There are some changes afoot at Asian Booklist. Firstly, we have moved from a quarterly newsletter to a monthly. In our experience, readers don’t tend to pre-order books; they prefer to buy ones that are already out. With that in mind, our roundup now looks one month back and one month ahead rather than three months ahead. Each book will be featured in two consecutive roundups, but we hope that this structure will give you more immediacy and bring more readers to British-Asian authors.
Secondly, we have launched a paid subscription via Substack. Don’t worry, the core list is – and will always be – free. There are, however, several reasons to upgrade. For just £30 a year, you will support our work to highlight books by British-Asian authors. You will also get access to Editor’s choice as well as Midlist: Confessions of a weary novelist (preview below). We hope you will ugrade if you can. Either way, please keep buying, reading and sharing these books.
New books by British-Asian authors
2 March 2023
The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule
In this bold and radical book, award-winning science journalist Angela Saini goes in search of the true roots of what we call patriarchy, uncovering a complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present. Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, analysing the latest research findings in science […]
2 March 2023
Stand Up
Madhu is 17 and has the weight of the world on her shoulders: her dad is putting pressure on her to apply to university, she misses her estranged sister but contact is strictly forbidden, and she's pulling in every single shift possible at a pizza place to help support her family. What she really wants, though, is to be a […]
2 March 2023
Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way)
Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple. In Nuts and Bolts, award-winning engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal deconstructs our most complex feats of engineering into seven fundamental inventions: the nail, spring, wheel, lens, magnet, string and pump. Each of these objects is itself a wonder of design […]
2 March 2023
I'm a Fan
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023. Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2023. Longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023. An Observer Best Debut Novel of 2022. I'm a Fan tells the story of an Unnamed Narrator's involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, Sheena Patel makes startling connections between power struggles at the […]
2 March 2023
Xanthe & the Ruby Crown
Xanthe loves visiting her gran in her flat with its rooftop garden. But Nani is becoming forgetful – and Xanthe wishes she could help her, if only she knew how. A mysterious cat shows her a way. It leads Xanthe to clues about Nani's childhood, and how, long ago, she had to escape her old life in Africa for a […]
9 March 2023
Motherland: What I’ve Learned about Parenthood, Race and Identity
What does it mean to be a parent in a space where you are the minority? Meandering through a supermarket highway of camembert and baguettes, Priya Joi heard a heart-stopping confession about her daughter's identity that made her entire being implode like a dying star. Confronted with the fact that maybe her daughter was not entirely at peace with her […]
10 March 2023
From Sylhet to Spitalfields
This book explores the hidden history of the Bengali squatters’ movement. Faced with institutional discrimination in council housing and the existential threat of the National Front, hundreds of Bengali families in 1970s East London decided to squat, taking over entire streets and estates. With the support of the Race Today collective, squatters formed the Bengali Housing Action Group (BHAG), which […]
16 March 2023
Your Story Matters: Find Your Voice, Sharpen Your Skills, Tell Your Story
Why do stories matter? I tell stories to make sense of the world as I see it. The world I have lived and experienced, read about and heard about, and what I want it to be. I tell stories to make sense of myself. Nikesh Shukla, author, writing mentor and bestselling editor of The Good Immigrant, knows better than most […]
16 March 2023
These Bodies of Water: Notes on the British Empire, the Middle East and Where We Meet
Sabrina Mahfouz once sat in a Whitehall interview room and was interrogated about everything from her political leanings to her private life. It was ostensibly a job interview, but implicit in their demands was the unspoken question: as a woman of Middle Eastern heritage, could she really be trusted? Years later, Sabrina found herself confronting the meaning behind this interrogation […]
16 March 2023
The Lost Man of Bombay
Bombay, 1950. When the body of a white man is found frozen in the Himalayan foothills near Dehra Dun, he is christened the Ice Man by the national media. Who is he? How long has he been there? Why was he killed? As Inspector Persis Wadia and Metropolitan Police criminalist Archie Blackfinch investigate the case in Bombay, they uncover a […]
30 March 2023
In Case of Emergency
When Bel Kumar leaves for work in the morning, the last thing she expects is wake up in hospital later that day - with her ex from four years ago by her bedside. It turns out that: 1) She's had a near-death accident outside work2) She urgently needs to replace her ex with another next of kin on her HR […]
30 March 2023
The Kitchen Prescription: 101 delicious everyday recipes to revolutionise your gut health
Eating well doesn't need to be dull food and deprivation; it should be eating a wonderfully varied, vibrant and exciting range of foods. In The Kitchen Prescription, gastroenterologist Dr Saliha Mahmood Ahmed draws on her love of good food and her expertise in gut health to create 101 recipes that are easy to make, incredibly delicious to eat and […]
6 April 2023
Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire
In late-eighteenth-century India, the glory of the Mughal emperors was fading, and ambitious newcomers seized power, changing the political map forever. Enter the legendary Maharajah Ranjit Singh, whose Sikh Empire stretched throughout northwestern India into Afghanistan and Tibet. Priya Atwal shines fresh light on this long-lost kingdom, looking beyond its founding father to restore the queens and princes to the […]
6 April 2023
Homelands: The History of a Friendship
This book is about two unlikely friends. One born in 1970s Britain to Indian immigrant parents, the other arrived from Nazi Germany in 1939, fleeing persecution. This is a story of migration, racism, family, belonging, grief and resilience. It is about the state we're in now and the ways in which we carry our pasts into our futures.
13 April 2023
The Detective
Has someone got away with murder? On the verge of a four-billion-dollar deal, a tech entrepreneur from Shoreditch is found dead in a construction site, which leads to the discovery of three skeletons over a hundred years old. But as fresh bodies turn up, can Detective Kamil – along with his friend Anjoli – prevent another murder? Desperate to solve […]
13 April 2023
Good Intentions
An unforgettable debut novel about first love, family obligation and finding your way. In the wake of first heartbreak, Nur somehow meets his perfect woman. Yasmina is bright, beautiful and, what’s most remarkable, she’s into him too. Before long, they are inseparable. But no relationship is perfect. For Yasmina, the complexities of family and cultural expectation are something she wants […]
13 April 2023
The Halfways
Nasrin and Sabrina are two sisters, who on the face of things live successful and enviable lives in London and New York. When their father, Shamsur, suddenly dies, they rush to be with their mother at the family home and restaurant in Wales, and reluctantly step back into the stifling world of their childhood. When Shamsur’s will is read […]
27 April 2023
All The Houses I've Ever Lived In: Finding Home in a System that Fails Us
By the age of 25, journalist Kieran Yates had lived in 20 different houses across the country, from council estates in London to car showrooms in rural Wales. And in that time, between a series of evictions, mouldy flats and bizarre house-share interviews, the reality of Britain’s housing crisis grew more and more difficult to ignore. In prose that sparkles […]
27 April 2023
The Dance Tree
Lisbet is pregnant, and frightened she will lose this child, too, when the arrival of a stranger upends her world, and promises to change her understanding of love forever. Ida’s life seems simple – she is married, her family fully formed – but a buried secret threatens to destroy her peaceful existence. Nethe has just returned from years in exile […]
27 April 2023
All I Said Was True
I didn't kill her. Trust me. When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she's arrested is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.' The problem is, the police can't find him – they aren't even sure he […]
27 April 2023
A Flat Place
Raw and radical, strange and beguiling – a love letter to Britain's breathtaking flatlands, from Orford Ness to Orkney, and a reckoning with the painful, hidden histories they contain. Noreen Masud has always loved flatlands. Her earliest memory is of a wide, flat field glimpsed from the back seat of her father's car in Lahore. As an adult in Britain […]
27 April 2023
Neptune's Projects
What do you do when you are a god – but powerless and unable to prevent one of your favourite species from their insatiable, accelerating death wish? Do you try to shout louder and more insistently, or instead reinvent yourself as a troubadour of romantic ruin? Such are the dilemmas posed by Rishi Dastidar in his third poetry collection Neptune’s […]
27 April 2023
Stitched Up: Stories of life and death from a prison doctor
Why would anyone want to work with thieves, murderers and rapists? Told from the inside out, this is a harrowing, humorous and hard-hitting tale of life behind bars by a prison doctor who has seen it all. Literally. Dr Shahed Yousaf spends his time running between emergencies – from overdoses to assaults, from cell fires to suicides – with one […]
Find more books on our site and tell your friends to subscribe to our roundup.
On the vilification of snark
Has the pressure to be constantly kind turned us into blander, boring versions of ourselves?
Last Christmas, my little sister sent me a heartwarming festive message.
Naturally, I sent one back. My relationship with my sister is largely defined by snark. If I idly remark that I’m having a bad hair day, she’ll say, “Yeah, it looks like a firework blew up in it.” If she accidentally compliments one of my Instagram posts, she’ll quickly clarify, “I was referring to the dress, not you.”
I, of course, reciprocate. I send her pictures of any and all cows that I spot abroad “in homage” to her. From Tikal, I sent her a photo of this howler monkey with the caption “What are you crying about now?” Quick as a flash, she responded, “Hate that we look like twins.” 🤕
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Asian Booklist to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.