See here for methodology.
| Title | Author | Goodreads raters | LibraryThing owners |
| Three Cups of Tea | Greg Mortenson | 343,984 | 12,951 |
| I Am Malala | Malala Yousafzai (and Christina Lamb) | 577,732 | 6,439 |
| I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition) | Malala Yousafzai | 31,704 | 2,433 |
| Stones Into Schools | Greg Mortenson | 16,994 | 1,904 |
| Shame | Salman Rushdie | 12,363 | 2,444 |
Well, this is a bit grim: the top book set in Pakistan among LibraryThing readers is a real White Saviour narrative about a guy who just goes and does good to the people of Paksitan, whether they want it done to them or not. I haven’t read it, and I have seen nothing about it that encourages me to do so. (And the same goes for the sequel, in eighth place on this table, which I suspect may be anyway more set in Afghanistan than Pakistan.)
Malala Yousafzai, who wins among Goodreads users, is a different matter. Although her autobiography is ghost-written by Christina Lamb, it’s a genuine insider story of life in Swat, and I think I will look out for it. It’s noticeable that the young readers’ edition comes in sixth place.
To my dismay, I need to rule out the next three books because less than 50% of each is set in Pakistan. Midnight’s Children and Exit West are both favourite books of mine, but most of Midnight’s Children is set in India and none (as far as I remember) of Exit West is set in Pakistan. Similarly, Home Fire is mostly set in England.
So the top fiction book set in Pakistan is Salman Rushdie’s Shame. I will look out for it too.
Asia: India | China | Indonesia | Pakistan | Bangladesh (revised) | Russia | Japan | Philippines (revised) | Vietnam | Iran | Türkiye | Thailand | Myanmar | South Korea | Iraq | Afghanistan | Yemen | Uzbekistan | Malaysia | Saudi Arabia | Nepal | North Korea | Syria | Sri Lanka | Taiwan | Kazakhstan | Cambodia | Jordan | UAE
Americas: USA | Brazil (revised) | Mexico | Colombia | Argentina | Canada | Peru | Venezuela | Guatemala | Ecuador | Bolivia | Haiti | Dominican Republic | Honduras
Africa: Nigeria | Ethiopia (revised) | Egypt | DR Congo | Tanzania | South Africa | Kenya | Sudan | Uganda | Algeria | Morocco | Angola | Mozambique | Ghana | Madagascar | Côte d’Ivoire | Cameroon | Niger | Mali | Burkina Faso | Malawi | Zambia | Chad | Somalia | Senegal | Zimbabwe | Guinea | Benin | Rwanda | Burundi | Tunisia | South Sudan
Europe: Russia | Türkiye | Germany | France | UK | Italy | Spain | Poland | Ukraine | Romania | Netherlands | Belgium
Oceania: Australia