The Books Challenge

The last couple of weeks quite a lot of challenges are doing the rounds on social media

• the Ice-bucket challenge - to douse oneself with ice-water and then donate for research on ALS
• the rice-bucket challenge - donating a bucket of rice or other similar essential item to poor people and posting pics on social media
• the top ten enduring books challenge - one has to list 10 books that had an enduring effect on the person.

Luckily I wasn't challenged for the first 2 challenges, not that I have anything against them, but just that I would have been hard-pressed taking up the challenge. Deepika published her Top 10 books / authors and asked me to take up the challenge. Thanks Deepika for giving me the opportunity.

The list of books that affected me (either positively or negatively) when I read them:
1. To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
2. Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm - Enid Blyton (My first)
3. Ragtime - E L Doctorow
4. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
5. Harry Potter series - JKR
6. Illusions - Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - Richard Bach
7. Silent in the Spring - Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
8. Fountainhead - Ayn Rand (No, I didn't like it - I actually hated it)
9. Crooked House - Agatha Christie
10. மனைவி - அடியார் - I liked it so much that I used to give it as a gift to newly married couples. I recently read some of the kavithaikal in it and I was shocked that I had subscribed to such views.

I don't know whether these books would affect me the same way if I read them now.

Further I made this list from recall, so on another day my list might be quite different, so just adding a few more:

• The Snow Goose - Paul Gallico
• God Knows - Joseph Heller
• Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
• PG Wodehouse
• More Than Just Biryani - Andaleeb Wajid
• Don Camillo -
• The Big Fisherman - Lloyd C Douglas
• The Prize - Irwing Wallace
• சுஜாதா கதைகள்
• துப்பறியும் சாம்பு - தேவன்
• தரையில் இறங்கும் விமானங்கள் - இந்துமதி
• Kite Strings and Blinkers Off - Andaleeb Wajid (The first books where the protagonist was a Indian Muslim that I read. I realized how similar people and their emotions were across different cultures.) I like ALL of Andaleeb's books (she's written many of which 6 are published).

Thanks Deepika.