Set during Indira Gandhi's Emergency (1975-77), Mistry's novel follows four people whose lives converge in a Bombay apartment. Its scope and moral weight rival Dickens. Almost unbearable and almost unbearably good. Readers describe it as "the book that broke me and made me a better person," which for once is not an exaggeration.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.