Top 11 Books to Read Before you Die

Books are a persons best friend and there is no other activity so stimulating and enriching. Befriending books must be an important part for every one. We must try to instill this habit in our children early on so it continues to grow further. The more you find books as your go-to friend, the better it is for a happy, healthy and intellectual life ahead.

Books are unique forms of art. Books enchant us, mesmerize us and make us believe in being a part of them. Reading helps in building stronger self and makes us fall in love with the characters we read about. All books and genres are great, and there are some wonderful piece of work which are a must read for everyone. For their unique story and some really wonderful moral, these are compiled as books to read before you die.

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Top 11 Books to Read Before you die:

1- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin is a thorough classic comedy of errors with wit and charm to conjure your womanly pride. A taste of a conventional and orthodox system of marriage where a wealthy man’s pride spars prejudiced woman’s valor. How it is of exceeding importance for an affluent man to search a good wife. It showcases the evils of hasty judgments. And how the wealthy riches may be perceived during Victorian times. You would fall in love with Mr Darcy and Elizabeth

2- To Kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee:

To kill a mocking bird depicts a small town life and how a 6 year old child refuses to follow the social stigma. The little female inspires and motivates even generations to come, to stand by their rights and opinions. The evils of racial discrimination and how prejudice rules innocence.

3- Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:

For all who love to dream and fantasize, here is your charm. Lewis Carroll has worded this piece of art so beautifully that it mesmerizes and enchants everyone. Imagination is infinite and never give up. There is nothing called impossible and just be inspired.

4- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald:

The Great Gatsby is one of the most popular American Novel depicting quintessential jazz age. How uber riches of society threw lavish parties, in addition to hopeless love crushing idealism and how American Dreams were elusive then. How booze infused lives of small flamboyant strata of society shaped their dreams.

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5- Vanity Fair by William Thackery:

Vanity Fair is an English novel by William Thackery which revolves around the life of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley including their social circle around the times of Napoleonic wars. The story is framed in a puppet show taking place at a fair. It is often called a novel without a hero. Vanity fair is a stop along the pilgrims progress; which is a never ending fair in the town of Vanity. This represents a man’s sinful attachment to worldly things. This is an excellent satire of English society in early 19th century.

6- The Color Purple by Alice Walker:

The color purple by Alice Walker is an epistolary novel. It focuses on the life of African American women in the southern US. It depicts the extremely low position of these women in social culture in late 1930s How a girl is beaten and raped by her own father and twice impregnated. The book has sexual explicitness, explicit language, violence and homosexuality

7- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller:

Catch 22 is a satirical novel by Joseph Heller. Where the inventive schemes of Yossarian try to save him from chances of war. The absurdest humor post American-war makes it a sublime bureaucratic idiocy. Madness runs all through the novel and a whole universe of folly is created. It is strange and calls for full novel reading until the climax unfolds more comic relevance’s.

8- A Passage to India by EM Forster:

A passage to India is set in the backdrop of British Raj and Indian independence movements. It is about common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and Britishers who ruled India. Where an English women in shock mistook for sexual assault and charged a Muslim physician for the felony.

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9- The Stand by Stephen King:

The stand is a post apocalyptic horror/ fantasy novel. It shows how the world ends in a nanosecond. And comes a bleak new world the day after. A world stripped off its institutions and without 99% of its population. A world where handful of panicky survivors take sides or are chosen. Deaths of almost everyone due to a super-flu can be horrifying and terrible and spreads chills and thrills in the reader.

10- For Whom The Bell Trolls by Ernest Hemingway:

For whom the bell trolls is a Spanish civil war set story. And with an ambiguous ending it sure adds to some mindful thinking. It tells about loyalty, courage, love, defeat and tragic death of an ideal. It is rated as one of the best war novels of all time; greater in power, broader in scope and more intensely emotional than any other work of literature.

11- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchel:

Gone with the Wind is a an American civil war epic, one of the most beloved novel, gives shivers for the sheer portrayal of slums in the south. Also highlighting the depraved behavior of its protagonist. This Pulitzer Prize winning novel is about the life of a blemished girl from the south. Daughter of a plantation owner and her struggles. The entire sequence is thought-provoking and realistic. The use of prohibited racist words like nigger and darkies have also affected the book aspects.

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The above compilation on Top 11 Books to Read Before you die is based on readings and experiences over time. While there are ample more books but the above list is complied with one from each category giving wonderful reading goals ahead. Some of these books are even adopted in movies and have been hugely popular for their very essence and portrayal.

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Minu Manisha