ReadingRate · Best Books · 2026

The 100 best books from India

The 100 best books from India, ranked by literary regard. Difficulty and reading-time estimates where measured.

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection. Ranked by literary regard, Indian writing is led by its classical corpus — the Upanishads, Kalidasa's poetry, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana — followed by modern work from Rushdie, Roy, Tagore and Ghosh. It is the deepest continuous literary tradition on any of these lists, running roughly three thousand years, and this ranks the top 100 with difficulty scores for each.

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection. This is a computed ranking ordered by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent.

About 787 hours for 100 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use a 250-word-per-minute baseline adjusted for each book's difficulty. At two hours a day, about 394 days for those books.

1–10

  1. The Principal Upanishads by Anonymous (Vedic Tradition) (-700, difficulty 7.9/10, 9.2 hours)
  2. Meghaduta by Kalidasa (400, difficulty 6.7/10, 29 min)
  3. Mahabharata by Vyasa (-400, difficulty 6.6/10, 50 hours)
  4. Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988, difficulty 8.8/10, 13 hours)
  5. Ramayana by Valmiki (-500, difficulty 5.4/10, 8.2 hours)
  6. The Bhagavad Gita by Vyasa (-200, difficulty 3.3/10, 1.4 hours)
  7. Tirukkural by Thiruvalluvar (100, difficulty 6.3/10, 1.5 hours)
  8. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988, difficulty 7.9/10, 19 hours)
  9. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad by Anonymous (Vedic Tradition) (difficulty 6.8/10, 1.9 hours)
  10. The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi (1929, difficulty 5.2/10, 12 hours)

11–20

  1. The Location of Culture by Homi K. Bhabha (1994, difficulty 7.5/10, 12 hours)
  2. Shakuntala by Kalidasa (400, difficulty 5.0/10, 4.5 hours)
  3. Gita Govinda by Jayadeva (1200, difficulty 6.4/10, 55 min)
  4. Godaan by Premchand (1936, difficulty 5.9/10, 10 hours)
  5. Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar (1936, difficulty 5.8/10, 2.1 hours)
  6. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1999, difficulty 7.8/10, 15 hours)
  7. The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh (1988, difficulty 7.9/10, 9.8 hours)
  8. The Way of the Bodhisattva by Śāntideva (2003, difficulty 5.0/10, 1.7 hours)
  9. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981, difficulty 6.7/10, 15 hours)
  10. Arthashastra by Kautilya (-300, difficulty 5.1/10, 12 hours)

21–30

  1. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen (1999, difficulty 4.9/10, 8 hours)
  2. Natyashastra by Bharata Muni (-200, difficulty 7.9/10, 14 hours)
  3. Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma (300, difficulty 6.1/10, 6.6 hours)
  4. Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore (1910, difficulty 5.3/10, 4.5 hours)
  5. Chokher Bali by Rabindranath Tagore (1903, difficulty 5.4/10, 5.8 hours)
  6. Samskara by U.R. Ananthamurthy (1965, difficulty 6.9/10, 3.7 hours)
  7. The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru (1946, difficulty 5.9/10, 17 hours)
  8. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (1916, difficulty 5.8/10, 4.8 hours)
  9. Tughlaq by Girish Karnad (1964, difficulty 6.4/10, 1.7 hours)
  10. Kanthapura by Raja Rao (1938, difficulty 6.4/10, 4.6 hours)

31–40

  1. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997, difficulty 6.2/10, 7.1 hours)
  2. The Post Office by Rabindranath Tagore (1912, difficulty 5.2/10, 36 min)
  3. Gora by Rabindranath Tagore (1910, difficulty 6.1/10, 11 hours)
  4. River of Fire by Qurratulain Hyder (1959, difficulty 7.9/10, 16 hours)
  5. Anandamath by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1882, difficulty 6.0/10, 4.8 hours)
  6. Breast Stories by Mahasweta Devi (1997, difficulty 7.0/10, 3.8 hours)
  7. Hayavadana by Girish Karnad (1971, difficulty 6.8/10, 1.5 hours)
  8. Shame by Salman Rushdie (1983, difficulty 7.1/10, 8.8 hours)
  9. The Quilt and Other Stories by Ismat Chughtai (1990, difficulty 5.7/10, 3.9 hours)
  10. Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (1956, difficulty 5.0/10, 3.9 hours)

41–50

  1. Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand (1935, difficulty 5.0/10, 2.8 hours)
  2. Tamas by Bhisham Sahni (1974, difficulty 6.3/10, 8.3 hours)
  3. Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana (300, difficulty 5.0/10, 5 hours)
  4. Nirmala by Premchand (1927, difficulty 5.0/10, 3.3 hours)
  5. The Guide by R.K. Narayan (1958, difficulty 6.2/10, 5.6 hours)
  6. Pinjar by Amrita Pritam (1950, difficulty 5.4/10, 2.7 hours)
  7. Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (1917, difficulty 4.5/10, 2.6 hours)
  8. Mother of 1084 by Mahasweta Devi (1974, difficulty 6.3/10, 2.9 hours)
  9. My Story by Kamala Das (1976, difficulty 2.1/10, 2.5 hours)
  10. Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan (1943, difficulty 3.7/10, 3.6 hours)

51–60

  1. The Serpent and the Rope by Raja Rao (1960, difficulty 7.6/10, 14 hours)
  2. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008, difficulty 7.0/10, 6.1 hours)
  3. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 by Salman Rushdie (1991, difficulty 4.4/10, 9.7 hours)
  4. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (1990, difficulty 4.8/10, 3.3 hours)
  5. Animal's People by Indra Sinha (2007, difficulty 4.7/10, 8.5 hours)
  6. The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R.K. Narayan (1961, difficulty 4.7/10, 3.8 hours)
  7. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh (2016, difficulty 6.5/10, 4.4 hours)
  8. The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh (1995, difficulty 7.3/10, 6.8 hours)
  9. That Long Silence by Shashi Deshpande (1988, difficulty 5.8/10, 5.1 hours)
  10. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (2008, difficulty 5.9/10, 14 hours)

61–70

  1. The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth (1986, difficulty 5.9/10, 3.9 hours)
  2. The Vendor of Sweets by R.K. Narayan (1967, difficulty 2.7/10, 2.3 hours)
  3. River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh (2011, difficulty 6.2/10, 15 hours)
  4. Coolie by Mulk Raj Anand (1936, difficulty 4.8/10, 6.3 hours)
  5. Swami and Friends by R.K. Narayan (1935, difficulty 4.6/10, 3.2 hours)
  6. Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai (1988, difficulty 6.2/10, 5.6 hours)
  7. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh (2000, difficulty 4.8/10, 12 hours)
  8. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (2006, difficulty 7.4/10, 9.6 hours)
  9. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree (2022, difficulty 7.2/10, 20 hours)
  10. The Bachelor of Arts by R.K. Narayan (1937, difficulty 3.5/10, 3.3 hours)

71–80

  1. The Financial Expert by R.K. Narayan (1952, difficulty 6.3/10, 17 hours)
  2. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2010, difficulty 3.2/10, 10 hours)
  3. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993, difficulty 5.9/10, 7.1 hours)
  4. Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh (2015, difficulty 6.0/10, 14 hours)
  5. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (2008, difficulty 6.8/10, 8.8 hours)
  6. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai (1980, difficulty 5.0/10, 6.1 hours)
  7. Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy (2015, difficulty 5.6/10, 4.4 hours)
  8. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra (2006, difficulty 6.4/10, 25 hours)
  9. Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai (1999, difficulty 6.9/10, 5.2 hours)
  10. A Burning by Megha Majumdar (2020, difficulty 4.2/10, 4.8 hours)

81–90

  1. Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (2012, difficulty 5.8/10, 4.9 hours)
  2. The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh (2004, difficulty 5.1/10, 9.3 hours)
  3. The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (2014, difficulty 5.6/10, 9 hours)
  4. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1996, difficulty 5.3/10, 15 hours)
  5. The English Teacher by R.K. Narayan (1945, difficulty 3.8/10, 13 hours)
  6. The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri (2001, difficulty 5.7/10, 5.7 hours)
  7. Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (2019, difficulty 6.8/10, 9.4 hours)
  8. Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq (2025, difficulty 4.9/10, 3.7 hours)
  9. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry (2002, difficulty 5.1/10, 8 hours)
  10. The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2016, difficulty 3.1/10, 6.4 hours)

91–100

  1. All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews (2023, difficulty 4.0/10, 4.9 hours)
  2. Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga (2011, difficulty 5.1/10, 9 hours)
  3. The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (1995, difficulty 6.2/10, 8.2 hours)
  4. Selection Day by Aravind Adiga (2016, difficulty 5.3/10, 6.4 hours)
  5. Phantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran (1998, difficulty 3.0/10, 5.4 hours)
  6. A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (2025, difficulty 4.4/10, 3.7 hours)
  7. Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (1991, difficulty 5.3/10, 5 hours)
  8. In Custody by Anita Desai (1984, difficulty 5.2/10, 3.4 hours)
  9. A History of Indian Literature by Shashibhushan Dasgupta (1962, difficulty 5.3/10, 16 hours)
  10. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (2017, difficulty 6.0/10, 11 hours)

Questions people actually ask

What are the best Indian books?
By literary regard: the Principal Upanishads, Kalidasa's Meghaduta, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Tirukkural lead, with The Satanic Verses, The God of Small Things and Tagore's work heading the modern entries. ReadingRate ranks the top 100.
Where should I start with Indian classical literature?
The Bhagavad Gita. It holds high literary regard at one of the lowest difficulty scores on this list — short, self-contained, and far more approachable than the Upanishads or the full Mahabharata it sits inside.
How long is the Mahabharata?
It is among the longest epics ever composed, roughly ten times the combined length of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Most readers meet it through an abridgement; the reading-time estimate on its page is for the full text.
What should I read from modern Indian literature?
The God of Small Things and Midnight's Children are the usual entry points and both carry strong regard. By the difficulty data Roy reads more easily than Rushdie, whose density and allusion push his scores toward the top of the list.