Books that never left me

So I got challenged to list out 10 books that have made an impact on me for whatever reason. I think just listing the books wouldn’t have been enough. So instead of spamming the FB wall space I thought I’ll post a blog. Not giving a reason why they made an impact would be sacrilege!  There is no numbering, since it’s not an order of priority. So here goes:

• Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson - Strictly speaking not a book. But I couldn’t miss this one. It has more life lessons that many other tomes and the characters are just adorable and infinitely relatable.
• Mrityunjay, by Shivaji Sawant – It’s the story of the outcast. Perhaps the strongest character in the Mahabharat after Krishna. And it’s told beautifully. You feel like you are living in the life and times of ‘Karn’ and you feel the anguish in the pages. I have read it 11 times already and I think after this blog, I’ll start again.
• Gone with the wind and Scarlett, by Margaret Mitchell & Alexandra Ripley – I am listing both here because they are sort of incomplete without each other. I don’t consider it a war novel or a romance one. It’s for me the story of a girl who was ahead of her times. I love her sheer bewilderment at not being able to fit in, her grit and determination, and ultimately her journey to find herself as a woman.
• Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden – I don’t know why. But this is still the most thumbed book in my bookshelf.
• Alice in wonderland, by Lewis Carroll – for the sheer madness of it. And the golden snippets scattered across the text. My favorites are where Alice finds out that if you don’t know where you are going it doesn’t matter which road you take and that sometimes to stay in the same place you have to run really fast.
• Everything by P G Wodehouse – Exactly my kind of humor.
• Love Story, by Erich Segal – this was the first book I read that made me cry
• The Game of Thrones Series, by George R R Martin – It’s unexpected. People die like flies. There are dragons. Blood, gore, sex, politics, magic – what more can one want??
• Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson – This was the first biography I ever read, and I couldn’t put it down
• The kite runner, by Khaled Hosseini - I cried when Hassan recovers Amir’s kite.
• Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien – It does look like I love fantasy novels doesn’t it?? But well, this book created entire worlds and races. Have to love it.
• The Fountainhead, by Ayan Rand – Probably because some people identified me with Dominique
• Atlas Shrugged, by Ayan Rand – It was the first book I couldn’t finish. Still haven’t and will never.
• The inheritance of loss, by Kiran Desai – Yuck! Hated the way it was written
• Five point someone, by Chetan Bhagat – for the sheer stupidity of the narrative. Oh and also, the language was terrible!

Ok this is getting terribly long!!! I think I’ll stop now and tag other people. Ha!