Warning: Any form of art from cinema and games to music and visual novels is highly subjective. If there’s one thing I’ve learned toiling away in graphic design, it’s that when dealing with a subjective domain, you can never have “the best” list of anything. The beauty is in the eye (or arse) of the beholder, so they say. Literature is also an art. As such, by no means are these reviews complete, the hard truth, or even an educated calculation. It’s all just opinions. And opinions can change, be flawed, or be objectively bad.
Heavier Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Excellent Books
| The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway | Hands down one of the best books I have ever read in life. It takes you through a complex, moving journey. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, as they say. It’s well-written, the plot is excellent, and the characters are all so real. The story is about an old man, a fisherman, and what age does to you. At the same time, it’s also about gaps that you can fill with your own struggles. One needs to read this novel carefully and slowly to appreciate what the author is talking about. |
| 1984 George Orwell | Should be a must-read for every human being. I really cannot begin to talk about this book without writing a 2000-word article on it. It’s just a masterpiece. It’s a social commentary about a dystopian future written in 1948. In 1948, Orwell wrote about things that are eerily, uncannily close to the kind of world we are living in today. A must, must read. Even if you don’t read books, you have to read 1984 because it’s so much more than just that. It’s kind of like the Black Mirror concept, I show the society the mirror, but it’s a black mirror. 1984 shows the world through a dark, gloomy painting that has no hope of light. |
| To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee | I won’t pretend to be very well-versed in how Americans feel about their past concerning racial injustice and slavery. I have an idea about the Atlantic slave trade and what went down in the 50 (or so) United States back in the day, but that’s about it. This book is an excellent portrait of the society of that time and human conscience. Great characters accentuate the story really well, and of course, the place of an innocent among all that complex stuff is eye-opening. Very tense, gripping, and dramatic. There’s no surprise that this is actually one of the most critically acclaimed books of all time. |
| The Call of the Wild Jack London | I won’t pretend to be very well-versed in how Americans feel about their past concerning racial injustice and slavery. I have an idea about the Atlantic slave trade and what went down in the 50 (or so) United States back in the day, but that’s about it. This book is an excellent portrait of the society of that time and human conscience. Well-written characters accentuate it, and of course, the place of an innocent among all that complex stuff. Very tense, gripping, and dramatic. There’s no surprise that this is actually one of the most critically acclaimed books of all time. |
| The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald | If there is one piece of literature that encapsulates the idea of the American dream, the whims of the rich folk, and the emptiness inside said rich folk, stitching it all up in a tantalizing narrative, then it’s probably this book. You chase, and because you chase, you must keep on chasing. There are life lessons in this book that most people will never learn simply by existing. And so, this is a book everyone must read. |
| Heidi Johanna Spyri | I first read Buck’s story when I was a child. It was a book about a dog and how he became the king of (a) jungle. But re-reading a book at a later age has its perks. Call of the Wild is as much about a dog’s story as it’s about how the upper class exploits (or used to exploit) the sled dogs, so to speak. It’s dark, full of adventure, and of course, a good dog story as well. |
Good Books
| The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger | I am aware of the flaws of this story. But for some reason, when I read it, it felt unapologetically human and something worth experiencing. It’s a coming-of-age story without all the glitter and fun that you typically find in a young adult fiction novel. It’s serious, gloomy, dark. People who can’t connect with Holden Caulfield will be surprised about why can’t he just come to grips with the reality and, well, grow up. But people who can relate will find his tale all too moving, too real, too painful, and if anything, an understatement. |
| Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson | Fills you with excitement at every turn of the page, and every maneuver of the story. Well-narrated story about seaworthy pirates, and tells us how they are all human deep inside, with all their flaws and embellishments. The story is wrapped up without any major twist or secret. It’s a treasure hunt story, simple as that. But the plot and the characters are so good that you can’t help but feel like joining them on their adventure, which is a series of awe-inspiring turns and events. |
| Dracula Bram Stoker | Great characters, great villain (the centuries-old Dracula himself), and overall a great setting. It’s horror, or some subset of horror. The story begins really, really well. That’s how you write mystery, suspense, thrill, and fear. But over time, though the overarching story is held together really well and there’s a structured narrative, the book falls short of being very reasonable. It’s life and death, and people take actions that are more arbitrary than they should be. Leave someone alone who’s likely to be attacked, why? And if someone has the brilliant, sane idea of protecting someone, that person suddenly doesn’t want to be protected, and it’s fine by everyone else? That’s just absurd. The one-off absurdities and some redundancy aside, Dracula is definitely worthy of the classic title. |
| Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne | The sum total of story matter in this book isn’t vast. It’s very devoid of real events taking place, but full of detail and depth. It’s not really reasonable to expect a book from this time to hold up against today’s science. That is to say, a lot of stuff in this is inaccurate and implausible. But Verne didn’t know that and his attempt to be as accurate, scientifically, as possible, really shows through the text. Overall a very enjoyable read, not just for adolescents. |
| The Time Machine H.G. Wells | Must have been a banger right there with Martians invading the earth in The War of the Worlds, another classic from Wells, back in the day. Today, of course, The Time Machine doesn’t hold up. But it does try to open our eyes to where we are going. Thousands of writers, filmmakers, and artists have tried to foretell a gloomy future and this novel is easily one of the best examples of that. |
| Mother Maxim Gorky | Gorky has narrated the budding of the Russian Revolution. The people are oppressed by those in power. The factory workers are slow to awaken to the realities of life. They pay by blood. And so on. The main protagonist, the mother, is initially uneducated in social philosophy, but becomes an important figure in the close-knit worker communities where she plays a pivotal role. A large part of the book is just expressing all that’s going on through the mother’s mind and frankly, it becomes quite repetitive. But the crux of the novel is how the revolution unfolds, how different comrades have different worldviews of a solution, and what really went down at that time (Gorky being a part of the revolutions himself, being exiled from Soviet Russia and visiting the GULAG camps himself). |
| Animal Farm George Orwell | Pigs take control of a farm with the help of other animals and banish the humans. But as they get the power, they neatly rewrite the initial philosophies which can be summarized in their core tenet of, “All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.” Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a parallel or allegory of the Russian Revolution and depicted figures like Trotsky, Stalin, Lenin, and Marx quite well. But deeper down, this is an allegory for any human society. Power is power, and people get drunk on power. That’s the one truth of life, and it’s narrated all too well in Animal Farm. This book is a must-read even if you’re non-political. It’s just too fun and too human, even though it’s about animals. |
| Endless Night Agatha Christie | “Some are Born to sweet delight. Some are Born to Endless Night.” Christie ends the book with this part from the William Blake poem. But in all honesty, this is the entire theme of this suspense crime thriller. It’s a psychological drama, it’s a gothic story steeped in superstitions, and it’s also the tale of a common man who simply wants a nice home. All in all, this is a classic example of how to write a detective novel. |
| The Lost World Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Legendary writing, super-immersive plot, and characters worth cherishing your whole life make The Lost World a fine example of fiction. Especially Challenger, a character written so well and with so many nuances that you can’t take your eyes off the text. At the same time, the story is also about seeking a heroic quest to impress the love of your life. But the main matter is that of the lost world itself, and it’s so nicely narrated that there’s not a single page that can bore you. |
| Murder in Mesopotamia Agatha Christie | To me, Poirot is the second-best book detective in the world after Holmes. He has all the qualities you’d expect from a crime detective solving mysteries all the time. The book itself is a spicy, suspenseful tale of a colorful bunch. Thoroughly enjoyable and full of that charm that keeps you reading more. |
| Around the World in 80 Days Jules Verne | Gorky has narrated the budding of the Russian Revolution. The people are oppressed by those in power. The factory workers are slow to awaken to the realities of life. They pay by blood. And so on. The main protagonist, the mother, is initially uneducated in social philosophy but becomes an important figure in the close-knit worker communities where she plays a pivotal role. A large part of the book is just expressing all that’s going on through the mother’s mind and frankly, it becomes quite repetitive. But the crux of the novel is how the revolution unfolds, how different comrades have different worldviews of a solution, and what really went down at that time (Gorky being a part of the revolutions himself, being exiled from Soviet Russia and visiting the GULAG camps himself). |
| Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury | Written in 9 days on a rented typewriter in a basement. You’d not expect a work like this to be synonymous with our society on such a powerful level. Yet, Fahrenheit 451’s narrative is all too real, all too dystopian. The Firemen burn books, and it’s a crime to have them. We’ve seen this trope many times, most notably in George Orwell’s 1984. But Bradbury takes storytelling to a more intimate, dark, and fascinating level altogether. A very good book to read at any point in your life. |
| The Complete Adventures of Feluda (1 and 2) Satyajit Ray | A lot gets lost in translation. But sometimes, that’s the best you can do. So, I read all these stories about Feluda, which Ray introduced as Sherlock Holmes when he said Topshe/Tapesh was the Watson to Feluda, Pradosh Mitter. Ray’s writing is legendary. The characters are colorful. The stories across the two volumes become better and better. There is mystery, thrill, secrets, mythology, druglords, sinister crimes, and everything else you’d expect from a gritty detective novel. All of that, without the adult themes that you’ll find in Sherlock Holmes books (Ray wrote the Feluda stories for children). |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl | This is no children’s book. It’s very likely that you have watched the movie and not read the book. The book is DARK. Like, very dark. It bares and undresses humanity and makes you watch as you see how defiling, abhorring, and gut-twisting our society is. Maybe that’s too extreme. Ultimately, it is a book for children and talks about the chocolate factory that we saw rebooted in Disney’s Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet. It’s warm and cold at the same time. Slaps you across the face and hugs you at the same time. Really well-narrated with good characters. |
| Bridge to Terabithia Katherine Paterson | Young adult fiction novel on the surface—heart-wrenching and soul-rending stuff between the covers. Bridge to Terabithia follows two kids. Though I have included spoilers here and there in these reviews, this book simply cannot be spoiled. It’s magical and dreamy. |
| A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens | Lower rating only because the charms of Christmas festivities don’t work all too well on people who don’t celebrate it. The book is a culmination of life lessons done really interestingly. These are lessons for Ebenezer Scrooge (a very well-written character, by the way), sure, but every human being will become richer after reading this in some way. |
| The Call of Cthulu H.P. Lovecraft | I have not read Lovecraft’s books so I have no reference point but as a standalone book (more like a short story than a novel), this is excellent horror. The rituals, the lore, the narration, all of it is spine-chilling. Maybe Lovecraft is good at writing this sort of story, so I can’t say how good this particular story is compared to the rest of his work (which is vast), but on its own, I’d say it’s a very good read. |
| The Alchemist Paulo Coelho | There are two camps — people either love this book or hate it. It has a neat take on mysticism and it’s a good hero’s saga kind of adventure overall. I neither love this story nor hate it. It’s good, and that’s it. Whether you believe in following signs as Santiago does or not, there’s no way reading this book won’t be worth your time. |
Kind of Okay Books
| Blindsight Peter Watts | This is a sci-fi with a ton of depth and complexity. Advanced vampires, interstellar space travel, superintelligent AI, it’s all here. Blindsight is also an excellent commentary on human society and speaks about a dystopian future where humans are actually satisfied in one way. Its sequel (Echopraxia) is the only novel I have ever abandoned midway because I did not want to be a victim of sunk-cost fallacy. It was just overly complicated. But the first part of the Firefall series, Blindsight, is exceptional. |
| The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | It is philosophy disguised as young adult fantasy. It might feel like a book for children, the protagonist being a little child, for example. But it’s for adults who have now grown up. It’s about nostalgia, innocence, and the magic of childhood. |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde | This is a sci-fi with a ton of depth and complexity. Advanced vampires, interstellar space travel, superintelligent AI, it’s all here. Blindsight is also an excellent commentary on human society and speaks about a dystopian future where humans are actually satisfied in one way. Its sequel (Echopraxia) is the only novel I have ever abandoned midway because I did not want to be a victim of the sunk-cost fallacy. It was just overly complicated. But the first part of the Firefall series, Blindsight, is exceptional. |
| Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift | Gulliver travels to fictional worlds including where people are too big and too small. Under the hood, Swift tackles everything from making the mockery of British expenses for war to the faults of society in general, and it’s a witty story that takes many jabs at all the right things. It’s just that if you take all that not-so-subtle wit out of it, the book is just fine. |
| The Invisible Man H.G. Wells | Man experiments with light refraction, becomes invisible, and runs around naked while being angry all the time. The initial mysterious setting of the novel is pretty good but slowly, you see Griffin for the monster he is. The story kind of falls flat by the end (after the mystery and revelation are over), and I did not expect Wells to write a conclusion of a story that was so weak (Griffin wants to terrorize people? That’s it?) even though the subject matter was right there (human experiments, vivisection, etc.). |
| The Adventures of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi | A children’s book that continues to be one of the most selling, most translated books ever. It’s about morals and connects with any young mind really well. Mainly, it can connect so well because we see Pinocchio knowing, deep inside, that he’s in the wrong more often than not. And bad things continue to happen to him. So, in a way, the book is a good moral lesson to anybody who reads it at a young age. |
| Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe | I always like a good story involving the high seas and ships sailing through tempests. Robinson Crusoe is simply a really well-written, well-narrated, and emotional tale about a stranded sailor and how he lives off the land, somewhat like a survival RPG video game. I don’t like all of it though. It’s heavily Christian, and I believe the protagonist keeps making mistakes that are borderline unethical and greedy (though he knows this). But there is depth to this plot and of course, there are the seas. |
| Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë | For some reason, I always thought Wuthering Heights was a romantic tragedy of epic proportions. It’s not that. It’s an excellent story about many tragedies, chief among them being romantic in nature, but it’s so much more than that. The book is narrated by various people. And the characters who say things about others are coming from often different perspectives. It makes all characters so multi-layered, complex, and difficult to understand that when you do realize what is actually going on, you can’t help but lose yourself in the story. That is the beauty of Wuthering Heights. That, and, of course, the incessant longing you will feel, the amazing setting, and the beautiful subplots. |
| The Fault in Our Stars John Green | The first book to make me cry. It’s a romantic tragedy. It’s surprising given how the characters are so flat and the “romance” is not really that nuanced, but the sum total of the entire book is fascinatingly tragic and heart-wrenching. Good recommendation if you are into this sort of stuff. Sadly, after this book, I stopped reading romantic tragedies, so I am no expert. |
| The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling | It’s a classic children’s book from every angle. Contrary to what most of us think (or used to think, thanks to Disney), The Jungle Book is a collection of 7 short stories and only 3 of them are about Mowgli. Anyway, even though it’s for children, it’s clearly very well-written and comments on human nature in a really subtle manner. Just about anyone can take something away from this book. |
| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll | Carroll had a magical way of writing children’s books that will fill you with wonder and excitement. The world is magical, or more precisely, insane and nonsensical, but in a good way. Not everyone likes books that have characters, plots, and events that are not fully rational, but there’s a unique charm in Alice’s adventures throughout the book. |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum | The book is, at its core, a children’s fantasy novel. Short, funny, and wholesome. However, it does have some parallels with the time in which it was written, especially in terms of its political nature. The city of Oz is kind of like the Washington in the US, and there’s a commentary on unequal wealth distribution under the hood. The child will not pick it up, but I guess beyond a point, you can find parallels to many economic, political, or societal constructs in any book written by an adult, as they can’t help but add some reality through their own plots and characters. |
Non-Fiction
| Into the Wild Jon Krakauer | It’s a journalist’s investigation into the life of McCandless, who hitchhiked into Alaska to live off the land, purely for the love of wilderness. This story was widely reported at the time. Krakauer retraces McCandless’ steps, goes through people he met on his journeys, and presents all of that to us in this book. You take a peek inside the mind, so to speak. There’s a lot of valid criticism for McCandless (and even Krakauer). The guy had no idea how to live off the land, and his struggles would have been much, much less harsh if he only took a few simple steps. But on the other hand, the book is about an adventurous soul for whom it was more important to be with nature than to be prepared for nature’s fury. Take it any way you will, this is an excellent narration of an adventurer’s life. |
| The Fabric of the Cosmos Brian Greene | There are two types of physics in our world: Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian relativity which governs larger bodies in the spacetime; and the physics of the very small, quantum mechanics. There has been a big divide between the two. Scientists have been divided into two camps since the 1920s when experimental proof for some quantum phenomena challenged the criticism against it (before that, it was all theory). This book is an excellent biography of quantum mechanics with really, really easy-to-understand analogies. Even someone like me could comprehend complex science stuff with this book, like a universe of 10 or 11 dimensions twisted and compressed in all sorts of unimaginable ways. It’s a popular science book but instead of showing you the world that makes sense, it talks about the stuff that makes no sense at all, which might as well be powering everything in the universe from gravitation to mass. |
| Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari | Ever wondered how we came to be? Evolution, ape-ancestors, continents, mass migration? There is a lot of material on the internet and everyone has some idea about what happened. But now imagine somebody took the time to distill all that into a well-narrated, sequential, and interesting chapter-by-chapter breakdown that not only explains and entertains, but also encourages you to ask questions, think about the planet we live on at a deeper level, and become a better human being. Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind is just that. This should also be mandatory reading in schools. |
| Das Kapital Karl Marx | This book is an update on the original body of work by Marx where he outlines his philosophies and worldviews (Marxism Communism). Whereas that work was difficult to relate to, this version has accomplished taking an older thesis and connecting it to modern realities. Communism is deeply flawed in places and simply impractical in many others, but it does solve some problems. And this book is a good read for anyone interested in learning about those solutions. |
| The God Delusion Richard Dawkins | In an ideal world, anyone’s viewpoint can be changed with conclusive, objective facts and thorough investigation. This book is a culmination of such facts, investigation, reasonings, and educated opinions on why there is no God. The book conclusively disproves the God hypothesis, Creationism, and a bunch of other subjects that most human beings are not at the liberty of disproving, or even knowing that it could all be a lie. Alas, we don’t live in an ideal world. |
| A History of the Modern World Ranjan Chakrabarti | If you don’t know much about the modern world like industrialization, the American Civil War, Napoleon’s conquests, the French Revolution, the World Wars, etc., then yes, this book is a decent entry point. It paints a roughly approximate picture of what these events were all about without going into too much detail. But if you already know about stuff, geopolitics, and the modern history of the world, this book is 100% a basic overview not worth going through. |
| The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels | It’s a politically divisive book if it wasn’t clear from the name itself. So there are two camps. One camp will love the communism talk here, the core tenets of the philosophy are presented all too well (Marx being the father of the movement and everything). It tells one why and how the current capitalist infrastructure exploits the people who should be in power. On the other hand, a lot of arguments here for building a just and fair society are just terrible. This is not a problem of this book, but of communism. For years nations have tried to adapt communism to fit a modern age, but raw communism is something that’s very likely impossible. |
World-Building Fiction
Well, of course, these are reviews of novels primarily. That’s because reviewing something like the entirety of Tolkien’s Legendarium or even Rowling’s Harry Potter will be insane. I am not a book specialist. Suffice it to say that once you are through with fiction, you graduate to fiction series (such as Sherlock Holmes). Once you’re done with that, you narrow down to a specific genre and read the daylights out of it. For me, that genre is world-building fiction. If that’s something you might be into, here are my recommendations:
- Legendarium (5 main books, 6 additional books). Tolkien’s worldbuilding is considered to be the finest worldbuilding even today. Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion make up what’s possibly the most detailed, rich, and fantastical story you’ll ever read.
- The Wizarding World (7 books). The Harry Potter series is a good starting point for anyone who wishes to get into the habit of reading world-building fiction and fantasy. It has its flaws but it’s also one of the most memorable tales you’ll read in your life.
- The Witcher (6 books). Andrzej Sapkowski was influenced by many works of art and the local Polish myth. Like many, he tried to create a fantasy world in his later books (the first one being a collection of short stories written as a competition entry). But the end result is marvelous. Geralt of Rivia’s tale is second to none. The Witcher series is the monster hunter folklore everyone should read.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Maze Runner, His Dark Materials, The Kingkiller Chronicles, The Chronicles of Narnia, the Millennium series, The Hunger Games, and Dune are all on my reading list. The Stormlight Archives, Mistborn, Ender’s Game, Discworld, Dune’s extended series, and The Wheel of Time are longer undertakings that I’ll think about later.
Please, No
- Revolution 2020 Chetan Bhagat: A wannabe romantic tragedy that turns out to be an over-cliched love story with no revolution, shallow characters, and just bad, bad writing. I accidentally read this.
- Fifty Shades of Grey E.L. James: Where is the goddamn plot? I don’t believe for one second that even the learned among the fans of erotic literature actually like this dumpster fire. The pain is not in the bondage, but in your brain as you read this. Bared to You (Sylvia Day) is a much better book. I am not going to write the review for that. Pretty much the same stuff, just more polished and well-thought-out.
- The Prophet Kahlil Gibran: This is a classic (unlike the two above). Translated into 20 languages, millions of copies sold, the whole thing. But yeah, for some reason, I just didn’t get it. That’s my problem, not the book’s. It’s Gibran’s masterpiece about spirituality, human motivation, philosophical constructs, and more. And it’s a collection of essays, not a full end-to-end novel.
- Twilight Series: Wtf man.