When The Sunday Book Club (TSBC) recently published an A to Z list of books on their blog, I was inspired to do the same and compiled this must read book list, which includes my favourite books from over the years. Having discovered the magical world of books at an early age, I remember eagerly waiting for the latest editions of Phantom, Mandrake and Amar Chitra Katha comics to arrive, not to forget children’s magazines like Chandamama (does anyone remember that? Apparently, its first issue was out in 1947!) and Champak! Then came my involvement with Enid Blyton, Biggles (don’t remember the author), Agatha Christie, Alistair Maclean, and Hindi and Bengali authors Premchand, Shivani, Sharad Chandra Chattopadhyay and poets such as Jaishankar Prasad and Nirala amongst others.
Our
entire group of friends then moved on to Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Robert Ludlum,
Frederick Forsyth, Somerset Maugham, RK Narayan and so many others. Today, I just cannot imagine how I went through
the voluminous War and Peace and Crime and Punishment or even She for that matter!
So here's my A-Z list of books, which I hope you will also enjoy.
Agony
and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Creative
Visualization by Shakti Gawain
The
Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Exodus
by Leon Uris
Freedom
at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
The
Guide by RK Narayan
How
to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: The 25 Principles of Success
by Jack Canfield
Ice
Station Zebra by Alistair Maclean
Jurassic
Park by Michael Crichton
The
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Life
of Pi by Yann Martel
Many
Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss
No
Full Stops in India by Mark Tully
The
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Phantoms
in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran
Quantum
Healing by Deepak Chopra
The
Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
She:
A History of Adventure/Ayesha, Return of She by H Rider Haggard
To
Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Unaccustomed
Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Vital
Signs by Robin Cook
The
Wonder that was India by AL Basham
In
Xanadu by William Dalrymple
You
Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
A
Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell
A
few more books which come close are Ageless
Body Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra, Kane
& Abel by Jeffrey Archer, The Emperor
of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Through Time into Healing
by Brian Weiss, Godfather by Mario Puzo,
Nine Lives by William Dalrymple and The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph
Murphy.
Do
let me know other books that you have enjoyed reading and those that you would
like to recommend. I look forward to adding
more books to my list.
