This is a little experiment to find out which books would make you tick, the kind that have made a difference in your life and you feel could do the same to other people as well.
If a write up of why is a little too much of an effort, please put a link (URL) of the book covers 🙂
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I donot read a lot but I would certainly recommend these three! Cheers and all the best with the “books I would like in my library and why” 🙂
The 18 volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant. Very expensive to buy first hand through Amazon. It is possible to get second hand copies in the US. It would be great if the library could get hold of the copies, even if they are used copies. Very difficult to find them in Indian bookshops/libraries !
Ahem, will try and get the books for the library shortly
Thanks ! Please do let me know if you get them (Any of Will Durant’s). TIA !
there’s one by francine rivers that i can’t remember the name of that i loveloveloved! its actually based loosely around a religious story, but it turns into a reeeeally great novel. also alice in wonderland and through the looking glass, of course. birdsong/ charlotte grey by sebastian faulks were really good (but you have to battle through the start of birdsong – it is neccessary and makes the rest better!) and i enjoyed a thousand splendid suns. and last but not least time traveller’s wife by audrey niffenegger. so, so good!
i like this project 🙂 good luck with it all ravi!
ps – anne of green gables, any day! ok i’ll stop now…
Thank you Martina, please do come back and post again!
I like books that challenge beliefs and theories that we grew up with. How are we to progress as a society if we still cling to medieval notions that were handed down to us?
I really really hope Goobey will get THIS book for me!
Another powerful commentary in pictures about prejudices and racism. A picture book not just for children but all of us. Powerful images.
Lots of wisdom in a beautifully written story:
Muchos Gracias Priya, will organize a copy of the Galeano.
These are a few books i love: ‘Jonathan livingston seagull’ Richard Bach, ‘To kill a mocking bird’ Harper lee, ‘Catcher in the rye’ J.D.Sallinger, ‘Little Women’ Louisa May Alcott, ‘Anne of the Island’ Montgomery, ‘Harry Potter’ J.K.Rowling, All of Milan Kundera, V.S.Naipaul (non-fiction), Naom Chomsky, Gabrielle Garcia Marquez, Few of Bill Bryson’s and Michael Moore’s books, ‘School is Dead’ and ‘Drop out’ Himanshu S, ‘Something like an autobiography’ Akira Kurosawa.. inspiring autobiographies of people. (But not ‘Banker to the poor’ Muhammad Yunus please!! I don’t know if the translation to English has gone bad or what?!)
These are the books i would like to have for a collection!!
Thank you Monica, please specify which titles of Marquez, Chomsky and Naipaul you would absolutely love.
I agree Yunis is a little academic though nonetheless inspirational 🙂
I think every book has something to tell us and none of them can be classified as good or bad. Going by that thought i think all the books that i have read have played a role in making me the person i am today. Well the books that i have enjoyed reading over the years and would suggest are :
To kill a mocking bird
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenace
Blasphemy
Marley and me
Jermy Clarkson series
Eats shoots and leaves
Three men in a boat
Death of a salesman
The little prince
Solo
and these are some of the books that i would love to have on my shelf ( some i have read some not )
Chocolat- Joanne Harris
Provoked- Kiranjeet Ahluwalia
Solo – Rana dasgupta
Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (Gollancz SF)
Politically correct bedtime stories- James Finn Garner
Cryptographer – Tobias Hill
Collection of short stories by stephen king
Interred with Their Bones – J.L Carell
The Shakespeare Curse – J.L Carell
The city of dreaming books – Walter Moer
and now i think i should stop and save some for next round
oh btw forgot i think people may enjoy reading – “The 13 and a half lives of captain blue – bear” by walter moer
cheers
S 🙂
Thank you Shakshi
Travels With My Aunt, by Graham Greene. Greene is not a special favorite of mine, and I suspect this book is not a favorite among Greene fans. Nevertheless, it’s a great book to own. It’s light and funny, an excellent escape book that’s not too sugary to read again, and after a while maybe even again. It’s a perfect pre-travel read, and also satisfying if you feel like going someplace but a trip isn’t on the cards.
Of my favorites:
Also would love to get my hands on :
and finally, I’ve looked all over for this book called ‘The Illustrated Guide to India’. Better than any lonely planet/other travel book i’ve read. It’s a Readers Digest book and i don’t mind buying one second hand. Help or suggestions would be great!
Might not be recommended to everyone, but this is a revolutionary book on new-age feminism.
These are some of the harder-to-locate variety that I have on my list:
1. Nayan Chanda’s “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization” (hardbound edition)
2. Michel Onfray’s “Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”
3. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam” (hardbound edition)
4. Bell Hook’s “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom”
5. Niall Ferguson’s “Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power”
and “The Cash Nexus: Economics And Politics From The Age Of Warfare Through The Age Of Welfare, 1700-2000”
Thank you Josh for your eggselent suggestions!
A powerful rational arguement against Atheism, the ever expanding universe as proof –
This is his First book, i have yet to read the second book “super Freakonomics” which i bought from Goobe’s –
The Man Booker prize winning fiction (The White Tiger) by Aravind Adiga, Outsourcing, murder, rags to riches and Bangalore! What’s not to like? –
I would like to read this book, (The Kingdom of God is Within You) Gandhi’s Non Violence movement was influenced by Leo Tolstoy and this was a book Leo Tolstoy sent to Gandhi –
Hi George thank you for your post, could you provide the specific author and title of the book that you have mentioned on ‘A powerful …proof’
Don’t know, but you might have these already:
Hannibal series- Thomas Harris
Blink- Malcolm Gladwell
The Bartimaeus Trilogy- Jonathan Stroud (better than Harry Potter anyday)
The Dark Tower series- Stephen King (a tragedy of Shakespearean complexity)
The Tao of Jeet Kune Do- Bruce Lee
Illusions- Richard Bach
The Iron Giant- Ted Hughes ( i think)
The Wisdom of Lao Tse- Lao Tse
Without Remorse- Tom Clancy (typically long but worth the torment)
Rainbow Six- Tom Clancy (the father of all strike forces)
Gates Of Fire- Stephen Pressfield (as gory as “300” but a few billion times more intense)
The Incredible Bed- Bill Tidy (children’s story about a boy and his bed on an adventure)
Sunwing- Kenneth Oppel (a young bat as a hero, humans as the earth burning villains and a huge vampire bat who wants to kill and eat everybody, amazing book even for older “kids”)
How To Build A Time Machine- Paul Davies (pretty funny for a book that explains physics, very easy to understand even for people who hated science)
Most of these books i’ve read or will read.
Thank you Shreesh.
Thank you Liza.
Right now i can only think of these:
Thank you Sindhu, please do come back to post more when they come to mind!
Another list here:
Gabriel García Márquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Love in the Time of Cholera
Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence
Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities, If on a winter’s night a traveler
Ben Okri – The Famished Road, Infinite Riches
Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go
Haruki Murakami – Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, Norwegian Wood
Orhan Pamuk – Snow, The White Castle, The Black Book
Hello there,
Must reads:
1. Five people you meet in heaven and time keeper by mitch albom.
2. The boy in striped pyjamas by john boyne
3. The fault in our stars by john green
4. Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
5. Harry potter by jk rowling
These books just give you the chills. Some are inspiring. Some are beautiful.
Cheers.
The works of the less-heard bilingual poet Arun Kolatkar before they go out of print. Beautiful.!.
Would you recommend a specific title to get started with?
Anything you can get your hands on really. Online bookstores might only have Jejuri or Collected Poems; and the latter does include the former I think.
I really really love comic books and one of my favourite series is Scott Pilgrim. I would love to read ‘Seconds’ one of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new books. Perhaps one day, when I have the money
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari,
Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins,
Dune by Frank Herbert,
Lord of the rings by J.R.R Tolkien,
Pillars of the earth by Ken Follet,
Lord of the flies by William Golding,
MAUS by Art Spiegelman,
Palace of illusions by Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni,
Handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood,
Fox by Margaret Wild,
Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak,
Gruffalo child,
Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud,
Borne by Jeff vandermeer,
The girl who drank the moon by Kelly Regan Barnhill,
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery,
The historian by Elizabeth Kostova