Top 20 Favourite Books Of All Time That Influenced Me

I have a theory about books. We don’t choose books; books choose us. Also, there is a right time to read the books you are meant to. What I mean is the books that are meant to have an impact on you. (I don’t see any reason why I was meant to read some of the trashy books I read ;))

There are so many I intended to read but never got to read them until I just “chanced upon” them. There have been such instances when I bought a book but ended up losing it only to be gifted it by someone much later unexpectedly.

Today, I have been reflecting upon all the books that have had an impact on me in some way or the other. I was prompted by Sangeeta Relan (who pens beautiful stories about women on her blog About Her) on Facebook for the 7-day Book Challenge that’s going viral these days. The prompt is to post covers of the books that you loved the most without any explanations. Each day you have to post one cover and tag another bibliophile. Although I am not a fan of such “challenges”, I liked this one (and I call it a prompt and not challenge) as it promotes books and gets you thinking about good books.

Taking the prompt further, I got inspired to write a blog post on the top 15 books that have had an impact on me. I urge fellow bloggers to create a similar list and share it with me. I would love to know about the powerful books that might cross my way someday!

Some of these books made me smile, some gave me food feast for thought, and some were so riveting that the thought of them getting over almost made me cry. I remember reading The Fountainhead on my way to and from college and getting agitated when the bus arrived at my stop.

In this post, I am going to share a list of the books (in no particular order) and a quote and/or line from the book that I loved the most or some memory attached to some of the books.

1984 by George Orwell

Memorable Quote: ‘How do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?’

My Book Memory: I read this masterpiece by George Orwell as a part of an assignment in journalism school. We were supposed to read a book each week and then give a book presentation. My dramatic book presentation on this book got me a lot of appreciation from our hard-to-please professor.

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Books by Amrita Pritam

Book Memory: As a kid, I always wondered how and why was my mother, Ranju Bhatia, so engrossed in her books every day until she introduced me to the romantic world of books (and Amrita Pritam) with the novel Chak No. 36 (Village 36). I also loved reading Pinjar and Raseedi Ticket in Hindi.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Memorable Quote: (Tough to recall just one quote from this jewel)

“To say “I love you”, you must know first how to say the “I”.”

“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

” Look at everyone around us. You’ve wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-handers delusion—prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can’t say about a single thing: ‘This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.’ Then he wonders why he’s unhappy.””

My Book Memory: This is one of the most complex books I have read. The plot and the philosophy gripped me so much that I found it hard to be present in my reality; it always seemed that I was a spectator and sometimes one of the characters in the book’s reality.

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The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

In 2006, Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 2007, his diagnosis was terminal. Less than a year later he passed away. But before that, he delivered a powerful lecture that continues to influence minds even today.

Memorable Quotes: “Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”

“Give yourself permission to dream. Fuel your kids’ dreams too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.”

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Catcher in the Rye

Memorable Quotes: “If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.”

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.” (right?)

The Taming of the Queen by Phillipa Gregory

My Book Memory: This is the book that has made me love the historical fiction genre. Also, I read it last year when I felt a tad lost as to what I was doing with my life. This book felt like a good friend who’d ask me to forget it all with vibrant stories of his/her life to distract me.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being By Milan Kundera

Such deep and powerful writing by the author! Please do read at least of his books if you haven’t already.

Memorable Quotes: “We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.”

“Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I have heard of so many viewpoints of Mahabharata but never Draupadi’s before I read The Palace of Illusions. The novel reimagines the famous Indian epic through the eyes of a woman living in a patriarchal world.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

I wrote about The Invention of Wings in a post after I read it. The visuals the author created are still vivid in my mind.

Memorable Quotes: “To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Here’s proof of my theory that books choose us. I went online to buy some other books. But I somehow chanced upon The Forty Rules of Love one and was convinced of purchasing it in a jiffy. It wasn’t a coincidence, I know. As I said, I have always believed that you pick a book and let it impact you so deeply only when you are meant to; there’s a right time for it. The belief grew stronger after each page I turned. And then on page 303…Aziz (one of the main characters of the novel) says: “There is no such thing as early or late in life…Everything happens at the right time”…near the end of the novel. Read it if you share a similar belief. Read it if you don’t. Read it if you love quoting Rumi for anything and everything. Read it if you don’t. Just. Read. It.

Memorable Quotes:

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

“Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.”

The Kite Runner

My Book Memory: The Kite Runner is the book that got me curious about Afghanistan. I was determined to take a trip to Kabul after reading this book!

Memorable Quotes:

“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”

“For you a thousand times over.”

A Thousand Splendid Suns

My Book Memory: After reading The Kite Runner, I just had to read the next one by the author. I eagerly waited for him to write another one after reading this book. He did write another one, “And the Mountains Echoed”. I bought the copy but haven’t got a chance to read it yet. Its time hasn’t come for me, perhaps!

Memorable Quotes: “Tell your secret to the wind, but don’t blame it for telling the trees.”

“A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed. It won’t stretch to make room for you.”

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Memorable Quotes:

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”

“One’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

My Book Memory: I remember crying a lot while and after reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Have you read it? I’m sure you cried too.

Memorable Quotes:

“People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.”

“Things are never as bad as they seem.”

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk

My Book Memory: Istanbul had been a dream destination for me since childhood. It always felt like the Blue Mosque was calling me. I finally got a chance to visit Istanbul in 2010. But before that, I visited the country through this book.

Memoirs of Geisha by Arthur Golden

Arthur Golden paints such a vivid picture of a fictional geisha that you feel that she is a real person whom you know so well. It was such a pleasure reading this book and getting acquainted with the mysterious world of geishas.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

My Book Memory: Someone who’s writing I used to admire once asked me if I had read Kahlil Gibran. Which one, he asked, when I promptly said yes. “The Prophet,” I said. “You’ll sail through life well,” he had remarked.

Whenever I have been too distressed in life, I open this book randomly. Somehow, one of the quotes on that page shows me the way.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

One of the most inspiring books of all time!

Memorable Quotes:

“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.”

“Your whole body… is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too…”

Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

My Book Memory: I have always been proud to be a woman. The feeling grew manifold while reading this story about Rani Lakshmi Bai narrated by Sita, her elite female bodyguard.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

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I am grateful to the person who introduced me to Pablo Neruda’s poems. “The poems are so beautiful in English; imagine reading and understanding them in the language they were written in (Spanish).

Lines from My Favourite Poem:

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, “The night is starry
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.”

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too….”

You can buy old books from Flipkart here.

Do you have a favourite from the list of books above? Which books have had the most impact on you? Share your list with me in the comments below 🙂