I will not claim to be very well read, but I do pride myself in being a person who loves to read books that incite me to think a bit more than what I usually think. The thing with these books is that they help me in squeezing a bit more of juice out of the lemon called life and usually I have seen that these books precede the times when my writing is at its height and there is a heavy feeling of intoxication for me driven by not some drugs but rather than by the deep thoughts that my mind dwells in. Okay enough of this banter. Compiled is a list of some of the best books that stirred my heart to think a bit more.

1) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho


One of the best books that teach a lot of philosophy without really feeling like a textbook. The story is beautifully weaved like a fairy tale of the old, the story is gripping, enthralls you at every turn of the page and yet smells of deep truths of life between every lines of the book. It is a translated text but it is beautifully done and the language is quite simple. A must read.

2) Fault in our stars by John Green

I won’t say that this is the most beautifully written story or the most thought inciting one but yes there are some lines that do draw out some very beautiful and compassionate thoughts. The language is exceedingly simple and the teenagers can very easily relate to the way the book is written. There are many lines in the book that stand out boldly and steal the heart.
“The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters’s death was Augustus Waters.”
Is one of the best.

3) Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Every verse in the collection of song is an ocean in itself. It is very ironical that I love writing poems but I am not a fan of reading poems but I do confess that every night before going to sleep I read one song from Gitanjali. The beauty and the depth of each line cannot be denied. Undoubtedly a masterpiece sung in praises of the lord by the national poet of India.

4) The monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma

No offence to one of the most inspirational man in the world but to be completely honest I found his attempt a tad boring to read and to be honest I could never bring myself to finish the book however much my friends mock me at not reading the book. The book is very motivational and might make you look at life very differently from the moment you read it but I found the story a bit predictable and flat. You might feel otherwise, many of my friends definitely did.

5) The home and the world by Rabindranath Tagore

My sincere apologies to the great author for not remembering this masterpiece earlier. This book is a classic. Every character has their own side story and the whole is immersive and deep enough to make you question the very base on which love is built on. I have read both the original ‘Ghare Baire’ in Bengali and the English translation and both are delight to read. A must read for everyone who has ever given his heart to someone. A social drama enriched in the bloodshed of the Swadeshi movement.

There are two books that didn’t make it to the top five list but are definitely worth mentioning.
1) The invisible man by HG Wells
The story comes out as a simple science fiction thriller but at every line the integrity of man, his selfish desires and the question ‘who is the actual evil?’ is thrown up. You can’t, but help the sympathy for the poor scientist however appalling his actions are. Maybe if the society wasn’t that cruel, the ending might not have been that sad. HG Wells lived in sad times, he was a witness to both the world wars hence his belief in humane or humanity dwindled as he grew older, and maybe this book was a result of his distrust in the good nature of humans.

2)Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
This changes the whole perspective on how you view adultery, although this tome of a book needs immense patience to read through but the result is satisfactory. The book dwells on the fine development of feelings over time and truly pushes out the deepest thoughts of human mind out in the open. Daily life is shown a mirror in this Russian masterpiece by the legend.

There is another man I want to mention without whom literature might be a lot less beautiful. Shakespeare The man whose identity we don’t know. Pick up any of his books, if you can Read old English, Excellent!! Otherwise even the translation (If I might call them that) are equally good and each one is thought provoking and refreshing at the same time in their own unique way.

Another man is worth mentioning, Amish Tripathi; the author of the Shiva Trilogy and ‘The scion of Ikshvaku’ both the trilogy and the book are a delight to read with exciting depiction of our Hindu mythology but don’t take me wrong, the fiery and enthralling story does not make the well of philosophy shallow. There is enough thought provoking material in the book to bathe your mind.

I admit that I might have missed many titles in this attempt, I have no qualifications to judge and rate these legends but I do believe that books are magical. These books are magical to me because these books shaped a lot of how I live life today. Walk into any library and you can smell magic there, I might sound crazy but in these libraries I do feel like a child, lost in a store of candies where each candies bring different flavors of life.