Welcome!

Enrich Your Travels with Longitude

We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.

SIGN UP FOR

Longitude News

Get our monthly e-mail update

GET A

Catalog

SOUTH ASIA

India

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

  • E-MAIL
  • PRINT

Kids

Books for

Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Essential Reading

Item EXIDA308. Buy these 5 items as a set for $89 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

ADD SET
TO BOOKBAG

Eyewitness Guide India

Eyewitness Guide India

by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 824 PAGES

A handsome, beautifully illustrated guide to India. It features color photographs, history and plenty of background information. (IDA265, $30.00)

India

India

by Stanley Wolpert

  • HISTORY
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 281 PAGES

Reflections on India -- religion and philosophy, art, culture, and politics -- by the dean of its American historians: beautifully written, and provocative as well as evocative. (IDA04, $24.95)

Kim

Kim

by Rudyard Kipling

  • LITERATURE
  • 2011
  • PAPER
  • 432 PAGES

For the sheer pleasure of its prose, insight into the British in India and its extraordinary sense of place, you can't do better than Kipling's classic novel about a boy who travels the Grand Trunk Road with the Dalai Lama. (IDA65, $9.00)

Travelers' Tales India

Travelers' Tales India

by James O'Reilly | Larry Habegger

  • ANTHOLOGY
  • 2004
  • PAPER
  • 496 PAGES

A collection of 45 descriptive and thought-provoking short excerpts on Indian life and culture, including contributions from Rushdie, Naipaul and Dalrymple, plus some valuable excerpts from books long out of print. (IDA05, $19.95)

India Map

India Map

by ITMB

  • 2009
  • MAP

The most detailed shaded relief map (at a scale of 1:2,100,000) of India available. (IDA18, $12.95)

 
Eyewitness Guide Delhi, Agra and Jaipur

Eyewitness Guide Delhi, Agra and Jaipur


by Anuradha Chaturvedi

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 320 PAGES

With chapters on Taj Mahal, Amber Fort Palace, Keoladeo Ghana National Park, Red Fort and dozens of other highlights for the traveler, this compact, gorgeously illustrated guide to Delhi and its environs features 900 color photographs, maps and site plans. (IDA151, $25.00)

Hindi, Start Speaking Today!

Hindi, Start Speaking Today!


by Educational Services Corporation

  • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
  • CASETTE TAPE

A 90-minute crash course in Hindi featured in two audio tapes and a phrasebook. The course follows the foreign service method, focusing on whole dialogues and sentences. (IDA142, $24.95)

Rough Guide India

Rough Guide India


by David Abram

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 1456 PAGES

Geared to the independent traveler, this Rough Guide combines an opinionated survey of culture and history with good information on sightseeing, food and accommodations. (IDA86, $29.99)

A Traveller's History of India

A Traveller's History of India


by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda

  • HISTORY
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 288 PAGES

A condensed introduction to the themes and events that have shaped India from prehistory to Rajiv Gandhi's rule. (IDA57, $14.95)

Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress


by Jan Morris

  • HISTORY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 554 PAGES
  • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

A wonderful portrait of early (pre-1897) British colonial rule in India, Central Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Morris weaves historical accounts, character studies, and much imagination into this readable, compelling tale. (IDA20, $38.95)

India Unveiled

India Unveiled


by Robert Arnett

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2007
  • HARD COVER
  • 215 PAGES

A celebration of the people, landscapes and traditional culture of India, organized regionally and featuring 268 beautiful color photographs. It's a revealing, insightful portrait of the country combining history, geography and travelogue. (IDA107, $55.00)

May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, A Journey Among the Women of India

May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, A Journey Among the Women of India


by Elisabeth Bumiller

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1991
  • PAPER
  • 220 PAGES

A wonderfully written and fascinating portrayal of Indian women from Bollywood stars to Indira Gandhi to prostitutes. It's an insightful portrait of the country as seen through the eyes of its women. (IDA37, $14.95)

Meeting God, Elements of Hindu Devotion

Meeting God, Elements of Hindu Devotion


by Thomas Moore | Stephen Huyler

  • RELIGION
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 271 PAGES

A stunningly photographed introduction to the rituals and daily devotion of contemporary Hinduism in India. A companion to the traveling exhibition "Puja, Expressions of Hindu Devotion." (IDA132, $25.00)

The Idea of India

The Idea of India


by Sunil Khilnani

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1999
  • PAPER
  • 263 PAGES

Khilnani confronts the complexities, paradoxes and challenges of the nation in this brief, elegant survey of India since independence. (IDA160, $17.00)

The Wisdom of the Buddha

The Wisdom of the Buddha


by Jean Boisselier

  • RELIGION
  • 1994
  • PAPER
  • 191 PAGES

A pocket-size primer of Buddhism, this book is an illustrated history of the sixth-century Indian prince and his quest for enlightenment. With 207 illustrations, 160 in full color. (IDA55, $12.95)

World Religions: Eastern Traditions

World Religions: Eastern Traditions


by Willard G. Oxtoby

  • RELIGION
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 515 PAGES

A clear and insightful introduction to Eastern religions by a team of scholars, covering Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddhist and East Asian traditions. Scholarly, but still rewarding for the general reader. (ASA07, $79.95)

Hindu Art

Hindu Art


by T. Richard Blurton

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 1993
  • PAPER
  • 239 PAGES

A beautifully large paperback of excellent quality, this book is a good introduction to the complexities of Indian painting, sculpture and sacred architecture. (IDA35, $35.00)

Hindu Art and Architecture

Hindu Art and Architecture


by George Michell

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 2000
  • PAPER
  • 224 PAGES

An excellent survey of Hindu art and architecture, explaining the meaning and construction of principal images and buildings, as well as the development of Hinduism and the corpus of myths that have influenced its artistic tradition. (IDA147, $18.95)

Indian Art, A Concise History

Indian Art, A Concise History


by Roy C. Craven

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 1997
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

This convenient volume in the acclaimed "World of Art" series is a crisp, illustrated overview of the range of Indian art over the centuries. (IDA16, $21.95)

Hindoo Holiday

Hindoo Holiday


by J.R. Ackerley

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 2000
  • PAPER
  • 300 PAGES

Ackerley traipses across India as the English tutor to a handsome and extravagantly homosexual maharajah in this comic, beautifully written novel masquerading as a travelogue. (IDA115, $17.95)

A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance


by Rohinton Mistry

  • LITERATURE
  • 1997
  • PAPER
  • 624 PAGES
  • FAVORITE

Set in Indira Gandhi's "Emergency Raj" of 1975 in an unnamed Indian "city by the sea," which bears a striking resemblance to Bombay, this tender novel follows the intermingled fortunes of a Parsi widow, her boarder and two tailors. (IDA92, $17.00)

Malgudi Days

Malgudi Days


by R. K. Narayan

  • LITERATURE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 272 PAGES
  • FAVORITE

Wonderful tales about a fictional South Indian town, populated by quirky characters whose unique approaches to tradition and modernity are the stuff of great short stories. (IDA59, $15.00)

Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children


by Salman Rushdie

  • LITERATURE
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 533 PAGES
  • FAVORITE

Crowned Best of the Booker in 2008, Rushdie's greatest novel is a madcap, comic take on the birth of modern India in all its splendid and unexpected manifestations. (IDA12, $16.00)

The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things


by Arundhati Roy

  • LITERATURE
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 336 PAGES

This luminous, Booker-prize winning novel is part mystery, part family saga -- a tale of lost innocence set in Kerala during the tumult of the 1960s. (IDA31, $16.00)

Of Tigers and Men

Of Tigers and Men


by Richard Ives

  • NATURAL HISTORY
  • 1997
  • PAPER
  • 304 PAGES
  • HARD TO FIND ELSEWHERE

A haunting, beautifully written tale of a man's quest to encounter tigers in the wild, and to understand the meaning of the threat of the tiger's extinction. Ives visits the forests of India, Thailand, and Sumatra. (IDA30, $12.50)

Wild India, The Wildlife of India and Nepal

Wild India, The Wildlife of India and Nepal


by Guy Mountefort | Gerald Cubitt

  • NATURAL HISTORY
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 208 PAGES

An informative introduction to the natural history of the region in a handsome oversize volume. With hundreds of extraordinary photographs of the wildlife and landscapes of the Himalayas, the Indo-Ganges Plain and the Deccan. (IDA02, $29.95)

Birds of India

Birds of India


by Richard Grimmett | Carol Inskipp | Tim Inskipp

  • FIELD GUIDE
  • 2012
  • PAPER
  • 384 PAGES

Thoroughly revised, with 73 new plates and many others updated or repainted, the second edition of the masterful Birds of India now features all maps and text opposite the plates for quicker and easier reference. (FG43, $39.50)

More Recommendations

Here are some other groups of books that might be of interest

Longitude provides recommended reading for travelers in partnership with the leading tour operators and travel programs for hundreds of destinations worldwide. We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.