Best bookshelf of 2017

A list of best books that hit the stands in 2017

What do diplomats do when they retire? They tend to spend their days venting opinion on television or boring one another at think tanks. T C A Raghavan, former envoy to Islamabad, is the honourable exception. This year he produced, possibly by fortuitous coincidence, two remarkable chronicles of history, immensely readable and as distinct as chalk and cheese. Attendant Lords: Courtiers and Poets in Mughal India (HarperCollins; Rs 699) is his account of Bairam Khan and his son Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, powerful nobles in the service of four emperors, from Babur to Jahangir. Although their driving ambition and protean talents