The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997) — Set in the Kerala backwaters and the lives it describes — caste, family, desire, loss — are inseparable from the landscape. Roy's prose captures the texture of Kerala life with a precision that no travel writing quite matches. Essential reading before or during any Kerala visit.
Sree Narayana Guru: A Biography by M.K. Sanoo — The life of the reformer who established Sivagiri Mutt and transformed the social landscape of Kerala. Reading it before visiting the mutt gives the place a very different weight.
Kerala: A Portrait of the Malabar Coast by Roland and Sabrina Michaud — A photographic and narrative account of Kerala's history, cultures, and landscapes. Useful for contextualising what you see in Varkala: the temple, the fishing communities, the backwaters, within the broader story of this unusual state.