India tops the World Readers List in World Culture Score Index!

Lucknow: India may not have have the highest literacy rate in the world, but we can take pride being the country with highest number of readers.

Yes, this came as an appreciating and inspiring news that India has topped the World Culture Score Index ranking with highest number of readers.

As the world celebrate the World Book day, newztrack.com brings you the top books by Indian authors that are the favorite of every Indian reader and have gained worldwide popularity too.

• India after Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha

Why you should read it: A book holds your attention through a young nation’s fight against the forces that were threatening its hope for secularism.

• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Why you should read it: A complex novel that deals with the development of a country and an individual, simultaneously and exquisitely showcasing how their destinies are intertwined.

• The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee

Why you should read it: A riveting take on ‘The Mahabharata,’ as told from the perspective of Princess Panchaali.

• The story of my assassins by Tarun Tejpal

Why you should read it: The Story Of My Assassins encompasses both sides of Indian society, intertwined with sarcastic wit that is the definition of raw language. The characters themselves speak out philosophically about India’s rule, and the passion with which it was written bursts through each page.

• The hungry tide by Amitav Ghosh

Why you should read it: The Hungry Tide excels due to Amitav Ghosh’s brilliance with making you visualise what he writes. The novel exudes visual stimuli, and the breathtaking landscape of the Sundarbans tied in with the interesting quest at the heart of the novel, are enough to enthrall you.

• An obedient father by Akhil Sharma

Why you should read it: The novel is a fascinating glimpse into Indian business culture and family culture, while also touching upon the hardly touched upon topic of child abuse and the cultural response to the subject.

• The blue umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Why you should read it: The book is a heartwarming story of normal life that encompasses all the emotions that go with it.

• Chronicles of a corpse bearer by Cyrus Mistry

Why you should read it: Chronicles Of A Corpse Bearer opens its readers’ eyes to the lives of a near invisible section of Mumbai’s Parsi community. Mistry gives us a glimpse into their often alienated and poverty stricken lives through a story about forbidden love.

• A house of Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul

Why you should read it: Its protagonist, Mohan Biswas, is a classic anti-hero, simultaneously despicable and compelling. It is a 1961 novel by V.S.Naipaul, significant as Naipaul's first work to achieve acclaim worldwide. The novel is the story of Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house.

• Geetanajali by Rabindra Nath Tagore

Why you should read it: The English Gitanjali became very famous in the West, and was widely translated.^[3] The word gitanjali is composed from "gita", song, and "anjali", offering, and thus means – "An offering of songs"; but the word for offering, anjali, has a strong devotional connotation, so the title may also be interpreted as "prayer offering of song.

• Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru

Why you should read it: The Discovery of India was written by India's first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru during his imprisonment in 1942–46 at Ahmednagar Fort in Maharastra, India. It is an honour paid to the rich cultural heritage of India, its history and its philosophy as seen through the eyes of a patriot fighting for the independence of his country. The book is widely considered one of the finest modern works on Indian history.

• Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Why you should read it: The Namesake (2004) is the first novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was originally a novella published in The new Yorker and was later expanded to a full-length novel. Moving between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, the novel examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with highly distinct religious, social, and ideological differences.