Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

We of the east cannot fathom why westerners have forsaken religion. Read this book.

A History of the World in 1000 Objects [DK/Smithsonian]

The intro starts off with this line – ‘There is something magical about the survival of human-made objects from the past.’ History leaping out from the pages is the real magic of this book.

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Why nations act the way they do – its in their genes geography.

Two real disappointments this year were Exit West – with one of my favourite authors Mohsin Hamid [Moth Smoke/The Reluctant Fundamentalist] not quite able to pull off magical realism – and Artemis by Andy Weir [The Martian].

Note: These are my favourites among all the books I have read in 2017, not published in that year 😉