There is no doubt about the fact that it is quite impossible to make a shortlist of five best books. However, I will try and tell you about the five books that are my all time favourites:
5. The
Thorn Birds ... Colleen McCollough
4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin ... Harriet Beecher Stowe
3. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
2. Gone With the Wind ...
1. Catch 22 ... Joseph Heller
These are the five that come uppermost on my mind as I write this review. Of these, although I have put UTC at number 4, I like it the most, on account of it being the most original piece of work. Harriet B. Stowe’s book is said to be one of the major factors in deciding the outcome of the American Civil War and led to the abolition of slavery, a curse for the black community in those times. Lincoln is said to have personally met Stowe and congratulated her on writing such a sensitive book.. I have read somewhere that it was one of the books that changed the history of mankind ... and counts in the same league as books like the Bhagvad Gita, the Bible and the Quran, though not as lofty as these religious books.
A word about The Thorn Birds ... the story spans over a life-time and is a story of adventure, romance and grit and determination that no one should miss in her/his lifetime. Megan’s love for a man of the cloth and the ultimate outcome of her romantic inclinations are not to be missed.
I never would have guessed that Hitler had such a colourful past and proved to be such a charismatic and attractive leader at quite a young age! His life story is most authentically related to us in the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Do read it if you have the time to read over 1400 pages as it is that long. Then come and tell me what Shicklgruber was ...
What can one say about Gone with the Wind, except to say that such an adventure never was and never will be written as well as it was ... Written by Margaret Mitchell in 1835, it is set in the Southern part of the U.S.A. (Georgia, to be precise) and traces the life and times of a rebellious but smart and uniquely beautiful girl Scarlett O’Hara as she walks through life, crushing many before meeting her nemesis (in a sort of way) in Rhett Butler, a man who is as smart as her and perhaps more, and who she falls in love with. If you want to know more, look up this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind
Finally, a word about Catch 22: Initially serialised by Joseph Heller as Catch 18, the final number (33) has nothing important attached to it in significance. This is a book of paradoxes and is a satire on the way in which bureaucracy works. It traces the life of Yossarian, an American air-force pilot, who, along with his squadron, go through several funny situations where there is no clear solution and a lot of blurring of facts. This book is circumlocutory and at the same time, a masterpiece of understanding different persons’ points of view (POV) about a certain aspect of life.
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Aren’t there any Indian authors in the best books list? Who can forget books like Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, The City of Joy by Dominic Lapierre, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Inheritance of Loss by Anita Desai and authors of vernacular literature like P.L. Deshpande, Maha Shweta Devi, Munshi Premchand, Kamleshwar, and others?
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Among the classics my votes go to authors like Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, not to forget Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, H.D. Thoreau’s Pond-side meditative books, Huge Prather’s small but effective "notes", Tolstoy’s "Anna Karenina" , Ayn Rand’s "Fountainhead", "Anthem" abnd "Atlas Shrugged" and O’Henry’s books? Or Maxim Gorky’s "Mother", Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "Crime and Punishment:", The Picture of Dorian Grey by O’Henry, Rudyard Kipling’s "Jungle book" and many others that I cannot recall at the moment?
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In children’s books the honours must go to one and one person only: the inimitable and prolific Enid Blyton. Who among us have not read her books as we grew up? Secret Seven, Famous Five, Enchanted Wood, ’O-clock tales, Noddy books, and what not? However, there is one other author who must be mentioned here for his excellent children’s books : Roald Dahl. Get his books today if you haven’t so far read him!
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Mystery and crime books cannot start or end without the mention of James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie (I still feel that Murder on the Orient Express and A Pocketfull of Rye were her best books), Georgette Heyer and Edgar Allan Poe (Have you read his story the "Murders in the Rue Morgue?)
Enough for the time being. Do rate this review and oblige me!