From insightful explorations of the peculiarities of the Indian Internet in Anurag Minus Verma’s The Great Indian Brainrot to Rudraneil Sengupta’s The Beast Within, a police procedural set in the National Capital Region, there were many superb reads across categories this year. Which is why I’m not even attempting to pick a single favourite book of 2025. Learning to Make Tea for One by Andaleeb Wajid (Speaking Tiger) Ghee Bowman’s The Great Epinal Escape about hundreds of soldiers of the British Indian Army breaking out of a prison camp in France, dodging the German army, and trudging 100 km to freedom in Switzerland, recovers a brilliant shard of history. “It’s really interesting for me as a historian to ask why is it that this particular event has been pretty much forgotten until now,” the author said on the Books & Authors podcast. Then, there is Santosh K Singh’s The Deras; Culture, Diversity and Politics on the varied character, caste and class affiliations of the deras of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal. The book also looks at …