HT Editors pick their favourite reads of 2025

This year, HT editors found themselves reading everything from books about India’s internet cultures, political biographies and grief memoirs to volumes on AI, Gaza, near-future dystopias, bird forensics, and a Booker-winning volume of short fiction set in the Muslim communities of south India. Click on the link under each editor’s picture to read about their picks

R SUKUMAR

Books on leadership, memoirs, a Booker-winning collection of short stories, and political biographies all make it to this year’s list of essential reads. (HT Team)

Editor’s pick: The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne by Chris Sweeney (HT Photo)

An empathetic portrait of a pioneering forensic ornithologist whose work made flying safer by prompting improvements in aircraft engines and in runway management plans that factored in the possibility of bird hits

ANUP GUPTA

Editor’s pick: The Nurturing Quotient by Rajesh Ramakrishnan and Nirupama Subramanian (Courtesy the subject)

An insightful guide that introduces the transformative HOPE framework that enunciates practical leadership qualities that help create environments where people feel valued, safe, and inspired to do their best work

DHRUBO JYOTI

Editor’s pick: Anurag Minus Verma’s The Great Indian Brain Rot (Courtesy the subject)

A slim volume that examines India’s internet cultures and what the memefication mindset, short-format content and the hunger for virality has done to social media, news, and politics

LALITA PANICKER

Editor’s pick: Pankaj Mishra’s The World After Gaza (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

A gripping and disturbing read that denounces Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, this book makes the reader want to learn more about the historic origins of the conflict and the vicious actions of the Israeli establishment

MANJULA NARAYAN

Editor’s pick: Andaleeb Wajid’s Learning to Make Tea for One (Courtesy the subject)

Featuring, among others, memoirs, the peculiarities of the Indian Internet, a biography of a commercial Hindi film director, and a study of the religious movements of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, this is an entirely subjective list of the top 10 reads of the year

MEENAL BAGHEL

Editor’s pick: Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts (Courtesy the subject)

An account of Hitler’s ascent to power as witnessed by an American ambassador and his daughter, and an essay on the renewed rise of fascism

RACHEL LOPEZ

Editor’s pick: Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (Courtesy the subject)

A novel set aboard a space station and a collection of short fiction set in south India’s Muslim neighbourhoods both make you think deeply about the world and its complexities

RHYTHMA KAUL

Editor’s pick: Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy by Myra J Wick (Courtesy the subject)

A guide to pregnancy by a doctor, who is also mother to four children, is useful because it presents a mix of two perspectives and avoids heavy medical jargon allowing its content to be widely accessible

ROSHAN KISHORE

Editor’s pick: Srinath Raghavan’s Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India (HT Photo)

In the 50th year of the Emergency, a historical sketch of Indira Gandhi and her period in politics makes a political economy argument worthy of great attention by anybody trying to make sense of contemporary India

SUNETRA CHOUDHURY

Editor’s pick: Abhishek Choudhary’s biography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Believer’s Dilemma (Courtesy the subject)

The final volume of a well researched and readable biography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and a brave book that records what it is like to endure unspeakable grief

VISHAL SHANKER MATHUR

Editor’s pick: What Is Intelligence? by Blaise Agüera y Arcas (Courtesy the subject)

A provocative book that challenges us to stop treating AI as an invader and proposes a future of symbiogenesis where biological and artificial intelligences intertwine

ZARA MURAO

Editor’s pick: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, (Courtesy the subject)

A masterful novel that echoes classics by Philip K Dick, Franz Kafka and Margaret Atwood, this picture of a near-future dystopia has apps accessing our dreams

ZIA HAQ

Editor’s pick: Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat (Courtesy the subject)

A volume that looks at how AI’s capacity to act autonomously is at the heart of the existential threat it poses to humankind