite genres in nonfiction and nobody does it as deftly and with such flair for detail as Ben Macintyre. This one is the story of the spy, Kim Philby: Cambridge graduate, clubman, cricket enthusiast, bon viveur and tireless party-thrower, ace undercover agent—and a supreme double agent during the Cold War.

Rebecca

BY DAPHNE DUMAURIER, Virago, ₹599

There is nothing by her that I do not love, but this Gothic romance is a classic from DuMaurier: the story of a young bride haunted by the shadow of her older husband's first wife. From the opening sentence—“Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again”—to its final act, this is a book that is hard to put down and harder to forget.

The House of Vandekar