1. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
This fluidly written novel by Hosseini is set in Afghanistan, amidst a country that is struggling with national identity. A story of growing up, the power of reading, a sweeping tale of friendship across economic divides, this book will make you think deeply about human relationships and humanity's ability to survive. Gain perspective, learn to present your thoughts and understand how radical changes in society have the ability to affect the lives and times of little people like us!
2. A thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
3. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Alchemy refers to the process of turning lead into gold. But what is gold really? How does a human being shine as bright as the lure of precious metal? The Alchemist is a story of human evolution - of a boy growing up and becoming. This is the story of Santiago, the main protagonist, who yearns to travel. His quest will lead him to riches far different, and far more satisfying, listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and most importantly, to follow our dreams.
4. Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
This is a series that has changed the life of many a millennial. The story of a boy wizard, who learns to fight evil despite various hardships and catastrophes, you will find yourself laughing, crying, falling in love and feeling the magic as you read each page. Harry's story is like every person's story - simple, deep, meaningful, completely unsubtle and yet extremely complex. If you're going to read just one book from the series, we recommend Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.
5. Hunger Games Series - Suzzane Collins
The extraordinary, ground breaking New York Times bestsellers The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, along with the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay, are stunning, gripping, and powerful stories. The trilogy is now complete!
6. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - JRR Tolkien
First, you'll be awed by the world of magic created by Tolkien. Then, you'll be swept away. You'll visit Hobbitton and laugh at the banality of Hobbits. You'll fly to Rivendell via Loth Lorien and the Mines of Moria. After facing tragedy at the mines, the surreal calm of Rivendell will make you forget all your woes. And then you'll step right into war. From the grasslands of Rohan to the great city of Minas Tirith, from the glens of Gondor to the the Dark Lord Sauron's lair in Mordor, you'll journey with gritty Frodo and witty Sam. There will be times your heart will break. And at others, you'll want to ROFL. But the sweeping saga of the 8 travellers and the ring bearer will grip you and leave you wanting for more after it's over! This is a delight to read. And it will help you build perspective, imagination as well as your vocabulary!
7. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
How long can it take to build a cathedral? Well, in the middle ages somewhere in Europe, it took generations. Decades passed, the Cathedral still incomplete. Just like the pillars of the Earth. Set in 12th century feudal England, Follett draws a picture of the world at the time. This is where history and fiction meet. Follett has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail. The vast forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape. And you learn how to present poetry in prose.
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.
9. First Among Equals - Jefferey Archer
In the 1960s, four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster. Over three decades they share the turbulent passions of the race for power with their wives and families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the highest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal - the office of Prime Minister. With a storyline like a popular Netflix series, this will be a fun read and add to your reading comprehension speed as well!
10. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less - Jefferey Archer
Jeffrey Archer's first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, is page-turning tale of fraud, revenge and determination as four men stop at nothing to get back what was stolen from them. One million dollars – that's what Harvey Metcalfe, lifelong king of shady deals, has pulled off with empty promises of an oil bonanza and instant riches. Overnight, four men – the heir to an earldom, a Harley Street doctor, a Bond Street art dealer and an Oxford don – find themselves penniless. But this time Harvey has swindled the wrong men. They band together and shadow him from the casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot and the hallowed lawns of Oxford. Their plan is simple: to sting the crook for exactly what they lost – not a penny more, not a penny less.
When Mitchell McDeere qualified third in his class at Harvard, offers poured in from every law firm in America. Bendini, Lambert and Locke were a small, well-respected firm, but their offer exceeded Mitch's wildest expectations: a fantastic salary, a new home and the keys to a brand new BMW.
It was his dream job – but it was to become his worst nightmare. Unraveling a complex trail of secret files, undercover surveillance and millions of dollars of illegal mob money, Mitch stumbles across a shocking conspiracy and a horrifying truth: nobody has ever left Bendini, Lambert and Locke – and anybody who has ever tried has ended up dead.
12. Tell Me Your Dreams - Sidney Sheldon
Tell Me Your Dreams is a novel by best-selling American author Sydney Sheldon. The book is about the lives of three very different women, and how events over the course of the story reveal that they are interconnected in a way no one would ever imagine.
13. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
You get 2 things in any Agatha Christie novel - a nice case of crime to be unraveled by an expert or an everyday detective served with a slice of full English, colonial or country life. A thrilling delight to read, this book will induce fear, excitement, horror and morbid entertainment! Oh and also help you build those English language chops!
14. Apathy and Other Small Victories - Paul Nielan
A scathingly funny debut novel about disillusionment, indifference, and one man's desperate fight to assign absolutely no meaning to modern life. There's depth here. And pain.
15. Animal Farm - George Orwell
George Orwell's writings make you wonder. Did Orwell see into the future? Because his works are like predictions that are coming true in our world today. Orwell’s frightening ‘fairy story’ is a timeless and overwhelming satire of idealism deceived by power and corruption. Although, it almost remained unpublished due to its savage attack on Stalin, Britain’s then ally and got turned down by publisher after publisher, today it’s known to be one of Orwell’s best works and a world-famous classic.
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Intermediate Level
You've got to enjoy reading by now, to persist with these books.
Fiction
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.
An intense read, this book will give you a glimpse of Korean culture and the darker side of the human mind, while also helping you build critical thinking skills.
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.
Marquez is known for his descriptive style of writing and his ability to put into words, even the most basic of human emotions. When you read this book, you'll feel that you've embarked on a journey of epic proportions, traversing lifetimes. This book will help you improve language, understand nuances of human emotions and decisions put into words and make you think about your own life and history!
3. Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s Cradle is one of the twentieth century’s most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best.
But wait, one more thing. It's about Kurt Vonnegut. When you read his work, at first, you are forced to think. Then you relate. Because what Kurt writes about the USA and its systems or anything else weirdly sounds like our own systems. Then you wonder whether to laugh at his humour or to cry at the folly that is human existence.
4. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five is one of the world’s great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the second World War, Billy pilgrim’s Odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know. ‘An extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist. - Excerpt from a New York Times review.
Time travel, fighting demons and humour. Enough said on why you should read this book. Also, Kurt Vonnegut. Read the point above for clarification!
It’s the closing months of World War II and Yossarian has never been closer to death. Stationed in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, each flight mission introduces him to thousands of people determined to kill him. But the enemy above is not Yossarian’s problem – it is his own army intent on keeping him airborne, and the maddening ‘Catch-22’ that allows for no possibility of escape.
I call this a mad read. The moment you start, you're plunged into an unreal world. At least that's what many say war is. Even more relatable in this COVID 19 situation. When you're stuck amidst the pincers of an impossible happening. Basically, a catch 22 is a dilemma or a confusing situation from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. You'll relate To Yossarian's disbelief, indecision and overall apathy pretty well once you start comprehending just what he's going through!
6. Catcher in The Rye - JD Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye is a story by J. D. Salinger, partially published in serial form in 1945–1946 and as a novel in 1951. It was originally intended for adults, but is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst and alienation, and as a critique on superficiality in society.
Ever heard of the phrase, "Big Brother is Watching?" Well this is where it all began. Kind of. Once again, George Orwell was prescient methinks. No place is safe to run or even hide from a dominating party leader, Big Brother, who is considered equal to God. This is a situation where everything is owned by the State. The world was seeing the ruins of World War II. Leaders such as Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini prevailed during this phase. Big Brother is always watching your actions. He even controls everyone’s feelings of love, to live and to discover. The basic plot of this historic novel revolves around the concept that no person has freedom to live life on his or her own terms. And, you'll find parallels to our own time here mind you. With data privacy being a big question mark, someone is always watching what we're doing online. The good, the bad, the ugly, everything is recorded and used. Creepy, right?!
8. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress...
Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.
9. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - Douglas Adams
It's an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and his best friend has just announced that he's an alien. At this moment, they're hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed in large friendly letters, with the words: DON'T PANIC. The weekend has only just begun . . .
If sci-fi is your thing (or not) you must read this one book(s). Started as a BBC radio series, The Hitchhikers Guide is about the multiverse. There's aliens, flying spaceships, crazy new planets and the destruction of the Earth just so that a bridge can be built across a space highway. And then there's human greed, folly and all of that too. Only without the humans!
10. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
After three years in prison, Shadow has served his time. But as the days and hours until his release tick away, he can feel a storm brewing.
Two days before his release date, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in adulterous circumstances. Dazed, Shadow travels home, only to encounter the bizarre Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a very strange journey across the States, along the way solving the murders which have occurred every winter in one small American town. But the storm is about to break.
Disturbing, gripping and profoundly strange, Gaiman's epic novel sees him on the road to the heart of America.
11. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
The classic novel of a post-literate future, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ stands alongside Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.
Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.
12. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
In one of the most acclaimed novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.
Ishiguro writes with the same idyllic references to English life as any native British author like Agatha Christie would. You'll find yourself getting lost in those descriptions and ramblings. And learn a word or two!
13. My name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and the Ottoman Empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day - in the European manner. In Istanbul at a time of violent fundamentalism, however, this is a dangerous proposition. Even the illustrious circle of artists are not allowed to know for whom they are working. But when one of the miniaturists is murdered, their Master has to seek outside help. Did the dead painter fall victim to professional rivalry, romantic jealousy or religious terror?
Orhan Pamuk's works make you feel touched, sad, happy and curious at the same time.
14. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.
When you read Murakami, you'll feel that you're in a magical world. Reality bends to accommodate the entirety of human emotions unapologetically. And everything goes. We learn resilience, grit, quirk and lots more. When things look down, just read some Murakami. You'll feel better immediately!
15. Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami
Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.
As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.
Again, you can see why it's intriguing and exhilarating to read Murakami. If not, check out point 14!
16. Dance, Dance, Dance - Haruki Murakami
High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.
Enough said.
The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in this world, there seems no way to save them both.
Something extraordinary is starting.
18. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
'Midnight’s Children’ by the renowned author Sulman Rushdie is an epic novel that opens up with a child being born at midnight on 15th August, 1947, just at a time when India is achieving Independence from centuries of foreign British colonial rule.
Divided in three parts, the novel begins with the story of Siani’s family and the various events that lead to India’s independence and eventually to partition. Born precisely at the midnight, Saleem was born with telepathic powers and later discovers that all the kids born in India between 12 A.M. and 1 A.M. are impregnated with the special power.
There's also the film. But we prefer the book. Where Rushdie paints India during the time of independence and after with his expert words and beautiful descriptions.
19. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means ‘of Fred’. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.
You can watch it on Netflix. It's pretty well made. But reading the book will give you goosebumps. Atwood is known for her work in dystopian fiction. Hence this is a delight (also slightly scary) to read.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
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Advanced Level
Some serious reads, these. They may take you time. You may not complete them in one go. You may read a bit, revisit them later. Or read twice an thrice to get it!
Fiction
1. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
At first sight Harry Haller seems a respectable, educated man. In reality he is the Steppenwolf: wild, strange, alienated from society and repulsed by the modern age. But as he is drawn into a series of dreamlike and sometimes savage encounters - accompanied by, among others, Mozart, Goethe and the bewitching Hermione - the misanthropic Haller discovers a higher truth, and the possibility of happiness. This blistering portrayal of a man who feels himself to be half-human and half-wolf was the bible of the 1960s counterculture, capturing the mood of a disaffected generation, and remains a haunting story of estrangement and redemption.
Written by an author who suffered through depression himself, Steppenwolf brings home truths that are so simple and yet profound, they hit you. You are forced to think, to grow and change!
2. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.
But that's not just why you need to read the Silmarillion. See Tolkien was probably either slightly crazy or a genius. Or both. The world he creates in the Lord of The Rings has a backstory. The Silmarillion is a part of that back story. In one word, it's an 'enchanting' read.
3. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Set in the anarchic world opened up by America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is an epic and potent account of the barbarous violence that man visits upon man. Through the hostile landscape of the Texas-Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept-up in the relentless tide of blood. But the apparent chaos is not without its order: while Americans hunt Indians – collecting scalps as their bloody trophies – they too are stalked as prey. Since its first publication in 1985, Blood Meridian has been read as both a brilliant subversion of the Western novel and a blazing example of that form. Powerful and savagely beautiful, it has emerged as one of the most important works in American fiction of the last century. A truly mesmerizing classic.
4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The story revolves around the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov the father of the Karamazov brothers a debauched man who leads a hedonistic life and excels in the art of seducing women.A spiritual drama of sorts, the story of Fyodor and his three sons from different wives, embodies Dostoevsky’s philosophy and delves into debates on morality, free will and God.
Dostoevsky's works can sometime read like the epitome of melancholy and sometimes give you a flavour of the yet unexplored Russian mindset and culture. There's depth, sadness, philosophy and all that which makes Dostoyevsky, well, himself.
5. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Gripped by anxiety, the impoverished, handsome, and intelligent Rodion Raskolnikov has isolated himself from everyone. Preoccupied with his own contemplations, he becomes conscious of his fears. After much introspection, Raskolnikov murders an old pawnbroker—for the betterment of the society—and escapes unnoticed. But will he be able to escape his own conscience?
An exceptional psychological drama, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment deftly delves into the mind of a young man who commits a crime, laying bare his mental anguish and moral dilemmas. Having undergone several film adaptations, the novel continues to remain a literary sensation.
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press. Later it was translated into Russian by Nabokov himself. You'll find film adaptations and theater adaptations of this classic as well.
Siddhartha is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery. Profound, simple, deep, life changing. These are some epithets you can ascribe to Siddhartha, the protagonist in this story. Set in the time of Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha has the power to astound you with its simple answers to the big questions of life.
Every time you read Siddhartha, you'll find a new perspective, a new analogy and a new answer to life's problems and troubles.
8. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
'One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.'
Thus begins The Metamorphosis, cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the twentieth century. A story of Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, who wakes up one day to discover that he has metamorphosed into a bug, The Metamorphosis is a book that concerns itself with the themes of alienation, disillusionment and existentialism.
As Samsa struggles to reconcile his humanity with his transformation, Kafka, very deftly, weaves his readers into a web that deals with the absurdity of existence, the alienating experience of modern life and the cruelty and incomprehensibility of authoritarian power, leaving them at once stunned and impressed.
A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K, an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed to him. Once arrested, he is released but must report to court on a regular basis, an event that proves maddening, as nothing is ever resolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life, including work at a bank and his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door, becomes increasingly unpredictable. As Joseph tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.
10. Adventures of Hucklberry Finn - Mark Twain
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck escapes from the clutches of his abusive drunk father ‘Pap’ and the ‘civilizing’ guardian Widow Douglas. After faking his own death in pursuit of freedom, during one of his travels, Huck, encounters Jim, a runaway slave. Together, they embark on an exciting journey along the Mississippi River, meeting different people and participating in their unusual lives. With time, Huck finds himself in a moral dilemma over societal values and his own friendship with Jim. First published in 1884, the book was an indictment of racism, class prejudices and identity conflicts.
11. The Bible according to Mark Twain
Featuring Twain's singular portrayals of God, Adam, Eve, Satan, Methuselah, Shem, St. Peter and others, the writings stand among Twain's imaginative expressions of his views on human nature and humankind's relation to the Creator and the universe. Composed over four decades (1871-1910), the writings range from farce to fantasy to satire, each one bearing the mark of Twain's unmistakable wit and insights.
12. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
“The soul is a
Terrible reality. it can be bought
And sold and bartered away.”
Meet Dorian Gray, the beautiful young man with an impossibly charming face and spirit. as he sits for Basil Hallward—a deeply moral artist and a friend of the impish Lord Henry—who becomes obsessed with his beauty and wants to paint him, Dorian is enchanted by the perfection of his portrait. But, influenced by the well-phrased epigrams of the hedonist Lord Henry on the transience of youth and beauty, Dorian becomes jealous of it and wishes that the portrait bear the scars of his passing youth and age, while he would remain young forever. And Alas, his wish comes true!
Enticed into dissolution and degradation while his portrait is aging in the attic, Dorian engages in scandals and sinful pleasures. We see him go from good to evil. But is he any happier? With an unparalleled depiction of the Faustian bargain, this parable of aesthetic ideal remains a literary masterpiece almost 125 years after its publication.
13. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
You've probably watched the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Amitabh Bachchan among others.
In Spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a veteran of the Great War—journeys east to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman. He rents a bungalow in the Long Island village of West Egg, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who hosts dazzling soirées yet does not partake in them. Unravel the mystery of Gatsby in Fitzgerald's inimitable style.
14. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
In 1855, An unknown but wildly ambitious young poet self-published the first edition of leaves of grass, consisting of twelve untitled poems and an explanatory Preface Walt Whitman spent the rest of his life engaged in expanding and revising this work, through six editions and nearly four decades, establishing leaves of grass as one of the central works in the history of world poetry.
15. Gitanjali - Rabindranath Tagore
Moving, heart-felt prose poems by the beloved and much admired Bengali poet and mystic who first achieved international fame (and a Nobel Prize) in 1913 with his translation of these moving poems. Reminiscent of Blake and Gibran, they include many works that are almost biblical in their rhythms, phrasing and images.
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God Mode:
Considered one of the most important modernist works in literature, James Joyce Ulysses (1922) is often referred to as a modern parallel of Homer’s epic poem, Odyssey. The story revolves around the events of a single ordinary day, 16 June 1904, in the life of br>Leopold Bloom, Mary Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, the famous hero from Joyce a portrait of the artist as a young man, who Act as counterparts of Telemachus, Odysseus and Penelope respectively from the epic poem. Joyce portrays modernist concerns in the context of the 20th century by enhancing the structural similarities yet stark differences between the events and characters of the epic poem and his novel.
2. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss.
3. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
The journey of a mind strained with religion, family and culture to the portrait of a mind that has achieved emotional, intellectual and artistic adulthood.
4. Finnegan’s Wake - James Joyce
Finnegans's Wake is Joyces last great work, and is formulated as one dense, tongue-twisting soundscape. It also remains the most hilarious, obscene, book of innuendos ever to be imagined.
5. The Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
Nightmarish and fiercely funny, William Burroughs' virtuoso, taboo-breaking masterpiece Naked Lunch follows Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction. One of the most shocking novels ever written, Naked Lunch is a cultural landmark, now in a restored edition incorporating Burroughs' notes on the text, alternate drafts and outtakes from the original.
6. Agua Viva - Clarice Lispector
Written in flight from inspector's 'shipwreck of introspection' It is a book unlike any other in the Inspector canon, a novel about simply seeing the external world. Its heroine lucrecia is utterly mute and unreflective. She may have no inner life. The plot itself is utterly unlike any other inspector narrative: Small-town girl marries rich man, sees the world and lives happily ever after. But there are miraculous horses, linguistic ecstasies, catty remarks, minor characters' Visions and music from unknown sources. As it turns out, not being profound is simply another way of being profound'.
7. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu
No judgement of taste is innocent - we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction brilliantly illuminates the social pretentions of the middle classes in the modern world, focusing on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie. First published in 1979, the book is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.
8. House of Leavesby Mark Z. Danielewski
House of Leaves is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. The plot is centered on a (possibly fictional) documentary about a family whose house is impossibly larger on the inside than the outside. The format and structure of House of Leaves is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style, making it a prime example of ergodic literature. It contains copious footnotes, many of which contain footnotes themselves, including references to fictional books, films or articles. In contrast, some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged in strange ways to mirror the events in the story, often creating both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect. At points, the book must be rotated to be read. The novel is also distinctive for its multiple narrators, who interact with each other in elaborate and disorienting ways.
9. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, the novel explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart, this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it.
What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'
10. Goethe’s Faust
Faust is the popular tragic play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This play has been listed among one of the best plays in the history of German literature. Due to its success, it has also been translated into various languages.
11. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. Rich and diverse, The Canterbury Tales offer us an unrivalled glimpse into the life and mind of medieval England.
Comments
Jerry George
Great job. Could you publish a list of non fiction books too?
6 May 2020, 02.06 PM
RÂHÚL KÙMÁR
Persuing Engineering
Thanks for such content.But as we know that watching gives us more clarification in our imagination.So,What are the best movies and web series a cat aspirant should watch which will be helpful in their preparation as well as in personal development ?
8 May 2020, 12.15 AM