Posted on July 9, 2019
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
July 9, 2019
Orwell per se but especially Animal Farm and 1984. Also Huxley’s Brave New World. I have never been centre right again after reading these books and probably never will be again. I read these books at a time when I was confused as to how a meltdown that I felt the US govt should she foreseen and forestalled could happen and they explained a lot. Since we read less these days, the Chernobyl series will, I think, be the TV equivalent of these books.
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Prakash Alagarsamy
July 9, 2019
How to change the world
Maus
Ramachandra guha’s biography on gandhi
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Rahini David
July 9, 2019
The books mentioned as #5 to #1 in this post all qualify as books that changed the way I look at the world around me.
and nature documentaries, the content of nature documentaries changed the way I relate to the world around me.
(Never been one to shy away from what is called “shameless plugging”)
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An Jo
July 9, 2019
THE RAZOR’S EDGE – Somerset Maugham
TUGHLAQ – Girish Karnad
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO – Alekxandr Solzeyntsin
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY – CHARLIE CHAPLIN
LAMAAN – SRIRAM LAGOO
VAMSHA VRUKHSA – S. L . BHYRAPPA
MALGUDI DAYS – R. K. Narayanan
Vivekananda, World Teacher: His Teachings on the Spiritual Unity of Humankind
प्रेमचंद की 21 श्रेष्ठ कहानियाँ – Premchand’s compilation of short stories – Premchand
THREE NOVELLAS ABOUT LOVE – Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE – The autobiography: Steve Waugh
SUPREMO COMICS – starring AMITABH BACHCHAN
MRITUINJAY – SHIWAJI SAWANT
Before 15 – TINTIN, TINKLE, SUPPANDI, NASEERUDDIN HODJA……
Between 15 and 20 – DEBONAIR, FANTASY, PLAYBOY, HUSTLER, PENTHOUSE
After 20 till I reach abode – PENTHOUSE, HUSTLER, PLAYBOY – don’t know if the other 2 still exist…
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tonks
July 9, 2019
“Books that changed you” is not the same as your best loved books.
I don’t read much non fiction but one book that made me change my whole outlook was a non fiction gift from my brother, “The power of now” by Eckhart Tolle. I learnt later that the whole philosophy of living in the present and not letting the past or the future affect your present state of mind is derived from ancient Buddhist teachings which probably originated from India.
The Harry Potter books also probably changed my life a little because I made a gang of friends who had the books as our common interest and they have grown to become a set of people who are very dear to me. We call ourselves “The slug club”.
Having only read comics till then, “The naughtiest girl in school” by Enid Blyton which I picked up from a lovely lending library in Adyar (that sadly doesn’t exist now) was a revelation and life altering, in that I never knew till then that words on pages could conjure up such magic, such imagery, such happiness of mind.
My best loved books are mostly fiction.
The best books I’ve read recently :
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
We always lived in the castle
The secret place (the entire Dublin murder squad series actually, is very good)
Wonder , RJ Palacio
Being mortal, Atul Gawande
Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
Dark matter, Blake Crouch.
The books I can read again and again are mostly old British classics : Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Hardy, The mill on the floss.
And my best loved books ever are probably (off the top of my head)
Atonement
The remains of the day
Love story
The silence of the lambs
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Pradeep CK
July 9, 2019
lovely thread, how can one ignore something like this? The sad truth is that most of us are more susceptible to influence when we are younger; so it follows that the books that most affect us are the ones we read earlier.
The books we choose to read are the decided by our biases which may have been formed by the ones we read before, and since we do not have access to great books initially, our whole world view is actually based on some tenuous coincidence which happened when we were very young.
For example, we moved to a village in the middle of nowhere when we were 10, and the only books that were there were left behind by visiting relatives.
So I ended up reading “Custer’s last stand” which made me a fan of heroism and bravado, but this was quickly tempered by “Lord of the flies” which showed that kids are anything but goody goody things, and Rajagopalachari’s Mahabharata which showed that good and bad are all relative and heroism is a little foolish always. And by the time we go all moral and religious, we found out Harold Robbins “Stilleto”. Reading this at the age of 10, not only gave a lifelong respect for sex, but also of prose, poetry and narratives that flow, like Robbins prose does.
But there are some books that stop you in your tracks and kind of knock you about a little bit and make you think. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was one of those books of those days which affected everyone a little. “To kill a mockingbird” told us what a father could be. The Fountainhead told us that ego is good, that creativity and ingenuity could be an ideal better that that of the common good.
Hemingway introduced us to the cult of masculinity, and JD Salinger to what a terrible time teenage years could be.
After growing up, one got introduced to all the good books, the classics – but the mind had changed, it was already formed like the daemons in The book of dust…. Nothing affected me the same way again for a long time….
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Recovering Macaulay Perapulla
July 9, 2019
One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
Freedom from the Known – J. Krishnamurti and all books of Jiddu
Sex and the Super-consciousness – Osho
All books of Taleb
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tonks
July 9, 2019
@pradeep CK : Thank you for reminding me. I was moved by “The lord of the flies” in my teens too. And I once chanced upon “The Betsy” by Harold Robbins amongst my Dad’s things when a preteen : that was pretty life altering too 😀
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gm
July 9, 2019
The book I keep going back to is Thirukural. He wrote it before even Twitter was invented. Just seven words. Childhood days, Shankarlal series by Tamilvanan. and Ponniyin Selvan that taught me how to dream.
Michael Connely fiction books. Peter Lynch book started my journey in learning to save and invest. Of course, Mr. Baradwaj blog, the movie Guru, showed me how to watch movie and expanded my courage to watch other language movies besides Tamil and English.
Thanks for asking.
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Kay
July 9, 2019
More than books, I think the editorial and op-Ed columns in The Hindu had a profound effect on me during my formative years. If I have to name books, The Three Musketeers will definitely be one of the top books that formed my opinion on friendship and loyalty. Also Pride and Prejudice. Similar to Tonks’s experience, The books that had a tangible effect were those by Judith McNaught which gave me a set of online friends, who have been with me longer than my most of my childhood friends, through thick and thin, and they are my support system.
Few others worth mentioning are, in no particular order
1) Blue Ocean Strategy
2) Steve Jobs
3) The Golden Compass – this book made me take a solo trip to Norway in search of Auroras
4) Love Story
5) Harry Potter series
6) Catch 22
7) Gone with the wind
8) Most Charles Dickens and Alexander Dumas’s books
9) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Above all Stopping by the Woods and Road less travelled are two poems which have actually changed the way I look at the world.
I’m sure I’m missing many many more and I’ll remember them the moment I hit the ‘Post Comment’ icon.
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brangan
July 9, 2019
gm: Thanks so much 🙏🏼
Kay: “The books… by Judith McNaught which gave me a set of online friends”
If you don’t mind, can you explain how a set of books helped you find online friends?
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Kay
July 9, 2019
BR- Those were the days of Orkut. After reading my first Judith McNaught novel, I joined the Orkut Community created by a group of JM fans. We used to have discussion threads on the books and favourite characters and such. We also started writing a collective novel which we were hoping to get published someday. Somewhere along the way about 10 of us, from various parts of the world, became friends. After Orkut shutdown, we stayed connected through Facebook and mails and then finally WhatsApp. We also had mini meetings for those of us within India and also when we started travelling, internationally. So, yeah, we have been together for the past 12+ years as we crossed each milestone in life, like graduation, jobs, breakups, marriages, kids, loss of parents, and many more.
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Pradeep CK
July 9, 2019
@tonks, was wondering how one replies here. Got it now. I liked your list very much, I love the “Guernsey….” one too, but read it much later in life. There was one called “84, Charing cross road” which was very similar in style, though it did not take place in an island, but it was all about books too. I love “Being mortal” too, what a book it is. I will check out the Dublin murder squad series, looks promising….
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Krishna
July 9, 2019
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.. Learning about how human civilization evolved (particularly the cognitive revolution) helped me adapt/change how I operate in today’s culture – corporate or societal or familial..
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abishekspeare
July 9, 2019
I am right now typing in the blog that changed my life, made me realize my passion,gave me a role model, and acted as my english class
Godfather made me look at post-godfather movies&books in a different way. After reading it, I felt like every gangster story was based on it. Same goes with LOTR and fantasy
But these two books also made me sad in a way, because Mario Puzo and JRRT could never reproduce a work as great as that.
Apart from that, hamlet changed me in the sense that it made me realise how little my english knowledge was
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Hariharan Anantharaman
July 9, 2019
My picks are Jumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” and “Un accustomed earth”. Their realistic description of relations and life in US, helped to de-mystify lot of things. Books by Late.Mr.Balakumaran sir on spirituality and obtaining moksha (actually it came as a series in Kalki) struck a chord with me and changed me a lot.
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Voldemort
July 9, 2019
Tonks and Kay – Wonderful wonderful experience on making friends with people who love the same books. Roger that. I made friends with a gang of amazing people in my workplace because we all had common favorite books. The joy of fangirling with someone about something you love is unparalleled, it’s one of the best feelings ever.
Also, would love to know what are your favorite books, and what books changed you, BR.
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Voldemort
July 9, 2019
Oh and about the books that changed me.
Well, there are so many wonderful books and so little time. There have been a lot of books which impacted my life/changed me, but none of them comes close to Great Expectations. It was the first novel that I read that wasn’t a kids book, and it was so heart-wrenching and beautiful. When I first read it, I was too young to understand the nuances and metaphors but I so loved the camaraderie between Joe and Pip and cried my heart out when Joe helps Pip when Pip is all alone, broke and sick. Years later, when I read it again, I loved it so much more than the first reading, now being an adult. I wrote a long post on my now non-existent blog, such was its impact.
I have a lot of favorite books, but this remains very special. Would I read this as often as I do with a lot of my favorite books? No. [One of the reasons is that I don’t have the courage to go through it again.] But is it the one that had the most impact? Yes.
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Madan
July 9, 2019
I did make friends online (and yes orkut) using art, but not books. It was mainly music for me. And you might think Ilayaraja going by my previous posts on this blog but actually, it was stuff like Metallica or Scorpions. Metal is still a big part of my life but in particular, bunch of us from back then who used to quarrel and troll each other on orkut have kept in touch while we see social media going in reverse direction from the one we have taken – going from friendly to increasingly hostile.
I am intrigued that Kay made book friends through orkut because what happened is the admin of this metal music community also made a book community. Collective became a branding actually. Music/Sports/Cine/Book Collective. Don’t know if this possibly rings a bell in these parts and if it does, you probably remember me as an obnoxious prick (guilty as charged in that case).
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Hazel
July 9, 2019
This is such a good topic… I can’t leave without replying.
Books have been an incredible part of my life as I was an introvert growing up. The first reading material I was introduced to was Tinkle digest and Ambulimama which were so much fun to read. Then I read Harry Potter at 10 yrs of age who grew with me and has always been an emotional support to me. Whatever be the worries, reading a few pages always cheers me up. At that time I was constantly searching for new books to read and gobbled up everything which came my way. The next book was not a literary masterpiece but it did open up my mind to question faith and religion. The book was The Da Vinci Code. The next book which stayed with me for life is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon which is his greatest work. I’m not a great fan of non-fiction or self help books. I’m more interested in mysteries, sci-fi and thrillers. Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle are my all time fav. The catcher in the rye, To kill a mockingbird are books which I can relate to at that stage in my life. Timeline explains quantum theory so beautifully. I like books which make me immerse in their world. I have also read most of the classics and found them endearing. Ponniyin selvan was a mind blowing book to read. I’m searching for a successor to fill the void for it in Tamil but am yet to find one.
Nowadays I read books which indulge me while reading but hardly stay with me. I’m the kind of person who tries to read my fav books yearly at least a few pages. I haven’t gone back to any of the newer books I read for a few years. I’m yearning for a book which gives me the same pleasure as during my younger days. Hoping to find it soon.
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Anu Warrier
July 9, 2019
So many books, so little time. And like Tonks, ‘books that changed me’ and ‘favourite books’ interconnect only some of the time.
All time reads: PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy Sayers, Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, RK Narayan, Rudyard Kipling, Ruskin Bond, Sherlock Holmes, the Don Camillo series, Shakespeare’s plays, Noel Coward’s plays, Charles Dickens, Asterix comics, Amar Chitra Katha, Phantom (I’m still a sucker for comics)
Best loved books:
Satanic Verses
The Men Who Killed Gandhi
Ramesh Menon’s retelling of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
River of Fire
Madhulika Liddle’s Muzaffar Jang series
The Great Indian Novel
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
MT Vasudevan Nair’s Randamuzham
Malayatoor Ramakrishnan’s Yakshi
Non-fiction
Empress of Maladies
Why I am a Hindu
Anything by Abraham Eraly
The Ivory Throne
Books that influenced me (I won’t say ‘changed my life’ – they didn’t)
Enid Blyton
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Shakespeare (particularly, Othello and Macbeth)
Gone with the Wind
C Rajgopalachari’s Ramayana/Mahabharata
Catcher in the Rye
The Little Prince
1984
The Great Gatsby
Oliver Twist
Mr God, This is Anna
Little Women/Good Wives/Little Men/Jo’s Boys (the last being a particular favourite)
Ibsen’s ‘Doll’s House’
Catch-22
Crime and Punishment
Poetry of all kind and many others, all of which my memory fails to recall.
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Hazel
July 9, 2019
Someone mentioned feeling sad about LOTR. I felt sad while reading it as I felt the characters were very extraordinarily sketched and I was able to feel their pain and the passage of years. All of the places give a sense of lived in atmosphere. I’m still at awe of Tolkien to create a world as marvellous as middle-earth.
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Santa
July 10, 2019
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
It makes you truly marvel at the complexity of life; the sheer improbability of it; how fragile, yet resilient it is. It makes you truly value the planet that we call home, for harobring conditions that allowed life to emerge in the first place and evolve in the way that it has. It makes you fall in love with the beauty of nature, yet be terried by how brutal nature can be. It shatters the illusion that humans are somehow superior to other species, and makes you question what superiority in the context of nature and life is. Most of all, it makes you realize in a concrete and visceral way of how truly connected we are, not just to each other, but to all life on this planet.
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Shankar
July 10, 2019
Growing up, I was fortunate to be among books. My granddad and dad were voracious readers and built a mini-library at home, almost 5000 books, often buying from second hand sellers, binding them at home etc. I mostly read fiction though there are some non-fiction books that stayed with me for long. Again, I don’t know if these changed me in anyway, but they certainly helped in expanding my mind and vision of the world. I loved the detailing in Frederick Forsyth’s novels for example. My first “big” book was “Day of the jackal” when I was in 7th grade and it blew me away! For the same reason, I love Arthur Hailey, Robert Ludlum as well.
I also love short stories and so have a particular fondness for the following authors:
Roald Dahl (“Someone like you”, “Kiss kiss”, “Switch Bitch”)
Guy de Maupassant
O’Henry
Frederick Forsyth (“No comebacks”)
Anton Chekhov (“The death of a clerk”, “Misery”)
Arthur Conan Doyle
PG Wodehouse
Somerset Maugham
Jeffrey Archer
And before that, Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton, Tintin, Asterix, Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Tinkle….so many more!
I’ve continued the tradition and now have a mini-library at my house as well, which I encourage my kids to use, despite all the electronic distractions available today! 🙂 There is nothing like turning a page…
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Santa
July 10, 2019
Rahini, it is absolutely delightful to find a fellow nature documentary lover here! If Morgan Freeman is the voice of God, then Sir David Attenborough is most definitely the voice of Nature. In my view, any show coming out of BBC’s Natural History unit is infinitely more thrilling and moving than any soap, fantasy, or drama on TV.
PS: Have you had a chance to watch Dynasties? Keep some tissues near if you haven’t.
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Rahul
July 10, 2019
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – it is so heavy that carrying it around made me conscious about my fitness and I started exercising more – leading to a more healthy lifestyle.
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sanjana
July 10, 2019
What was in my thoughts about books and experience was espoused beautifully by Shankar and those choices were also mine. And most of Anu’s.
I will add Shakespeare’s dramas which I savoured and also Leo Tolstoy’s works.
Frederick Forsyth is my favourite author. And also Tagore.
There are too many books and mentioning only a few will do injustice to the others.
There are many telugu books which I am very fond of.
And Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories and novels.
Premchand and Sharat Chandra are some others whose works I cherish.
Anasuya from Kannnada novelists. She wrote Shara Panjara, Belli Moda and other novels.
Books made me understand the world better and people better.
And read many philosophical works by the world famous philosophers.
Experiments with Truth.
Discovery of India.
And many more.
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Anu Warrier
July 10, 2019
@Shankar – I’ve continued the tradition and now have a mini-library at my house as well, which I encourage my kids to use, despite all the electronic distractions available today! 🙂 There is nothing like turning a page…
Word! I grew up the same way – my father and grandfather were avid readers and books were standard birthday gifts. I think the one thing that my parents did right was not prohibiting us from reading any book in the house. There was no ‘age inappropriate’ books; if you wanted to read them, you could. If you didn’t understand something, you could look it up in the dictionary/ask them/ and sometimes wait until you were older before you were given an explanation. And that’s how we are with our kids as well, and I’m glad to report both of them read!
Re: your last sentence: I still prefer actual books, even though I have a Kindle. Except for the long flight to India, when it’s easier to carry 1 kindle than a bag full of books. But you’re right; there’s nothing like turning a page.
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Kay
July 10, 2019
Hazel – I’m reading வீரயுக நாயகன் வேள்பாரி these days and it’s taken me back to the days when I first discovered பொன்னியின் செல்வன். Do check it out.
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Jay
July 10, 2019
I realized the treasures in my own backyard can take a life time to read and understand and enjoy, The English ones i.m.h.o are just about in their depth….
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Isai
July 10, 2019
As a child, I was encouraged to underline the words that I didn’t know and look them up in the dictionary. When I was 11, I began doing that for a book and was surprised that the words that I had underlined were either not found in the dictionary or their meanings made no sense in the context of the book. The book was ‘Naked Face’ by Sidney Sheldon. I had a good laugh when I read the book 8 years later and saw what I had underlined. Fortunately, I hadn’t asked my parents to explain those words to me.
The following books have either been a personal guide or have shaped my perception about our society:
1. Thirukural: It is ‘The Book’ for me. Some of the toughest decisions that I had taken in my life were influenced by its verses. My favorite chapter/heading is ‘Seinandri Aridhal’ (Gratitude). I would suggest that it be read in childhood at least by all Tamils.
2. Ponniyin Selvan: I used to read a lot of Tamil newspapers, magazines but I didn’t have the patience to fully read tamil novels/books. But when I read this book, I found it unputdownable, except for a few devotional verses that I skipped.
3. Vanavaasam by Kannadasan: This book is written with an endearing honesty by the great poet.
English:
1. The difficulty of being good: On the subtle art of dharma by Gurucharan Das: He uses the Mahabharata to explain the present society based on his personal experiences. This book influenced my understanding of the Indian society and helped me evolve from retributive justice to reciprocal altruism.
2. The biography of Anna by R. Kannan: It helped in my understanding of Tamil society/politics of the last 100 years. I am still amazed by how the reasons given by Periyar for his opposition to the formation of a political party (DMK), turned out to be prophetic.
3.Castes in India (1916), Annihilation of Caste (1936) by Ambedkar: The first paper was presented in 1916 when Ambedkar was 25 and the second was written when he was 45. It is very interesting to see how his views had evolved in this period.
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e221
July 10, 2019
When Breath Becomes Air – By Paul Kalanidhi
48 laws of Power – Robert Greene.
7 Habits of highly Effective people – The mother of all self help books
I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi – A book that analyses human psychology and behavior for better money management.
Without above books, I would have different decisions in life and so my life would have been different. Thanks to above books, my decisions and direction are different now. They really had a positive change in life. Some might say 48 laws of power as evil but no book is relevant during these turbulent times than this book.
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Rahini David
July 10, 2019
Santa: I would definitely recommend “Ancestor’s Tale” by Dawkins and “Red Queen” by Matt Ridley.
In fact, Red Queen was recommended to me by Aurora Vampiris some five years back in this very blog.
And an extract from “Sapiens” by Harari.
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Vikram s
July 10, 2019
This is such a great thread… good to read how every commenter has approached the list making.
Here’s mine, these are books that have given me a lot of joy and I keep revisiting some of them.
Haroun & the sea of stories- Salman Rushdie
Hungry Tide-Amitav Ghosh
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series- Alexander McCall-Smith
Catcher in the rye- Salinger
Love in the time of cholera- Marquez
Unaccustomed Earth- Jhumpa Lahiri
In other rooms, other wonders-Daniyal Mueenuddin
Disgrace-JM Coetzee
Roots-Alex Haley & gone with the wind-margaret Mitchell
To catch a mockingbird-Harper Lee
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vinjk
July 10, 2019
Enid Blyton books might be the first book I asked my dad to buy. Previously I used to just accompany him to book shops but never bought anything for myself. It was definitely life changing. Inspired by them I used to write my own “books”…which were hand-written and at max 15 pages long in a regular school notebook.
Then later got into Tintin books. Again life changing. This is what got me interested in world politics and travel and journalists. This is the phase where I started reading newspaper (The Hindu) top to bottom. I remember, at school, I wrote a small essay on Yeti after reading Tintin in Tibet. Hardy Boys, Famous Five were also regulars at this phase.
Fiction world was truly open to me only after The Godfather and then followed by Kane and Abel. Uff…mind = blown! My dad always expressed dislike for fiction. He used “some silly made-up stuff”. So, I was a bit sceptical about fiction. But not anymore…
Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was brilliant. Just the imaginative narrative! I wish I could write like that. I also love his non-fiction What I talk about when I think about running and his other articles. Very inspiring!
Swami and his friends by RK Narayanan. Again inspires me to write. Beauty of his storytelling with simple words! I loved his other books too Painter of Signs,…
God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy. the first time caste was brought to me in all its ugliness. Beautiful writing. That such a classic was set in a place close to my hometown was an additional reason to love it.
Snow, Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk…lovely books. I wish I can write about my town they way he writes about his city.
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shaviswa
July 10, 2019
If there is an inflexion point in my reading habits, it was with Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan. This was when I was around 15 years old. Till that point in time, my world of books included the Tintin, Asterix comics, the Perry Masons, Sherlock Holmes, followed by the Ludlums and other popular writers. There was also the odd Dickens, Maupassant, O’Henry, Dumas that I used to read.
Then I picked up Ponniyin Selvan. This was followed by Parthiban Kanavu, Sivagamiyin Sabatham. I followed up this with novels by Thevan, Akilan, Balakumaran, Sujatha and many others. I explored further getting into Tamil classics (thanks to my mother’s collection at home) and I could never go back to English language works since then. I did read the occasional books every now and then but never back to how voracious it used to be. Voracious reading was reserved for Tamil works. 🙂
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shaviswa
July 10, 2019
The reason why I picked up Ponniyin Selvan was Dumas. After reading the Count of Monte Cristo, the Three musketeers etc I was telling my grand dad (who had the complete collection of Dickens and Dumas from which I read many) that they were the best historical novels ever written. He could not agree and said I cannot make that comment before reading Ponniyin Selvan. That made me read the novel and then it became a habit.
Then my grand dad introduced me to Thevan novels – for the sheet humour – and I do not regret that one bit. What a writer and amazing sense of humour. I understand he was one of the inspirations behind Crazy Mohan (apart from Ki. Va. Jagannathan who was known for his word play).
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shaviswa
July 10, 2019
@Isai: “Ponniyin Selvan: I used to read a lot of Tamil newspapers, magazines but I didn’t have the patience to fully read tamil novels/books. But when I read this book, I found it unputdownable, except for a few devotional verses that I skipped.”
But the devotional verses actually had a significant impact in bringing the medieval Tamil world to us. The attention to detail in the characters that recited those verses, information about the temples where the trio of Appar, Sundarar and Manickavasagar had sung was used when the characters in the novel travel. For example, the Kodikkarai Kuzhagar temple is central to the episodes at Kodikkarai. The beauty of that novel was how these were seamlessly weaved into the story with great effect.
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Rad Mahalikudi
July 10, 2019
Thanks BR for giving an idea for my blog!! I am less than a year in to blogging and generally looking for topics to blog about to better my writing skills. Thanks to you, my first post was published by you in your Readers’ Digest section 🙏 That gave me the confidence to get my own blog site 😀 There I did the plugging for my blog site 😁. Since my blog post will take time, here is my short version of books that changed my view of the world. And here I get more readership than my blog site 😄
I grew up reading all kinds of magazines and books. During my school years, we got pretty much all Tamil weeklies, bi-weeklies, fortnightlies, and monthlies – thanks to the circulation library. There are so many books I love, both fiction non-fiction, Tamil and English, and it is a long list. Many books did have an incremental impact on me, but there are few which had a huge impact, changed my perception and how I view the world.
First impact: Renuka, a short-story by Sujata, Pen Ean Adimaiyanal by EVR, Annihilation of Caste by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, and Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell. I bumped in to these books during my college years. After reading Renuka, I couldn’t get that story out of my head for few weeks. Last line from Renuka felt like someone plunged a knife in my gut and I get the same feeling when I read the story even now. EVR, Ambedkar, Bertrand Russell got me out of my comfort zone and enabled me to see out of the circle. It changed how I view the society but I couldn’t figure out why we are like this and how we got here. That missing piece has to wait.
Second Impact: Post the First Impact, I got in to reading JK, Richard Bach, and few more writings from Bertrand Russell. I was mesmerized by JK’s one liner Don’t follow anyone. If you follow anyone, you cease to follow the truth. That one liner along with Epporul Yaar Yaar Vai Ketpinum Apporul Meipporul Kanpathu Arivu from Thirukural pretty much took strong roots in my thought process.
Missing Link: Then comes The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the book that turned my world upside down. With Selfish Gene, there is a distinct Before and After Rad. Selfish Gene led me to Blind Watchmaker, Breaking the Spell, Guns Germs and Steel, Third Chimpanzee, and Sapiens. Put together these books enabled me to loop back, connect the dots, and get the answer to how we got here.
While the above ones had a huge impact on me, a Before and After, there are few others which did change my perception and how I think – Thinking Slow and Fast, Nurture Shock, The Hurried Child, India After Gandhi, Outliers, Innovator’s Dilemma, Small is Beautiful, and Talent is Overrated. Of course, my list is never complete without mentioning The Calvin and Hobbes – Calvin’s take on parenting, education, life, freedom and how we need to view the world from Child’s point of view.
All these books not only just changed my view of the world, but were liberating too, I did manage to unlock and get out of good number of chains and conditioning. What is more satisfying is that I can laugh at myself whenever I buy an expensive item – like that sunglass or IPhone or wireless earphones – that self-awareness of what drives me to do it 😀
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Vishal Y
July 11, 2019
All the books by Shri Yogendra.
Maybe you’ll get around to reading them someday, BR 🙂 You’ve still kept them, right ?
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Jay
July 11, 2019
@@@ Referring to a line from one of the posts…. :
….. Asterix comics, Amar Chitra Katha, Phantom (I’m still a sucker for comics)
Those beautiful drawings in Amar Chitra Katha….. the colors in Asterix, the humor of Snowy in Tintin.
The muscles of Tarzan and Korak when they leap from the tree’s.
Wonder why Phantom was not a hit with movie versions but the comic was super. They never show his face. The Phantom cave, tom-toms, skull punch.
The blue of Superman..
Violet / Purple costume and steel blue undies … with super fast guns…oh that was awesome.
Fighting to read and re-read and re-read between us four brothers.
Its like watching your favorite movie again and again, and continue to do so even if people around you call you crazy. (Example : Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon .. 😊)
And one should not forget Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead, Richie Rich … oh such sweet memories…bless them those cartoonists and whoever was part of the teams…
Must mention Chandamama stories and Vikram Betal … !!!
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vinjk
July 11, 2019
Putting this here
“Composer Michael Brown once gave a 30 year old girl a gift of a year’s wages with a note: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.”
Harper Lee used that year to write ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ first published July 11th, 1960.
In her words “I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement…..”
It’s never been out of print since..”
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Vanya
July 11, 2019
Reading through the lists of books above was like running into old friends. And thank you, everyone, for some excellent suggestions for new reads.
Books that changed me: several Judy Blumes, Tagore’s Gora (which has so many issues, but so much resonated with 20 year-old-me), Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert, The Corner by David Simon
Favorites: Most books by Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Margaret Atwood, Garcia Marquez, Eugenides, Coetzee’s Disgrace, Satrapi’s Persepolis
I recently watched a video of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about how reading enhances empathy, and this got me thinking about how books may diverge from movies on this front. It’s hard to convey “problematic” characters’ inner life on screen (e.g., book vs. movie versions of Revolutionary Road or Norwegian Wood). Thrillers with crappy writing, on the other hand, can make for excellent movies — I’m looking at you, Silence of the lambs.
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Bharathi Shevgoor
July 11, 2019
For whatever it is worth, here are a few that I blame for whatever I have turned out to be.
2.Yayati by VS Khandekar- Translated into Kannada from Marathi by VM Inamdar. It’s clearly a tragedy about a life of indulgence. It succeeds in making you ponder on the virtues of renunciation in a way no lectures by the saintliest of saints can.
3.The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – Again, a study of hedonistic selfishness, shallowness and vanity compounded by a droll cleverness and wit. Yet, a terrifyingly sombre tale in its own way with a deep, empathetic understanding of life.
4.The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Magnificent. Courage in the face of defeat. Everyday pragmatism that trumps self-pity. There is too much of Santiago, the protagonist, in me today. That is how much I identified with him.
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. I’m grateful for having come across this book. Composure and grace under pressure were ideas that fascinated me.
The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir – Feminist Criticism with multiple perspectives. I haven’t read the entire book, but what I did set me on a course of thinking from which I never looked back.
The Road Less Travelled by M.Scott Peck. The first three words of the book are now legendary. ‘Life is difficult’. Shook me up not a little. I’ve read many of his books. General reading. He was a psychiatrist.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. What’s not to like?
Exodus and Armageddon, both by Leon Uris -Changed my perspective on world history.
Animal Farm by George Orwell for obvious reasons
I remember the concepts of each of these books, many read more than two decades ago. I don’t read books as much as I used to and almost completely stopped fiction. It’s articles and online journals now.
The real world is more bizarre than any author’s fertile imagination.
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Isai
July 11, 2019
@Shaviswa
I liked the devotional verses in the first 4 volumes and probably read most of them in their entirety. But, into the last volume, I was too keen on finding about Nandini’s father and Aditya Karikalan’s killer that I only scanned those devotional ‘songs’ for any interesting information. When I finished the book, I was pissed off and thought that’s why God has punished me for my hurry with that ending.
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shaviswa
July 12, 2019
I agree. Kalki leaves us hanging dry about who Nandini really is. But with Aditha Karikalan, he did not want to mess with history where the cause of his death is not recorded. He does give you very broad hints as to what could have happened (my interpretation is Karikalan kills himself and that is the reason why they did not want to record that )
The first time I read part 5, I was also rushing through the chapters in anxiety and anticipation. :). In subsequent reads, I enjoyed it better
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Rahini David
July 12, 2019
Did anyone else notice that this question was originally asked to BR and he has not replied yet?
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gm
July 12, 2019
Good catch RD. That’s what a good listener do, they let others talk first.
On a different topic, will podcasts take over book publishing format for next generation of authors?
I hope, BR continues to write, I prefer reading than listening,
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Varsha
July 12, 2019
Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time was the book that did it for me. I was introduced to it during my teen years by one of my science teachers. It changed my worldview drastically. I was never too religious to begin with, but my belief in karma and afterlife were seriously challenged by it. It was the first book that made me reflect on my life and beliefs. I would rate it as one of the best books about science written by a scientist for non-scientists. Though I still have differences with some of the ideas put forth in the book, it’s use of simple language to explain complex concepts still endears it to me every time I go back to read it. When I think of the mysteries surrounding us, I would like to classify two of them as greater than the rest. One lies beneath our nose, and the other up above the skies. This book takes us on a splendid journey through the latter, unraveling important milestones in our endeavour to understand the heavens. Starting with Aristotle, going through the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the two extreme giants of physical science, and ending with the still hypothetical no-boundary proposal, the book is indeed a brief history of a myriad of achievements in theoretical physics.
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Kay
July 12, 2019
Rahini – yes, and Voldemort asked too. Waiting for his response.
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tonks
July 12, 2019
It’s hard to convey “problematic” characters’ inner life on screen (e.g., book vs. movie versions of Revolutionary Road or Norwegian Wood). Thrillers with crappy writing, on the other hand, can make for excellent movies — I’m looking at you, Silence of the lambs
It’s funny you should mention “Silence of the lambs” in this context, Vanya, because my experience was quite the reverse. I remember picking up the Thomas Harris book from a library many years back when in college, not knowing it was a best seller, and it had not been made into a movie yet. I loved the way the book seemed to get into the protagonist’s head : not just her demons from childhood but her inner thoughts when she faced misogyny during a particular instance. I remember seeing that scene years later while watching the movie, and I remember thinking that despite the movie being really, really good, they could only show things. They couldn’t get us inside Jodie Foster’s head. And so, I liked the book better than the movie.
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Rocky
July 12, 2019
great thread.
Sacred Games is such a good book, and what a mess Khapshap and his gang have made of it .
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Varsha Ganesh
July 12, 2019
This is a delightful comments section! So many people having grown up reading the same set of books that I have and so many great suggestions to add on to my reading list!
Some of mine that made me who I am today:
Enid Blyton – kickstarted the reading habit in me and I`m eternally grateful for that
Harry Potter – literally saved me during my pre-teen and teenage years and helped me find a crew of fellow potterheads
PG Wodehouse
Pen Yen Adimai aanal
Revolution from Within
Seeing like a Feminist
Thousand splendid suns
Annihilation of Caste
God of Small things
Animal Farm
When breath becomes air
40 rules of love
Siddhartha
Surely you`re joking, Mr.Feynman
Purple Hibiscus
Sivagamiyin sabadham
Gone with the wind
I absolutely have to mention BR`s blog. It was your way with words that brought me here and slowly made me a cinema lover from someone who hardly even watched movies.
The comments section was so rich too, watching people like Anu, Rahini, Tonks, to name a few, discuss, debate and eloquently get their POV across has been an enriching experience.
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Eswar
July 13, 2019
Can books change its readers? I have my doubts.
There are some great books listed in this thread. If we hand over them to a person and lock him in a room until it’s all been read, would they be a changed person? Yes, primarily because the person has been locked inside for a long time. And very little because of the books themselves. When people list books that changed their lives they tend to discount their personal experiences before and after reading a book.
Books affect most readers most times. But it changes its readers when they also experience things related to what they have read. Or if the reader has already gone through an experience which a book can help to understand. Man’s Search For Meaning would affect most readers. But when JK, in Yuddham Sei, gifts this book to Nishanth, the kid who lost all his family and is probably questioning the purpose of his existence, the book could become a changer. It would help Nishath to appreciate that if someone can find a purpose in a Nazi Concentration Camp, then there is hope and purpose for most people in this world.
To want to be changed by a book, reading is just the first step. Writing clears one’s thoughts. Writing is a more involved process than reading. Only when we attempt to write about a book, we would realise how much of the book we have absorbed and understood. On Writing is a great book, obviously about writing, but also about how Stephen King became one. Reading a book about people in a slum would show what it means to live there. But if one is able to set out and experience it for themselves, after reading a book like Behind The Beautiful Forevers, then the book could have a lasting change on the reader. Reading, writing and travel complement each other. Reading and travel enriches one’s writing. Books like If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai, Himalaya: Adventures, Meditations, Life are possible only because of the travels and the travellers documenting their experiences. It wouldn’t be surprising if these travellers are also widely read.
Does this mean reading without writing and personal experiences make reading pointless? Not necessarily. Reading a book can be an end goal in itself. There is no greater meaning required out of it. But to make the best out of books, one should read, write and venture out to create their own experiences. Isn’t creating one’s own experiences and understand life through them is the underlying theme of Siddhartha?
Focussed reading is like meditation. In Destructive Emotions, a book from the Mind and Life initiative of the current Dalai Lama, it is said that one meaning for meditation in Tibetan Buddhism is ‘To Prepare’. To prepare one’s mind. In a way, reading a book can prepare us to face life. Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity would prepare parents to bring up an atypical child who is physically and mentally different from them. And also help appreciate their typical children even more. Amma Oru Kolai Seithal can prepare the reader with a glimpse of what a girl child might go through at the time of puberty and how considerate parents should be. On that note, if one is interested about how Religion and Science can work together, then Mind and Life Institute’s publications are a good place to start.
This ability of books to prepare one’s mind is what makes great fiction and literature a necessary read. Fictional works often deal with an underlying emotion that touches all Humans across culture and geography. Love Story is a moving story irrespective of its backdrop. To Kill a Mockingbird is still meaningful even in a far less discriminatory world. Fiction also talks about intricate relationships. The joy and sorrow of being part of these relationships. They break away from the norm and show what Human mind is capable of in its extremes. Em and the Big Hoom, Cobalt Blue, Vishnupuram, J.J. Sila Kurippugal, Amma Vanthal, Ghachar Ghochar, G.Nagarajan’s Kurathi Mudukku, Anuyugam. All of these works talk about life and relationships in its own way.
While Books create a world that we could never become part of like Lord of the Rings and Ponniyin Selvan, they also show us a world that we would never want to become part of like The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, 1984, The Trial, Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War
There is usually a divide among the readers between fiction and non-fiction. But I think it is a false separation. Fiction is not always fully fictitious. Sometimes it is wrapped around real events in books like Such a Long Journey and Midnight’s Children
Similarly Non-Fiction are not always without elements of fiction. The Emperor of All Maladies, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infideland Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent all of these can be as engaging as fiction. With all due respect to the non-fiction authors, I think there is only so much truth an author can present in a book. There is always a scope for fictitious elements intentionally or unintentionally. The separation between fiction and non-fiction, if it exists, is not in the content but only in the form and whether this presentation connects to the reader or not.
As much as I would like to believe that these books have changed and challenged my views, I am also conscious that it’s also to do with how my life had spanned out. Pick any of the above books and give it a try. Forget about change, it may not even connect to you. 🙂
Happy Reading!
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Madan
July 13, 2019
“There is usually a divide among the readers between fiction and non-fiction. ” – This could be because Non Fiction today is exclusively obsessed with Self Help or Management books or hagiographies penned on behalf or by celebrities. That is of course a very narrow sub section of non fiction. I increasingly find myself drawn to non fiction. Maybe it is the political climate that has piqued my interest in trying to understand different phenomena. Hillbilly Elegy was as engaging as a work of fiction but also brought to the table a facet of American reality not revealed any more by its popular culture.GE: At Any Cost was also a brilliant read. I had to salute the author for going against the grain in puncturing Jack Welch’s myth at a time when he was truly held up as a management God. And the chapter about DeBeers could have been straight out of a LeCarre novel, such was its intrigue.
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sanjana
July 13, 2019
What looks good at a certain age may not look as good as one ages and experiences life at first hand. I read Rebecca so many times and I thought nothing can be better than this thriller romance. Also Sidney Sheldon’s works which are racy like James Hadley’s thrillers.
We graduate from comics, Chandamama, Tinkle etc. to romance, thriller and then to serious works of philosophy, political theories and the like. Fiction slowly gives place to non fiction.
And reading poetry is an eternal pleasure. Nowadays I prefer short stories and long stories to long drawn out novels unless they are highly recommended.
I used to collect Reader’s digest just to savour real life adventures and real life experiences. Loved Born Free. Just like Jim Corbett’s works. Now the Digest is not what it used to be. Reading Outlook and India Today articles also gave me a glimpse of contemporary politics and social issues.
How to make friends and How to say No and the like give us valuable hints and direct advice.
Do books influence us? It may change us but the change is too subtle to notice. The ground is prepared when we are ready to be receptive.
Film criticism also made me realize how the same film is viewed differently by different critics.
Do males and females differ in their taste for books? I know there are books which are savoured by both men and women. But…
Do books make us better human beings? As books are often read for pleasure than self improvement, the answer maybe No in my opinion. Books give us knowledge, hints and ideas good and bad.
And love for fiction starts when our parents tell us or read us bedtime stories.
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brangan
July 13, 2019
There are just too many books, but here’s a sample:
Philosophy-wise, I’d go with Narcissus and Goldmund. Read it in my teens and was quite a revelation. Also Ayn Rand’s big two books. Say what you will about Objectivism, these two are a heck of a read and a masterclass in combining the personal with the world at large.
Story- and narrative-wise, I’d pick Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (easily the scariest book I have read), plus Lolita and almost all of Marquez (those who know my film tastes by now, will know the form is as important to me as content, and that given a choice between ‘form without content’ and ‘content without form’, I’ll lean towards the former; these books are just perfect in both respects).
Film-wise, Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders Raging Bulls (a breathtaking combination of gossip and Hollywood history) and the book of conversations between Walter Murch and Michael Ondaatje (easily the deepest meditation on film I’ve read). Plus the compilations of Pauline Kael’ reviews.
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Rad Mahalikudi
July 13, 2019
@Eswar: Yes, reader has to be in a state of mind where the book connects – receptors are open. Many books I read like Ayn Rand’s, even though I like them, never brought in a perception change in me. Maybe those books didn’t take me to the next step of my search.
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Rocky
July 15, 2019
Currently reading The Man who saved India – Sardar Patel by Hindol Sengupta , the ones I read before this one were – The Accidental Prime minster and Durbar .
These kind of books are not too heavy, and yet I feel have a lot to learn from.
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Eswar
July 19, 2019
On a slightly related note:
Came across this 100 hours reading marathon starting at Balu Mahendra Library today : https://m.jeyamohan.in/124107
While searching about this library, found this short video where Balu Mahendra talks about books https://youtu.be/FurYe1Vrjbw
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sanjay2706
July 22, 2019
The book that changed me has not been written yet. My autobiography. 😛
Some great recommendations here BTW.
Noam Chomsky’s books have changed the way I look at the world. Also “The Undoing Project” that changed my perception towards Academia.
Yuval Noah Harari has been the go-to author in the last couple of years for the relevance of his content in today’s modern context.
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Reuben
July 22, 2019
Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins because it instilled in me a scientific sensibility and dare I say gave me ‘spiritual’ experience like no other religion or belief system had.
This led me to devour all of Dawkins’ books and videos and am a diehard fan of him.
The other I greatly enjoyed was The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. He is such a great communicator of complex ideas of physics that he makes ordinary(layman) readers like me feel like geniuses because you actually ‘get’ the concepts he is explaining without having to understand scary mathematical equations.
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Devarsi Ghosh
February 17, 2020
Just searched “books” in the blog to see if there’s any book-related discussion in the blog.
I can not think of any book or movie that has “changed” me, but yes, art does help me in my emotional and intellectual growth. So I am trying to think on those lines…
This year, I read Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher. It falls in the non fiction/political philosophy category. If you believe in your heart of hearts that the world is irredeemably f**ked (can we say the F word here?) by capitalism and there is no hope for any of us, do check out this book. It probably has that ability to “change”, which the title of this post speaks of. Mark Fisher is also a gateway writer to a number of other thinkers, so that’s great about him.
Hari Kunzru’s White Tears, a novel, I read a few years ago. I picked it up reading the back cover, with absolutely zero idea of who Kunzru is. I was attracted to the story: it involves travel, a ghost, America’s brutal past, two music nerds recording ambient music, and blues music of the Deep South. It is a haunting book, and its spirit stayed with me for quite a while.
Stephen King’s The Long Walk, a novel, which I liked for its description of relentless non-stop brutality — brutality not in a sensationalist torture-porn sense, but in the sense of gradual physical and psychological breakdown. That you could write an entertaining pageturner with a story like this was a revelation to me.
Danse Macabre and On Writing by Stephen King. Both non fiction. First is about horror film and literature, exploring its history and themes, and ways you can approach it as both a creator and consumer. (On that note: I highly recommend Thomas Ligotti’s short story called ‘Notes on the Writing of Horror’ which is just a spectacular creation of art. Ligotti, the narrator, discusses a basic outline of a horror story, and writes in three different ways back to back, each more unnerving and intellectually stimulating than the one before.) King’s On Writing is a book… on writing. This book is my Elements of Style.
Ian McEwan’s First Love, Last Rites: short story collection. The stories are absolutely macabre and McEwan could’ve very well gone on to become a top-notch genre writer but he slipped into literary fiction. Why I pick this is because some of the stories really stayed with me. The prose was that good.
Currently reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which is great in a kitchen-sink, literary realism way, and Thomas Bernhard’s The Loser, which is a short novel but the text feels oppressive due to its gloomy content, which I do not mind.
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Voldemort
December 30, 2020
Came back to this thread yesterday for book reccos! Thanks Everyone 🙂
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