My Top Ten Favourite Books

I am not a book fanatic but I do like to read and often enjoy the best me time with a book. I am also not a fast reader and I delve upon my books for weeks if not months. So, I don’t really have many friends with whom I end up discussing the books I have read or what they are reading.

Thus, when this trend started on Facebook about people listing their 'Top Ten favourite books' and then nominating others to do so too, I did not expect to be nominated. However, it sure was fun reading everyone’s list. What intrigued me was how at least one or two books in each person’s list would have featured in my favourites too.

Then, I literally got myself nominated by a friend to do my list when I commented on her list. So, here I am with my list. I will not go into the cliché where everyone tells how it was so difficult to pin down ten books and how they love so many more, because I know not how to hate a book I read till the end and to be honest there are very few books that I have read wholly and I hadn’t liked. But, I often read by authors or series and one author’s multiple books might hold the same value for me. Hence, you may find some clubbing of books in my list. Please accommodate with me for the same.

Here we go in no particular order:

1. Jane Austen Classics – I am a true blue fan of Jane Austen and have read all her books multiple times with ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Emma’ and ‘Persuasion’ being my absolute favourites. I can pick up a Jane Austen book anytime anywhere and read it. What I love in her books is how all her characters are absolutely real and so perfect in their imperfections.
2. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – There are two kinds of book lovers in the world – those who absolutely love Harry Potter books and those who absolutely don’t. I belong to the former category and I too have read Harry Potter books multiple times, despite the fact that when you re-read a thriller or a mystery, you already know the end. Yet, it never allows me to lose interest. Thanks to the brilliant writing style of Rowling. I remember being heart-broken and depressed for at least 2 days after I finished the last Harry Potter book (the only book till date which I have completed within a week) just thinking that there isn’t going to be another Harry Potter book ever now. I even wrote a review of the book where I mentioned a little about my state of mind. (Read the review at 'Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows').
3. Jason Bourne series by Robert Ludlum – I have only read the trilogy by Robert Ludlum and although I found the writing style very descriptive yet engaging – every fight read in the book seems like a movie happening in front of you – I found Bourne / Webb’s character extremely engaging and nothing short of a superhero. (Read 'Why Jason Bourne is more of a Superhero' for the reasons).
4. Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell – I loved this book for two very strong reasons: (1) Scarlett O’Hara for being a very strong woman with a never-say-die attitude; and (2) Rhett Butler for being the rugged but perfect match to Scarlett and yet being her antithesis.
5. To kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee – Not only is this a touching story but also a very brave one especially considering the era in which this book was written. It’s also a true lesson in humility.
6. Books by Khaled Hosseini – I have till date read ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini and ‘And the mountains echoed’ is on top of my list of ‘Books to read’. Not only are his books a very touching account of how life was / is in war stricken Afghanistan but it’s an absolute emotional account of the interplay of feelings. I cannot read two of his books one after the other; it’s just too much of an emotional drain. I have cried at nights when I have sat with his books unable to get the characters out of my mind. But, I have loved them nevertheless.
7. Books by Dan Brown – Although I have read four books by Dan Brown (all but ‘The Lost Symbol’ and ‘Inferno’) but ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code’ are my particular favourites. Not only did I find the thrills, suspense and twists and turns in the story very engaging but I found Robert Langdon a very interesting character and what is generally referred to as “intellectually stimulating”. I would love to meet him someday if he ever exists, even if just to have some interesting chats over coffee. That reminds me, I also have ‘The Lost Symbol’ and ‘Inferno’ on my list of ‘Books to read’.
8. Love Story by Erich Segal – I first read ‘Love Story’ when I was in school. It was a very short and sweet book and yet it tickles your heart strings (and your tear glands too). As a grown up, I picked it up again, only to see whether I was still moved in the same way as in my teenage years. I was. (Read my ode to Erich Segal on his death here 'The eternal love story'. It has all the references to the book.)
9. ‘Kane and Able’, ‘The Prodigal Daughter’ and ‘Shall we tell the President’ Trilogy by Jeffrey Archer – It’s not really a trilogy. They are actually three different books (especially the last one where the old characters appear very briefly), very intelligently woven with common characters and some references to previous books by Jeffrey Archer. This in itself is truly remarkable – to have three absolutely different stories told with different settings and different plots having common characters. And yet all of them engage you equally. I especially loved the first two books.
10. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – I must confess that I did not find it a very easy and comfortable book to read. It took me a lot of time to read it (second only to probably ‘Gone with the wind’) and it needed a lot of focus to understand the so very complex characters (multiple times I re-read various sections of the book). And, therefore, for this very reasons I did not even feature it in my list (was confused between this and the three mentioned below) but then I remembered that after having completed the book, I had a very good feeling about the book and I reflected on the characters for days. Also, I was truly mesmerized by the thought that the book was written in 1943 America and yet it was so very contemporary. Again, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is also on my list of of ‘Books to read’ but then I need to first have the time to delve and focus on Ayn's style of writing and her characterization.

The books that almost made it to the list but finally didn’t are as follows: ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ by Amish Tripathy (I purposefully didn’t mention the trilogy because somehow the sequels did not live up to the expectation and by the third book it was more of a mechanical exercise to bring the story to a logical conclusion; and that’s the reason I didn’t include this book in my list) and ‘The Pelican Brief’ and ‘The Testament’ by John Grisham (I have read quite a few of the books by John Grisham and I kind of find all of them more or less same, so much so that when I pick up any of his book, I fail to remember whether I have already read it or not; but these two books of his have lingered on in my memory and I remember liking them a lot when I read them, former for the way the suspense unfolds and latter for no particular reason).

Last, as a note I also want to mention two books that I had loved as a kid: ‘Heidi’ by Johanna Spyri and ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott. Not only did I love them and I laughed and cried with the protagonists, but they hooked me on to books for life. A big thanks to them!