People can be complicated. From decoding personalities at work to navigating difficult relationships and understanding the challenges facing today’s children, knowing why people think and behave the way they do can change how we connect with them.

Whether you want to improve your communication skills, understand the psychology of human relationships, or make sense of the impact of smartphones on young minds, these three books offer a place to start.

Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson

Ever wondered why you struggle to get through to certain people? In Surrounded by Idiots, bestselling author Thomas Erikson explores four personality types to help you understand different behaviours, improve communication skills, manage conflict and build better relationships at work and in life.

Games People Play by Eric Berne

Why do the same patterns keep repeating in our relationships? In this bestselling classic, psychiatrist Eric Berne explores the hidden psychological games people play in everyday interactions. Discover how understanding human behaviour can help you navigate power dynamics, recognise unhealthy patterns and build more honest relationships.

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

How are smartphones and social media shaping the way children grow up? In The Anxious Generation, psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the impact of screen time, declining free play and digital life on young people’s mental health and development. Combining research with practical insights, this essential read helps parents and readers understand the challenges of raising children in an increasingly digital world.

Because understanding people is the first step to building better relationships.

Looking for your next great read? These new releases bring together everything from gothic mysteries and historical journeys to food science, philosophy, business wisdom and unforgettable stories. Here are 19 new books to discover this month.

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Masala Body — Krish Ashok

Go beyond the nutrition myths and fear around everyday food to understand what actually happens inside your body after every meal.

The Art of Enduring — Saurabh Mukherjea, Salil Desai

Find out how five Indian companies kept compounding through a decade of disruption—and what their resilience can teach us about building businesses that last.

Indians in the Ocean — Mahmood Kooria

Travel back to a time when Indian traders, travellers and ideas were crossing the Indian Ocean and connecting the subcontinent to a much wider world.

India After Nonalignment — Happymon Jacob

Look beyond India’s famous policy of nonalignment to understand the long-standing ambition to become an independent pole of power in a multipolar world.

3000 Miles to Freedom — M.M. Pillai

Follow the extraordinary true story of three prisoners of war who crossed 3,000 miles through enemy-occupied territory with nothing but determination to get home.

Pill-Free — Dr Chandrakant Lahariya

Rethink the idea that more medicines, tests and treatments always mean better healthcare, and learn how to recognise the dangers of unnecessary treatment.

The Chip Age — Rakesh Kumar

Understand how the tiny semiconductor became the technology powering our lives—and one of the biggest forces shaping the global economy and geopolitics.

Strivers — Upasna A. Agarwal, Arvind Agrawal, Usha Sunderarajan

What happens after you achieve the money, titles and prestige you once chased? Twenty-eight high achievers explore what success means when purpose enters the picture.

Brief Case — Sanjay Arora

Go behind 40 iconic brands to uncover the psychology, cultural cues and clever decisions that make some products impossible to forget.

All Our Evenings — Ruthvika Rao

A childhood friendship, a devastating act of violence and a secret that survives for a decade come together in this tender and unsettling story of first love and loss.

How to Be Debt Free — Abhijeet Kolapkar

Make sense of the EMIs, interest rates, CIBIL scores and psychological traps that can turn everyday borrowing into a cycle of debt.

Aghori 3: Death and Beyond — Mayur Kalbag 

An ancient evil, a forbidden island, a powerful mantra and a deadly sea serpent set the stage for the Aghoris’ most dangerous mission yet.

Truth and Love — Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Daniil Tolstoy

Step into the remarkable correspondence between Gandhi and Tolstoy to discover how two great thinkers grappled with truth, non-violence, moral courage and social change.

In the Moonlit Kingdom — Aishwarya Jha

When an estranged daughter returns to her family’s mysterious mountain manor, she finds herself drawn into a web of old betrayals, buried secrets and a puzzling inheritance.

Nobody Believes You Yet — Harsh Pamnani, Vargab Bakshi

Go behind India’s startup ecosystem to understand how founders earn customer trust, find their first market and turn promising ideas into businesses that can scale.

Tonight on Nature TV News — Rohan Chakravarty

What would the news look like if wildlife had a voice? These sharp and witty cartoons let animals comment on the climate crises, politics and environmental choices shaping their world.

Dhruvadevi — Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra

Enter the Gupta court, where a powerful queen finds herself caught between a failing king, an ambitious prince and an empire on the brink of collapse.

The Wordsmith — Dhruba Jyoti Borah

Translated from the award-winning Assamese Kotha Ratnakar, this powerful story follows a man pushed into a life of crime as he searches for redemption and a way back to himself.

Valmiki’s Sita — Yashodeep Deodhar

Return to the earliest telling of Sita’s story to look beyond the idealised icon and encounter a woman defined by courage, resilience, dignity and her own choices.

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Every big move begins quietly. A new idea. A career question. A side hustle you keep thinking about. A dream that feels exciting, but just out of reach.

That is where the Growth stack from Big Books, Bigger You comes in. Curated for students, founders, managers, creators and ambitious readers, these titles are for anyone ready to think bigger, move smarter and build with more confidence.

For readers who want business-school thinking without the business-school schedule, The Visual MBA is a sharp, accessible guide to strategy, finance, marketing and leadership — perfect for anyone searching for an MBA in a book.

For founder energy and real-world lessons, The Diary of a CEO brings Steven Bartlett’s hard-won insights on ambition, decision-making and growth, including ideas from The 33 Laws of Business and Life.

And for anyone wondering what their next chapter could look like, Simon Squibb’s What’s Your Dream? offers the push to find your passion, reconnect with purpose and turn a side hustle into something real.

Together, these are not just business reads. They are momentum builders — for the reader who wants clarity, courage and a starting point.

Because growth does not begin when everything is figured out. It begins when you decide to start.

Some days, the goal is not to do more. It is to breathe easier, think softer, let go of what is weighing you down and find your way back to yourself.

The Calm + Wellbeing stack from Big Books, Bigger You is made for those moments. Whether you are looking for a stress relief book, a mental wellbeing book, a self help book for anxiety, or a thoughtful gift for someone who needs comfort, these books offer gentle but powerful ways to reset.

Start with How to Let Things Go, the how to let things go book by Shunmyo Masuno. This Shunmyo Masuno book is a calming book on letting go and a beautiful zen mindfulness book for anyone carrying too much.

For practical emotional tools, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? is the Dr Julie Smith book readers keep recommending — a clear, compassionate and practical mental health book for everyday overwhelm.

For anyone healing from difficult relationships, It’s Not You is the Dr Ramani book that speaks directly to toxic patterns, making it an essential narcissistic abuse book, healing from narcissistic abuse book and toxic relationships book.

And if you are ready to invite in hope, Yoshuku by Azumi Uchitani is the Yoshuku book, Japanese manifestation book, gratitude manifestation book and manifestation rituals book that turns possibility into a daily practice.

Because calm is not a luxury. Sometimes, it is the first step toward becoming bigger.

From The Author’s Desk

We’ve heard it hundreds of times at our centre in Ahmedabad.

‘We were beaten and abused, and we still became successful. So this is all nonsense.’

It’s said with pride. Sometimes irritation. Often with conviction. And the people saying it aren’t entirely wrong. Indian parenting, with all its toughness and silences, has produced generations of capable, resilient adults.

But across 3,000 childhood trauma assessments and 14 peer-reviewed studies at Wellness Space, we’ve also seen what gets masked beneath that success: the anxiety that arrives without warning. The relationships that keep repeating the same painful patterns. The exhaustion no sleep can fix. The quiet, persistent sense that something is fundamentally wrong with you.

Most people ask: What’s wrong with me? Our book asks a different question.

And that difference, we believe, is where healing begins.

Why the global ACE framework misses India

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), stressful events before age 18, are now firmly linked to adult anxiety, depression, PTSD, and even physical illness. But it was built in America in the 1980s. It doesn’t capture the emotional pressure of constant comparisons: Why can’t you be more like your cousin? It doesn’t account for joint families where a child has no privacy, no safe space, no language for what they’re feeling. It doesn’t measure parenting that equates love with obedience and strength with silence. And it ignores the verbal fights between parents who, in a culture of low divorce rates, force themselves to stay together.

You don’t need to prove your childhood was bad enough to deserve recovery. Many people dismiss their struggles because someone else had it worse. But trauma isn’t measured by comparison. It’s measured by impact.

Why time alone doesn’t heal trauma

‘It happened so long ago. Why is it still affecting me?’

Because trauma isn’t stored only in memory. It lives in the body, the nervous system, and what the Indian Knowledge System calls the Pancha Kosha, the five layers of being: Annamaya (body), Pranamaya (energy), Manomaya (mind), Vijnanamaya (intellect), and Anandamaya (the blissful core). Trauma may disrupt all five, surfacing as body tension, disordered breathing, distorted beliefs, low self-esteem and disconnection from inner peace.

This is why talking alone isn’t enough. Recovery must reach all five layers.

What’s inside the book

The book explores how childhood experiences affect adult mental health, introduces the Pancha Kosha framework as a lens to understand trauma, and offers evidence-based approaches to recovery, including breathwork, nervous system regulation, guided visualisation, and self-hypnosis. It also provides mental health professionals with clinical frameworks and tools developed through years of research and practice in India.

Who this is for

For anyone who has spent years quietly wondering what’s wrong with them. For parents repeating the patterns they promised they wouldn’t. For therapists whose academic training didn’t quite prepare them for real clinical complexity. For anyone told, ‘Everyone had a tough childhood — move on,’ and quietly knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

You don’t need to remember everything.

You don’t need to blame anyone.

You don’t need to prove your childhood was bad enough.

You only need the courage to ask a different question.

Not: What’s wrong with me?

But: What happened to me?

That’s where recovery begins.

What Happened to Me? vs What’s Wrong with Me?: Indian Perspectives on Childhood Trauma and Recovery by Dr Gunjan Y Trivedi, Dr Riri G Trivedi and Dr Hemalatha Ramani is published by Ebury Press on 22 June 2026.

Also by the authors: This Book Won’t Teach You Parenting: But It Will Make You a Better Parent — Dr Riri G Trivedi and Anagha Nagpal (Penguin Random House India, 2025).

Featured Stories from the National Young Authors Challenge

The National Young Authors Challenge, conducted by Big Red Education in partnership with Penguin Random House India, was created to give students in Grades 8–12 a unique opportunity to share their stories, develop their craft, and experience the journey from writer to published author.

What began as a writing challenge quickly grew into a nationwide celebration of young storytelling talent. More than 800 students from over 250 schools across 45+ cities participated, submitting over 1,000 original stories that reflected the creativity, imagination, and diverse perspectives of young writers across India. Participants also had the opportunity to learn from Penguin authors, editors and publicists at the publishing house through an exclusive writing bootcamp designed to strengthen their storytelling and editing skills.

Following a rigorous multi-stage evaluation process, 100 stories were selected as the top national entries. Furthermore, the top 50 stories are being published as a special anthology by Penguin Random House India, curated and edited by acclaimed author Vibha Batra. In addition to the stories selected for publication in the book, these next set of 50 stories were recognised and featured on Penguin’s website.

These young authors have distinguished themselves through originality, creativity, and excellence in storytelling, earning national recognition for their work. We are delighted to showcase these stories on Penguin Random House India’s platform and celebrate the remarkable achievement of these young writers.

Together, these authors represent the remarkable talent, creativity, and literary promise of young people across India. We invite you to explore their stories and discover the imagination, skill, and originality of a new generation of storytellers.

Read the 50 Featured Stories here 

Keep Reading. Keep Writing.