India

Top five works of fiction and nonfiction, as of June 2005, based on sales data reported by India Today magazine.

FICTION
1. The Broker, by John Grisham. Presidential politics, international intrigue, and a marked man on the run.

2. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. Enough said.

3. Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT, by Chetan Bhagat. Written by a former student at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, this social comedy lambastes the Indian education system for its rigidity and asks, Do underperformers have a right to live?

4. Hour Game, by David Baldacci. A serial killer is at work in a small Virginia town, and an odd-couple pair of former Secret Service officers are on the case.

5. The Alchemy of Desire, by Tarun J. Tejpal. A penniless author who stops writing only when he is trying to sate his insatiable desire for his wife moves with her to the lower Himalayas. A metaphysical darkness descends.

NONFICTION
1. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin S. Sharma. A spiritually exhausted American lawyer travels to the Himalayas and hears such wisdom as "Start to live with unbridled energy."

2. Spouse: The Truth About Marriage, by Shobhaa Dé. Solutions to such common problems faced in modern Indian marriages as the "saas-bahu conundrum," which pits mother-in-law against daughter-in-law.

3. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. Snap judgments are good—usually.

4. Winning, by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch. Management tips from one of the world's most famous CEOs and his wife.

5. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta. A Bombay native returns to the city after twenty-one years and finds it blighted by crime, pollution, and sectarian violence.