Behind the Beautiful Forevers

“Katherine Boo is an American journalist, and this is an incredibly detailed, very novelistic—even more so than the others I’ve mentioned—account of life in a slum in Mumbai, India. She researched it over the course of several years, and reveals in a quite detailed author’s note at the end that not only did she spend substantial time there with translators,—and interviewed people hundreds of times in some cases—she gave some residents GoPros, cameras and recording devices so they could record things even when she wasn’t there. Then she pieced it all together.” Read more...

The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books

Samira Shackle, Journalist

“Vivid scenes of walking down Mumbai’s Airport Road, lined by shacks and trash pickers, and behind them are walls, and behind them are the finest five star hotels in India.” Read more...

The best books on The Trash Trade

Adam Minter, Foreign Correspondent

“This is about a small community who live in a slum in Mumbai, and it is an absolutely heartbreaking portrait of what life is like in the slums today.” Read more...

The best books on Why Cities Are Good For You

Leo Hollis, Historian