Recommendations based on A Case of Exploding Mangoesby Mohammed Hanif

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. Train to Pakistan

    by Khushwant Singh
    Peasant villagers in India during partition, forced to confront the brutality of sectarian violence.

    “In the summer of 1947, when the creation of the state of Pakistan was formally announced, ten million people—Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs—were in flight. By the time the monsoon broke, almost a ... (Goodreads)

  2. Moth Smoke

    by Mohsin Hamid
    A story of love, drugs, and social class in modern-day Lahore, Pakistan. The protagonist's life spirals out of control after losing his job and falling for his best friend's wife.

    When Daru Shezad is fired from his banking job in Lahore, he begins a decline that plummets the length of this sharply drawn, subversive tale. Before long, he can't pay his bills, and he loses his ... (Goodreads)

  3. The God of Small Things

    by Arundhati Roy
    A moving story of two siblings growing up in India, exploring love, politics, and class.

    The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car ... (Goodreads)

  4. The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    by Mohsin Hamid
    A Pakistani man's journey of identity and belonging, in a post-9/11 world.

    At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter… Changez is ... (Goodreads)

  5. My Name Is Red

    by Orhan Pamuk
    An art mystery set in 16th century Istanbul, delving into the power of art, religion and love.

    At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of ... (Goodreads)

  6. Midnight's Children

    by Salman Rushdie
    A magical tale of India's history told through the story of a boy born at the stroke of midnight.

    Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem ... (Goodreads)

  7. The White Tiger

    by Aravind Adiga
    An exploration of the Indian class system, told from the perspective of a lower-caste man.

    The entire novel is narrated through letters by Balram Halwai to the Premier of China, who will soon be visiting India. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born in the village of ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Interpreter of Maladies

    by Jhumpa Lahiri
    Collection of stories exploring the struggles of Indian-American immigrants in the US.

    A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four ... (Wikipedia)

  9. The Forty Rules of Love

    by Elif Shafak
    A story of romance and spiritual enlightenment, exploring the teachings of a Sufi master.

    Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy , a novel written by a ... (Goodreads)

  10. Unaccustomed Earth

    by Jhumpa Lahiri
    Collection of stories exploring the complexities of family, culture, and identity.

    From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take ... (Goodreads)

  11. Haroun and the Sea of Stories

    by Salman Rushdie
    A fantastical journey to the depths of the imagination, reclaiming the power of storytelling.

    At the beginning of the story, protagonist Haroun Khalifa lives with his father Rashid, a famous storyteller and doctor, and his mother Soraya, until the latter is seduced by their neighbor 'Mr. ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Fountainhead

    by Ayn Rand
    A story of a brilliant architect who refuses to conform to the establishment, challenging the status quo.

    In early 1922, Howard Roark is expelled from the architecture department of the Stanton Institute of Technology because he has not adhered to the school's preference for historical convention in ... (Wikipedia)

  13. And the Mountains Echoed

    by Khaled Hosseini
    Interconnected stories of family and love, tracing the consequences of decisions made throughout life.

    The novel opens in the year 1952. Saboor, an impoverished farmer from the fictional village of Shadbagh, decides to sell his three-year-old daughter Pari to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul. ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Love in the Time of Cholera

    by Gabriel García Márquez
    An epic love story spanning decades, exploring the power of true love.

    The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's ... (Wikipedia)

  15. Kane & Abel

    by Jeffrey Archer
    Two rival men, from different backgrounds, fight for success and power in a cutthroat world.

    The book tells the stories of two men born worlds apart. They have nothing in common except the same date of birth (18 April 1906 in the book, and 1901 in the miniseries based on it) and a zeal to ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The English Patient

    by Michael Ondaatje
    A World War II love story, exploring the depths of human emotion in the midst of tragedy.

    With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, ... (Goodreads)

  17. The Blind Assassin

    by Margaret Atwood
    A complex, interwoven story of family secrets, love, tragedy, and mystery.

    The novel's protagonist , Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Shalimar the Clown

    by Salman Rushdie
    A story of love, loss, and revenge set against a backdrop of religious extremism, terrorism, and political unrest.

    The central character, India, is the illegitimate child of a former United States ambassador to India, Maximilian Ophuls. Although a number of narratives and incidents in the novel revolve around ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Prophet

    by Kahlil Gibran
    Collection of poetic musings about life, spirituality, and love.

    Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

    by John le Carré
    A British agent's mission to infiltrate East Germany during the Cold War, full of suspense and intrigue.

    In this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With unsurpassed knowledge ... (Goodreads)

  21. Othello

    by William Shakespeare
    A tale of jealousy, manipulation, and tragedy, as one man's descent into madness leads to disastrous consequences.

    In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual ... (Goodreads)

  22. Disgrace

    by J.M. Coetzee
    A professor's fall from grace in post-apartheid South Africa, reckoning with the consequences of his actions.

    David Lurie is a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his own ... (Wikipedia)

  23. The Twentieth Wife

    by Indu Sundaresan
    Epic tale of a powerful Mughal Empress, set against a backdrop of political intrigue and personal drama.

    An enchanting seventeenth-century epic of grand passion and adventure, this debut novel tells the captivating story of one of India's most legendary and controversial empresses – a woman whose ... (Goodreads)

  24. The Sense of an Ending

    by Julian Barnes
    An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.

    By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)

  25. Dumb Witness

    by Agatha Christie
    Poirot investigates a murder in a small English town, uncovering secrets and lies.

    Emily Arundell, a wealthy spinster, writes to Hercule Poirot in the belief she has been the victim of attempted murder after a fall in her home in Berkshire . However, her family and household ... (Wikipedia)

  26. The Brothers Karamazov

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.

    The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)

  27. A Fine Balance

    by Rohinton Mistry
    A gripping story of four unlikely lives intertwined in the tumult of India's caste system.

    The book exposes the changes in Indian society from independence in 1947 to the Emergency called by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi . Mistry was generally critical of Indira Gandhi in the book. ... (Wikipedia)

  28. The Winner Stands Alone

    by Paulo Coelho
    A wealthy man's obsession with his ex-wife leads him to commit a series of murders at the Cannes Film Festival.

    The loosely connected plot tells the story of several individuals: Igor, a psychopathic Russian mobile phone mogul; Ewa, formerly Igor's wife but now married to Hamid, a Middle Eastern fashion ... (Wikipedia)

  29. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

    by Mohsin Hamid
    A rags-to-riches story of a young man's journey to success in a changing world.

    From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist , the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy's quest for wealth and love. His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a ... (Goodreads)

  30. The Architect's Apprentice

    by Elif Shafak
    A young boy becomes the apprentice of the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire, and navigates through love, war, and the construction of Istanbul's most iconic buildings.

    From the acclaimed author of, The Bastard of Istanbul, a colorful, magical tale set during the height of the Ottoman Empire In her latest novel, Elif Shafak spins an epic tale spanning nearly a ... (Goodreads)