The Best Books I Read In 2015
Earlier last year I decided to set myself a goal of reading 36 books in the whole of 2015 (thanks Manas, for the inspiration!). I’m so glad I managed to meet my goal; more often than not it seemed like I wasn’t going to make it.
Here’s a list of my favourite books I read last year (in order of date read).
- Lord Of The Flies — William Golding
I first realised my inclination towards dystopian novels when I read 1984 (and quickly followed it up with Animal Farm) back in my second year of college. I kicked off 2015 with Lord Of The Flies; I had read about the plot and how it was inspired by R M Ballantyne’s The Coral Island and inverted its moralities(I haven’t read it but it still got me interested). It’s about a bunch of British school boys stranded on an island and how they learn to govern themselves. The book is very symbolic; each character represents a certain kind of human being and how they react to every situation is how their traits manifest. It’s certainly one of the best books I’ve ever read. - The Stranger/The Outsider — Albert Camus
This book was a gift from a good friend and had been lying on my bookshelf for a long time before I picked it up. And I’m so glad I did. This first person narrative of Mersault, the central character, starts with the death of his mother and his apparent lack of emotion in regards to it. It’s written very simply but the words often hit you hard. The book questions what is that we consider ‘human’, whether it’s even our prerogative to decide ‘how a man should feel’. I found the last chapter particularly moving. It’s the kind of stuff that, if you read before going to bed, will make you lie on your bed and stare at the ceiling for a long time. - Jaya — Devdutt Pattnaik
A friend recommended this book to me back in college (2012 may be?) but I only came around to reading it last year. As a child I had seen the tele adaption of the Indian epic Mahabharata and which was extremely popular but back then to me it was just about oddly dressed actors and a vague notion of right and wrong. I am very glad I read this adaptation because it dispelled my notion of the Mahabharata being just a Hindu epic. It’s far more complex in the ideas it deals with and Devdutt Pattnaik does a good job of putting it together. Among other things, he outlines the various stories that have been given to explain the many discomforting ideas like polyandry, rape etc that are in many ways central to the epic. Jaya leaves you with a lot of questions which I think was the very goal of the Mahabharata. I wouldn’t say I understand it completely, there are still ideas that are out of my grasp. Just one read isn’t going to be enough. - Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
This one’s a classic Gladwell. Crisply written, it talks about how and why people succeed (or don’t). It explains why Bill Gates could build Microsoft, why the Beatles were so good at making music and Bill Joy at programming. It takes you through how the various factors that play out and how they can work for you or against you. The book sort of made me put my life in perspective and appreciate the incidents and people that have helped me get where I am today.
5. The Pmarca Blog Archives — Marc Andreesen
This is an ebook released at the beginning of 2015. It’s a compilation of select blog posts by Marc Andreesen, the creator of Netscape Navigator and a super successful venture capitalist, between 2007 and 2009. The book is a frank and honest guide to starting up, raising funds, hiring and retaining the best people, building a career, being productive and whatnot. I would recommend the book to pretty much everyone, whether they’re starting up or not.
6. Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami
I consider reading this book as a milestone in my short life, how some books tend to be. I wasn’t going to start my Murakami journey with this book but a friend insisted and I took his word for it. Not that starting off with any other book would have made me love his writing any less but Norwegian Wood is special, to me at least, and perhaps my friend could foresee that. Apparently this was the book that shot Murakami to fame and I can imagine why. It’s a simple story, simply written. But in this non-decorativeness and mundane detail of the book lies its appeal. The book elicited various emotions but the one that was almost always constant for me was nostalgia. As Toru Watanabe tries to remember things so that he may never forget, I tried with him. I have a feeling the book makes a lot of people feel that way.
7. Remains Of The Day — Kazuo Ishiguro
Another book I took up on Manas’s recommendation. The story is narrated by Stevens, the central character, a butler at Darlington Hall who decides to take a road trip in his new master’s car. I think the book is summed up very well by Esteban De Mal’s review on Goodreads. He writes,
Kazuo Ishiguro writes the anti-haiku: instead of consciousness awakening to the immediacy of the immutable natural world, subjective memory is peeled back layer by layer to expose consciousness; instead of the joyous eruption of awareness, the tension of the gradual decompression of ignorance; instead of a humility that acknowledges the unknowable on its own terms, rambling that tries to fill the chasm of existential angst that has suddenly opened up like a sinkhole in being. Yet what his writing shares with the haiku is the bringing about of enlightenment — it arrives, tarnished and the worse for wear, in the end.
This book was an absolute delight.
8. Family Matters — Rohinton Mistry
This was the second book by Rohinton Mistry that I picked up. It tells the story of a middle-class Parsi family and their often bitter mostly volatile relationships. It’s simply written but Mistry pays kind attention to detail that often leaves you smiling. I think I loved the book because I could relate to a lot of situations and felt like I had known some of the characters personally. At times I found the characters in the book a little melodramatic but never too far from reality. All in all, a good read.
9. After Dark — Haruki Murakami
A girl who can speak Mandarin. A boy who plays the trombone. A girl who has been sleeping in a room for a very long time and something really weird is going on. The book ties them together. Sometimes it feels like a thriller but it’s not. When you’re done reading it you feel like you woke up from a very odd dream. Daniel, another Goodreads reviewer describes Murakami’s writing accurately,
To me, Murakami is a great author for teaching you how to read (forgive me) proactively. He works a lot with impressions and mood, so that it’s most rewarding when the reader stops after every few sentences and chews on what’s happening.
10. Lean Analytics — Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
A part of Lean Startup series, I first got interested in the book after watching a video of Alistair Croll talking about the One Metric That Matters. It’s an interesting book to read and helps you approach growth in a data-oriented manner. Whether you own a SAAS company, a mobile app or a blog, the book has some really good tips for you. I consider it a handbook, something I will go back to and refer every now and then.
11. Kafka On the Shore — Haruki Murakami
Based on the myth of Oedipus, the story follows a 15-year old precocious boy as he runs away from his home and all the mysterious things that happen forth. The book has some recurring motifs like that of blood and dreams. There are numerous quotes in the book that I love but there are many lines that make you pause and absorb what you just read. One example I can think of is this,
Her tone of voice is rough and unyielding, like a loaf of bread someone forgot on the back of a shelf.
12. Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury
The perfect dystopian novel to end my year! The book is about a future(?) society where books are outlawed and burned when found by ‘firemen’, where people entertain themselves in their ‘parlours’ with huge televisions with which they interact like they would with their families. Guy Montag, the central character of the book attempts to escape this society and a good part of the book is about what follows. At some point you realise that the dystopian ideas expressed in the book are not far from the reality we experience today. A good book to mess with your head, I’d say.
It’s an interesting coincidence that I started and ended my year with a dystopian novel :)
I highly recommend Goodreads to anyone who’s trying to make a habit of reading (or getting back to it). You can discover what your friends are reading, get recommendations and keep a track of what you’ve read and what you’re going to read.
This year I plan to read a lot more non-fiction, some science fiction and lots and lots of Murakami. Do give me your recommendations! You can hit me up on Twitter or mail me at aamnakhan28@gmail.com.
