17 Sept 2013

26 Best Books: The A to Z Must Read Book List


When The Sunday Book Club (TSBC) recently published an A to Z list of books on their blog, I was inspired to do the same and compiled this must read book list, which includes my favourite books from over the years.  Having discovered the magical world of books at an early age, I remember eagerly waiting for the latest editions of Phantom, Mandrake and Amar Chitra Katha comics to arrive, not to forget children’s magazines like Chandamama (does anyone remember that? Apparently, its first issue was out in 1947!) and Champak!  Then came my involvement with Enid Blyton, Biggles (don’t remember the author), Agatha Christie, Alistair Maclean, and Hindi and Bengali authors Premchand, Shivani, Sharad Chandra Chattopadhyay and poets such as Jaishankar Prasad and Nirala amongst others.

Our entire group of friends then moved on to Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Somerset Maugham, RK Narayan and so many others.  Today, I just cannot imagine how I went through the voluminous War and Peace and Crime and Punishment or even She for that matter!

So here's my A-Z list of books, which I hope you will also enjoy.



Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Exodus by Leon Uris
Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
The Guide by RK Narayan
How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: The 25 Principles of Success by Jack Canfield
Ice Station Zebra by Alistair Maclean
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss
No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran
Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra
The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
She: A History of Adventure/Ayesha, Return of She by H Rider Haggard
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Vital Signs by Robin Cook
The Wonder that was India by AL Basham
In Xanadu by William Dalrymple
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell

A few more books which come close are Ageless Body Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra, Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Through Time into Healing by Brian Weiss, Godfather by Mario Puzo, Nine Lives by William Dalrymple and The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.


Do let me know other books that you have enjoyed reading and those that you would like to recommend.  I look forward to adding more books to my list.

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