Books I love.
The exquisite smell of books always intrigued me, even as a child. I found myself strolling in the library in search of another fantasy to lose myself in.
The beguiling world of fiction seems to be my escape from reality. From the adventures of Nancy Drew to Game of Thrones, each character mesmerized me.
I would occasionally find myself curled in a corner with no track of time, lost in the mystical land. The delicacy of the written word and the author’s expertise to correlate with the audience conspired me to continue the quest of reading. Over the years, I have read hundreds of books; however, few of them touched my heart.
One of which is: A thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love — a stunning accomplishment.
The author elegantly weaves thirty years of violent Afghan history through hope. The story is about how two women Mariam and Laila, separated by a generation, find their way through love and friendship and survive together. Their world collides and causes havoc, and I find myself sobbing while reading this book.
Part one of the story revolves around Mariam’s youth. She lived in Gul Daman’s outskirts with her mother; just like other children, she too craved affection from her father and longed to see him and occasionally wondered what his house in Herat was like. Soon, everything changed.
Part two of the story revolves around the beautiful girl named Laila, a Kabul professor’s daughter who believed Marriage could wait, education cannot.
As the narrative revolves, we find Laila falling in love, amid all killing and looting, with her neighbor and best friend, Tariq. June of 1992 brought heavy fighting in West Kabul, and soon everything shifted; what follows after this is heartache for Laila. The novel illustrates how two women support and survive with each other; love triumphs all in the end.
I’m sorry,” Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.
Second book, I love is Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. The story revolves around an older man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson. After twenty years, Mitch reconnects with his old college professor, and what follows after that is a magical chronicle of their time together. Their rekindled relationship turns into the final ‘class’: lessons in how to live.
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
And the most poignant book for me, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
From The Cognitive Revolution two hundred thousand years ago to the Agricultural Revolution 12,000 years ago and to the Scientific Revolution 500 years ago, the novel questions humankind’s existence.
This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.
The author proposes fundamental questions and urges us to change our perspective towards things.
Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation — whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe — is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.
The novel ends with an intriguing question: What do we want to want?
“How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.”
I hope my beloved top three books might have invigorated you to keep your cellphones down and pick up a book instead, or maybe a kindle.
