Why Join?

  • Add New Books

  • Write a Review

  • Backpack Reading Lists

  • Newsletter Updates

Join Now

Filter:

Small Deaths

Small Deaths
  • Author(s): Rijula Das
  • Location(s): Kolkata (Calcutta)
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Mystery
  • Era(s): Contemporary

A staggering debut novel of murder, loyalty, love, and survival at all costs, set in the teeming underbelly of Calcutta’s most infamous neighborhood. In Calcutta’s notorious red-light district, Lalee aspires to a better life. Her unfailingly loyal client Tilu...

Song of the Cuckoo Bird

Song of the Cuckoo Bird
  • Author(s): Amulya Malladi
  • Location(s): South India
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1940 to early 2000s

A sweeping epic set in southern India, where a group of outcasts create a family while holding tight to their dreams. Barely a month after she is promised in marriage, eleven-year-old orphan Kokila comes to Tella Meda, an ashram...

Staying On

Staying On
  • Author(s): Paul Scott
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Mid 20th Century

Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pangkot, with its eccentric...

Stories for South Asian Super Girls

Stories for South Asian Super Girls
  • Author(s): Raj Kaur Khaira
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Children
  • Era(s): N/A

Through the inspirational stories of 50 famous and under-celebrated women from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, South Asian girls will have a chance to dream about lives for themselves that radically differ from the limited narratives...

Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame

Strong as Fire, Fierce as Flame
  • Author(s): Supriya Kelkar
  • Location(s): India
  • Genre(s): Children
  • Era(s): 19th century

In 1857 India, 12-year-old Meera escapes a life she has no say in–and certain death on her husband’s funeral pyre–only to end up a servant to a British general in the East India Company. When a rebellion against British...

Such a Long Journey

Such a Long Journey
  • Author(s): Rohinton Mistry
  • Location(s): Mumbai (Bombay)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1970s

Such Big Dreams

Such Big Dreams
  • Author(s): Reema Patel
  • Location(s): Mumbai (Bombay)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): current

Rakhi is a twenty-three-year-old haunted by the grisly aftermath of an incident that led to the loss of her best friend eleven years ago. Constantly reminded she doesn’t belong, Rakhi lives alone in a Mumbai slum, working as a...

Sunbirds

Sunbirds
  • Author(s): Penelope Slocombe
  • Location(s): Indian Himalayan Region, Manali
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Mystery
  • Era(s): Turn 21st Century

In 1997 Anne’s eighteen-year-old son Torran walked out of his hotel in the notorious Himalayan town of Manali – and disappeared. Seven years later Anne is still searching, haunted by the idea that someone must know something, following every...

Surpanakha

Surpanakha
  • Author(s): Hariharan Iyer
  • Location(s): Tamil Nadu
  • Genre(s): Crime
  • Era(s): early 2000s

“Educated, young, no-nonsense bearing, able administrator-these are the equalities that won Sesha the loyalties of the people after three years of rule as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. An allegation that he was the mastermind behind the murder...

Sweetness and Light

Sweetness and Light
  • Author(s): Liam Pieper
  • Location(s): Tamil Nadu, Sydney
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

Connor, an Australian expat with a brutal past, spends his time running low-stakes scams on tourists in a sleepy beachside town. Sasha, an American in search of spiritual guidance, heads to an isolated ashram in the hope of mending...

Would you like to add a book or a review or create a reading list? Join Today – It's FREE

Register Now