6 (Unusual) Fiction Book Recommendations

Around the world in six fascinating reads

Hello!

As you already know, my love affair with books runs deep. And my wife has grudgingly accepted this harsh reality of life.

I keep reading them, thinking about them, picking out new ones, and obsessing about the general idea of reading. I see them as more than just books, but as portals into alternate realities, times, and dimensions.

I want to stress specifically the alternate place-and-time idea. We all live our lives harboring only one way of seeing it, our own umwelt- our specific experience of the world. And that worldview is deeply influenced by the time and place we’re born in, the culture we grow in, and a ton of other factors. That’s the case for the billions of people who have lived on this planet, and each person has a unique story to tell.

Fiction is a great portal into these alternate realities which we can never really experience. I’ve always enjoyed it immensely, and I’ve tried a slightly different approach to fiction books this year.

Most of my fiction reads have been across mysteries, thrillers, sci-fi, and literature- and I realized this year that a vast majority of these are works by Western authors, mostly American and British. Moreover, most of the media and movies that we ended up consuming in college were also Western, so much so that American pop culture has had way too much of an influence on most of us.

As I read more and understood the vastly different experiences of people all over the world, I realized how important it is to hear their stories and put some kind of pause on this endless diet of Western-author books. I don’t mean to blame them, but I do strongly believe that reading books focussing only on the world as seen by a Westerner robs us of the opportunity to take in many more perspectives- which can often shock us to the core and change the way we think.

To that effect, I tried to expand my fiction reading to authors from different countries (including our very own) and I was blown away.

So here are 6 book recommendations from all over the world to expand your horizons and provide an experience you may not have had yet:

The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

Based in Afghanistan, this is an extremely emotional and heart-wrenching read. Hosseini has done a masterful job of bringing out many beautiful, poignant themes-a child's burdens of feeling inadequate, the pain and guilt of betrayal, and the long road to redemption and catharsis. Through this journey, we also get a beautiful peek into Afghan culture, their customs and way of life, and also the utterly shocking and stomach-churning breakdown of all order in their country. Experiencing the tyranny and trauma from the vantage point of the characters makes the pain sting really hard. I found this necessary for people like us- who are living comfortably without any idea how it feels like to endure the brutality and torture of tyrannies, proxy wars, and watching our homeland turn to dust. At so many points in the book, I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for everything I have. The ability of the writing to evoke such emotions has catapulted it into the list of perpetual bestsellers.

Selected Stories (Saadat Hasan Manto)

Excellent, refreshing, and very different from everything I've read so far. This is a selection of short stories written by Manto, who eventually moved to Pakistan and regretted his decision. In his work, we come across a writer who can capture authentic Indian stories (or should I say Bombay stories?), allowing us to access the zeitgeist of colonial India, and look at life from the perspective of those who live at the fringes of society- workers, vagrants, prostitutes and the frustrated. Have you ever wondered what life is like for such people? More so when the future looks bleak and the country is experiencing a sense of chaos?

Provocative, philosophical, and honest, Manto is the kind of writer Indians should be reading more of.

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

More than anything, I wanted to pick up something written by an African this year. There’s vanishingly little that we know about the people and cultures there, leave alone their unique experience of having suffered the tortures and humiliations of colonial excesses. This book is at the intersection of those 2 ideas- showing life in a pre-colonial village and how things literally begin to fall apart as Christian missionaries from Europe arrive at the scene and begin the destabilizing process that would eventually result in decades of sorrow. However, the colonial aspect doesn’t dominate the story, and it is more of a window into tribal village life- their unique ways of thinking, customs, traditions, and sociology. I found it quite intriguing and so very distant from the modern way of living. I almost viewed this as a work of anthropology- to get a worm’s eye view of people in a Nigerian village at a particular moment in time. It’s sometimes slow, sometimes hard to understand, and can often be sad. But it’s definitely worth a shot.

Sea of Poppies (Amitav Ghosh)

As you know by now, I’m a sucker for history and have written many articles about India’s trajectory (here and here). So what’s better than combining history and fiction to construct a story that reveals life at a particular point in the past? That’s exactly what Amitav Ghosh has done in Sea of Poppies- allowing us to peek into Bengal and Bihar of the 1800s, reeling under the blows of their British sahibs. We get the POV of characters we never thought we’d read about: opium addicts and British traders, sailors and caste victims, burdened farmers and rich landowners. Documenting the journey of this motley crew as they coalesce onto a slave ship in the days of the Opium Wars, this book offers much to discover about the tumultuous times and capricious nature of life in India in the mid-19th century.

The Yacoubian Building (Alaa Al Aswany)

Read this one to get a glimpse of the (often heartbreaking) life of Egyptians. No article or non-fiction book might offer you a better window into their culture than this narrative, told from various people's POVs: homosexuals, poor women, fundamentalists, corrupt politicians, rich romantics, and distraught workers. What a cast of characters. Such captivating writing. It was a 5-star read from the word go.

Don't go in expecting a very meaningful conclusion, just in case you only like books that have a very solid ending that gives meaning to every word that was written before it. The fun is going to be in the journey, in discovering the modern Egyptian experience, as it is.

The Three-Body Problem (Cixin Liu)

Think of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, scientists dying under queer circumstances, a mysteriously fascinating VR game, and some mad physics stuff in an obscure laboratory. These are the parallel threads that run together and ultimately coalesce into a masterfully constructed plot in this towering work of science fiction. At times, the reader may not understand how the disparate pieces tie together (and the Chinese names and oscillating contexts may lead to a bit of confusion) but the way the author brings all of them together results in an idea that is truly ingenious.

It's a narrative influenced deeply by the maddening years of the revolution, and a plot brimming with hardcore scientific ideas that never fails to fascinate. And most crucially, an idea that invokes deep thoughts about the future of humanity. Given the nature of writing and the Chinese context, this was a very, very different reading experience, and one that I ended up relishing.

---

That’s it for today, my friends. I hope you are excited to give at least one of those books a shot. And if you like opening your mind all the time with new ideas and perspectives, join the learning community: