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Aatish Taseer is the author of Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey Through Islamic Lands (2009), The Temple-Goers (2010) and Noon (2011)
What are you reading these days? I just finished re-reading certain books of Salman Rushdie — Midnight’s Children, Shame and The Satanic Verses.
I’m also at the end of my aunt, Salma Mahmud’s book, The Wings of Time.
Which books are on your bedside table? Orientalist Jones by Michael J. Franklin, a new biography of William Jones.Also, Scholastic Sanskrit by Tubb and Boose. And a marvelous translation of Anna Karenina by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Which titles are on your bucket list of books? The biography of Harivansh Rai Bachchan in Hindi; Kalidasa’s The Birth of Kumara (which we’re reading next in my Sanskrit class); and “Coriolanus”.
What is the one book/author you feel everyone must read? The Tales of Ivan Belkin by Pushkin.
What are you planning to reread? Proust’s The Guermantes Way. I have a lot of time for Proust.
What is the one book you read because you thought it would make you appear smarter? Oh, there’s so much! Half of western literature. It took me years to be able to tell the difference between what I really liked and what I felt I ought to like.
What is the one book you started reading but could not finish? Virtually every book of Henry James with the sole exception of Washington Square.
What is your favourite childhood book or story? The Swiss Family Robinson.
