FP’s Holiday Book List |
The year’s best stories
As FP’s books editor, it is always a treat to see what our columnists and staff writers consider holiday reading. For some, lighter fare fits the bill, from a detective novel in colonial-era Calcutta (now Kolkata) to a sun-drenched excursion through Corsica. Other contributors gravitate toward, for instance, a fictionalized account of an Austrian director’s work with Nazi propagandists. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, the reading list below is sure to have a book that strikes your fancy.—Chloe Hadavas
Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus Crime, 384 pp., $28.95, November 2025)
As FP’s books editor, it is always a treat to see what our columnists and staff writers consider holiday reading. For some, lighter fare fits the bill, from a detective novel in colonial-era Calcutta (now Kolkata) to a sun-drenched excursion through Corsica. Other contributors gravitate toward, for instance, a fictionalized account of an Austrian director’s work with Nazi propagandists. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, the reading list below is sure to have a book that strikes your fancy.—Chloe Hadavas
Abir Mukherjee (Pegasus Crime, 384 pp., $28.95, November 2025)
This holiday season, I am reading The Burning Grounds, the latest detective novel by the British Indian writer Abir Mukherjee. It features the return of Surendranath Banerjee, a former Bengali police officer, and Captain Sam Wyndham, a world-weary detective, to colonial-era Calcutta. Reunited after several years, the duo, despite their vastly different backgrounds, remain passionately committed to delivering justice.
The novel deftly depicts the social mores of the British and Indians of the era, carefully weaves in social and political commentary, and does not shy away from confronting the ingrained class and ethnic prejudices of the time. This is easily Mukherjee’s best book in the Wyndham and Banerjee series.
—Sumit Ganguly, FP columnist
Adam Nicolson (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 448 pp., $32, September 2025)
A new book by Adam Nicolson, one of Britain’s finest historians and naturalists, is always a treat, whether it’s on Homer or rock pools. The latest, Bird School, sees Nicolson suddenly enraptured by birds after handling a raven’s corpse by the side of the road and taking himself to a hide on his family farm to observe avians both mundane and magnificent.
Nicolson is scholarly without being........