Manmohan Singh Prime Minister A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir by AG Noorani; Indias Economy,edited by Shankar Acharya and Rakesh Mohan; The Blood Telegram: Nixon,Kissinger,and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J Bass,The Cambridge Book of Days by Rosemary Zanders; and Kai Chaand thay Sar-e-Aasman by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. There are never enough hours in a day to read all one wishes to. Arvind Kejriwal Chief Minister designate,Delhi I have not had the time to read any books this year. Rajnath Singh BJP president Mahatma Gandhis Hind Swaraj. LK Advani senior BJP leader The three books I read this year and liked immensely are A View From the Raisina Hill by P. Balachandran,The Case for India by Will Durant and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by Balraj Krishna. Raman Singh chief minister,Chhattisgarh Yugandhar,based on the life of Krishna,by Shivaji Sawant. Shivraj Singh Chouhan,chief minister Madhya Pradesh I read Achhai ki Kathinai,(a Hindi translation of The Difficulty of Being Good) by Gurucharan Das. I also read Yatharth Geeta by Shri Paramhans Swami Adgadanandji. Akhilesh Yadav chief minister,Uttar Pradesh Aligarhs First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India by David Lelyveld. The book explores Muslim cultural identity through the history of Aligarh Muslim University. Naveen Patnaik chief minister,Orissa No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully Shamsur Rahman Faruqi author The five books Id like to mention are: Zafar and the Raj: Anglo-Mughal Delhi by Amar Farooqui; The Occult by Naiyer Masud,which I have read in Urdu many times,but the English translation has been very well-produced. I also read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. Id like to mention an Urdu book,which is quite disorganised,but has a wealth of information on Hindi and Urdu films: Hindustani Film ka Aghaaz-o-Irtiqa by Alif Ansari. And my favourite was Anthony Beevors The Second World War. Viswanathan Anand Chess grandmaster I liked The Immortals of Meluha and The Oath of the Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi. It takes Indian mythology and builds on it. It takes a lot of familiar figures from our mythology,like Lord Shiva,and puts them in a new context. That I found very fascinating. Anand Gandhi Filmmaker Why do we feel fear,joy,anger,disgust,excitement or disdain? Why do we behave the way we do? Charles Darwin in The Origin of the Species,and his following works,made the first connection between natural selection and behavior patterns,and,hence,between evolution and the role of emotions in survival and reproduction. Yet,it took another century for evolutionary thinking to become the basis of studies in animal and human behaviour,and,consequently,of human interaction,relationships and society. Its been only a decade since the Human Genome Project gave us the first blueprint of the human species,and only a few years since the announcement of the Second Genome project of mapping the human microbiome the trillions of bacteria existing in the human body,endowing upon us traits the human genome did not evolve on its own. You think you are a person,but you are a colony. Dennis Bray,professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge,takes this investigation further in Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell with his studies of the behaviour of microbes how they decide where to swim,when to divide,and how best to manage the millions of chemical reactions taking place inside their membranes. Drawing parallels between computing,robotics and cell biology,Brays Wetware offers an amusing and often enlightening,perspective on the thought process of some of our basic building blocks. A must read for seekers of answers. Ranbir Kapoor Actor I read Still Foolin Em: Where Ive Been,Where Im Going,and Where the Hell Are My Keys? by Billy Crystal and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. And my absolute favourite was My Wicked Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn by Earl Conrad and Errol Flynn. Aamir Khan Actor I read Lives Of A Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. Its a book on biology,which I thought would bore me to death,especially as it was recommended to me by a very intellectual person. However,I must say it is my favourite book of the year. Entertaining,informative,it tickles your mind,and by the end you realise it was about you. only by then you dont quite know how much of you is you! Read it now. Ritesh Batra Filmmaker I rediscovered the books of Michael Ondaatje,which I had read and loved years ago. This year,when Lunchbox played in Telluride and Toronto film festivals,I had the pleasure of meeting him in person,he came to watch our little film. I got signed copies of Anils Ghost and The Cats Table from him,a real honour,and I read them again,it was as much a joy as when I had read them first. Currently,I am reading Julio Cortázars novel Hopscotch. Its an important novel that inspired many writers and has always been on my reading list. Im glad to be finally reading it. Sonam Kapoor Actor The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri,The Forgotten by David Baldacci,The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. Also The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins,it is very well written and deep for a Young Adult novel. Jerry Pinto Author I enjoyed Pankaj Mishras prose in A Great Clamour: Encounters with China and its Neighbours. Mumbai finally has found its voice in the impassioned polemic of Naresh Fernandess A City Adrift. Shanta Gokhales Crowfall is one of the few books that looks at the city,the aftermath of the riots,the new art world and the intimacies that can still survive in our metropolis. That Adil Jussawalla should have produced a book of poems for younger readers is good news; we need more books that look children in the eye and acknowledge the gravitas of their lives. So his The Right Kind of Dog was another favourite. Then there was Brouhahas of Cocks by Mustansi Dalvi,a brilliant debut of an assured voice. Speaking of assured voices,Nilanjana Roys promise in her first book came through magnificently in the second installment of the series: The Hundred Names of Darkness. Vishwajyoti Ghoshs This Side That Side: Restorying Partition signals the coming of age of the graphic novel in India,dealing as it does,with the stories of Partition. Milind Deora Mos for communication & iT The best book I read in 2013 was Keith Richards: The Biography by Victor Bockris. I am a huge fan of rock and roll,and of The Rolling Stones in particular. Richards is one of my heroes. The book had insights into his life and music that I always wanted to know about. Rahul Ram musician Over the last few months I read The Cuckoos Calling by Robert Galbraith,The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery,Never Go Back by Lee Child,The Telltale Brain by VS Ramachandran. I also re-read The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. Harsh Vardhan BJP LEADER India: The Greatest Economy on Earth by Vivek Goel. It has many facts that will make you feel proud about Indias history and how successful our economy once was. Shashi Deshpande Author An excellent book I read this year is Helen Dunmores The Betrayal. Set in Stalins Russia,its a brilliant novel steeped in the paranoia of the period. Now I have to read its prequel,The Siege. I also discovered Kate Atkinson with two books,When Will There Be Good News? and Case Histories,both amazingly different from the usual mystery format. Another satisfying book was Zadie Smiths Changing my Mind: Occasional Essays. Some brilliant essays there,specially those on EM Forster,Middlemarch,on the craft of writing and,yes,on Garbo and Hepburn. A thinking writer,this one. John le Carres A Delicate Truth was a little disappointing,as was Barbara Kingsolvers Animal Dreams. Besides these,I read new books by old favourites Sue Grafton,Elizabeth George,John Grisham,none of which came up to the standard of their early books. Vishwajyoti Ghosh Graphic novelist Of the two books I really enjoyed recently,one is a collection of two novellas by Chetan Raj Shrestha,The Kings Harvest. The stories take you on a road trip to places like Sikkim and Nepal,which Ive read so little about in contemporary literature. The other is a collection of long poems by Vinod Kumar Shukla,Kavita se Lambi Kavita. Long poems that are like free-flowing conversations,perceptive and observant,self-critical and subtly opinionated. Rohan Bopanna Tennis Player I have always been a huge fan of sport biographies,given the honesty with which they are written. The best book I have read this year has to be My Autobiography by Alex Ferguson,for the honesty in which he reveals the secrets of leading the worlds most well-known football team. I particularly enjoyed reading his thoughts on staying motivated and his drive for new things. How he transformed his leadership style to adapt to the different generations of players that he worked with was very interesting. Derek O Brien MP,Trinamool Congress I read Jhumpa Lahiris The Lowland and apart from all the literary reasons,I liked it because it was set in Kolkata,the places mentioned in the book are a stones throw from where I live,where I go for morning walks. I also read The Harvest by Jim Crace. I liked it because it is a little off-beat,it made me forget the world of politics,quizzing,24X7 media. It is set in England so it has very nice imagery. My wife gave me a Christmas present: Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton. She knows Im keen on Twitter and tweeting,so its an appropriate gift. I look forward to reading it this week. Sarnath Banerjee Graphic novelist I come from a family of walkers. An ancestor who walked out of an unlit pyre and returned after 10 years to claim his inheritance. A father who regularly walks to Maniktala market in north Kolkata from Salt Lake to buy fish. An uncle who worked in the railways and trekked through vast landscapes of Chotanagpur,a wife who walks like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. I walk through neighbourhoods in Delhi Chirag Delhi to Malviya Nagar to Kotla to Shahpur Jat to Zamrudpur. I am told that there is a whole philosophy behind walking. So imagine my joy when I stumbled upon In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin,a book about him walking through Argentina,through the great Pampas,the coast and all the insights and epiphanies that can only be had by walkers. Read it. Cheteshwar Pujara Cricketer Im reading Manuscript Found In Accra by Paulo Coelho,an inspirational book about how to reach ones goals. The last book I read and enjoyed plenty was Andre Agassis autobiography,Open. I could relate to Agassis story. His father wanted him to be a tennis player and my father,too,was instrumental in making me a cricketer. It shows how with all the hard work he became the No. 1 tennis player in the world. Manvendra Singh MLA,BJP Ive read To The End Of The Land by David Grossman,Occupation Diaries by Raja Shehadeh,and Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. Ritu Kumar Designer While researching for my book on the crafts of India,I read books on Bengal,the weaves; and on Goa before the Portugese. Currently,I am reading The Mirror of Beauty by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. Its fascinating to know more about the East India Company and the splendour of the era. But more than that,I am in awe of Wazir Khanum,the fiercely independent woman that Faruqi has written about.
