The idea to prepare a list of my favourite 100 books came to me when I was reading William Somerset Maugham's autobiographical book The Summing Up.A stage comes in life when you decide to do things that seem of importance to you , and you can no longer persuade yourself that you are not yet ready.For if you are not ready now, there is a small likelihood that you will ever do so .I have been an avid reader of books ever since I was very young, and I have not really kept count of the books I have read .But often , when I liked a book very much , or I was deeply influenced by a book, I had a desire to read such books more than once .But there was always a competition between the new books , and old books waiting to be read again .The figure of 100 is purely arbitrary,and the list is the first list .It is possible that there may be some more books , which were my favourite when I read them , and I may modify the list .But I know that the changes will not be substantial.The list has a mix of fiction and non-fiction .So here below is the list of my favourite 100 books as on January 17,2015.:
1.Angela's Ashes by Frank
McCourt.
2.The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
3.A Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl with Sarah
Crichton.
4.The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
5.The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh.
6.Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez.
7.Animal Farm by George Orwell.
8.Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally.
9.Steppen Wolf by Hermann Hesse.
10.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
11.The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
12.Stoner by John Williams.
13.The Diving-Bell & The Butterfly by
Jean-Dominique Bauby.
14.The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse.
15.The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
16.Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
17.Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
18.The Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum.
19.Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
20.Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith
21.Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad.
22.The Little Prince by Antoine De
Sait-Exupery.
23.Wuthering
Heights
24.Tolstoy and the Purple Chair ..My Year of
Magical Reading
25.The Stranger by Albert Camus.
26.Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.
27.The Plague by Albert Camus.
28.The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.
29.Beloved by Toni Morrison.
30 TheRazor's Edge by W.Somerset Maugham.
31.Infidel . . .my life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
32.Night by Elie Wiesel.
33.The White Castle
34.Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
35.To Sir With Love by E.R.Braithwaite.
36.Saturday by Ian McEwan.
37.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
38.The trial by Franz Kafka.
39.The Fall by Albert Camus.
40.Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.
41.Notes From underground by Fyodor Dostevsky.
42.The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with
Jeffrey Zaslow.
43.The Truth by Michel Palin.
44.Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
45.A single Man by Christopher Isherwood.
46.Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.
47Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.
48.The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
49.Jonathan Livingstone Seagull . .a story by
Richard Bach.
50.The English Patient by Michel Ondaatje.
51.Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T.S.Eliot.
52.The Bhagwad Gita by S.Radhakrishnan.
53.Long Walk to freedom by Nelson Mandela.
54.Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz.
55.Motivation and Personality by Abraham
H.Maslow.
56.The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
and E.B.White.
57.The Story of my experiments with Truth ..
.An Autobiography by M.K.Gandhi.
58.Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E.
Frankl.
59.The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.
60.The Road Less Traveled by M.Scott Peck,M.D.
61.Obedience to authority by Stanley Milgram.
62.Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere.
63.A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
64.Free to Choose . .a personal statement by
Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman.
65.I and Thou by Martin Buber, translated by
Ronald Gregor Smith.
66.The art of war by Sun-Tzu.
67.The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi by R.K.Prabhu
,U.R.Rao.
68.The Complete Yes Minister . The
Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by the right Hon.James Hacker MP.
69.Love . what life is all about
by Leo Buscaglia.
70.Illusions . .The adventures of a Reluctant
Messiah by Richard Bach.
71.How People Change by Allen Wheelis.
72.In the Footsteps of Gandhi . .conversations
with spiritual social activists by Catherine Ingram.
73.The Master as I saw him by Sister
Nivedita.
74.Letters of Swami Vivekananda Advaita
Ashrama.
75.Markings . ..The Enduring Spiritual Classic
by Dag Hammarskjold . .translated by Leif Sjoberg ,W.H.Auden.
76.The magic of Dialogue by daniel
Yankelovitch.
77.The hidden words by Baha'u'llah.
78.The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis.
79.The Different drum by M.Scott Peck.
80.How to be Invisible by J.J.Luna.
81.Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande.
82.On writing . .A memoir of the craft
by Stephen King.
83.How to Read a book . . the classic
guide to intelligent reading by Mortimer J.Adler & Chrles Van Doren.
84.Leading Change by John P. Kotter.
85.The Fifth Discipline . .The art and
practice of the learning organization by Peter M.Senge.
86.Thinking in Systems . ..a primer by
Donella H.Meadows.
87.Ageless Body ,Timeless Mind . .a practical
alternative to growing old by Deepak Chopra.
88.Exit ,Voice ,and Loyalty by Albert O
Hirschman.
89.Straight from the gut by Jack Welch with
Johna A.Bryne.
90.Individuals ,Groups, and shared Moral
responsibility by Gregory Mellema.
91.The Seven habits of Highly Effective people
. .powerful lessons in personal change by Stephen R.Covey.
92.Good Strategy,Bad Strategy by Richard
Rumelt.
93.On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis.
94.Mojo ..how to get it ,how to keep
it,how to get it back if you lose it by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter.
95.Getting Things Done . .The art of Stress-free Productivity by David Allen.
96.Quality is Personal. . . .A foundation for
Total quality Management by Harry V.Roberts,Bernard F. Sergesketter.
97.Glow..How you can radiate energy,innovation
and success by Lynda Gratton.
98.Emotional Intelligence . .why it can
matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman.
99.Mindset ...The new psychology of
success . ..How we can learn to fulfill our potential by Carol S.Dweck.Ph.D.
100.The summing Up by William Somerset
Maugham.
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