Easy to Swallow Books you should not miss

Abdulaziz AlSharif
Nov 4 · 6 min read

It was said once that this is a very sad world with “too much books and so little time to read” and the statement could be any more true , with the digital revolution and the massive flow of written and visual and auditory information , Books Movies Podcasts Tweets and Blogs , we should try to be a little selective of what we spend our finite precious time with , in the list below ive tried to gather a few books from different categories hoping it will enlighten a spark in your brain and broaden your horizon for just as much as i could do .

#1 A Short history of nearly everything by bill Bryson

in this book the author have traveled back in fourth in time , and in a mostly Humorous and comic narrative he talks about how we got to know what we know today in different fields of science , he tries to explain without boring you to death the steps scientists and physicists took from the apple that fell upon newtons head to where we are today launching nuclear bombs and using iphones to predict next week’s weather !

#2 Confessions of a master jewel thief by bill mason

In a stunning breathtaking movie-like full of action memoir , bill mason walks you through how he one day just decided to steal something and how that turned into his favorite adrenaline pumping hobby/job , in the memoir bill steals a famous actress’s jewels “twice” in a funny twist , risked getting caught multiple times , i do not want to spill any part of the book but all i can say its a very enjoyable treat , a movie in a book .

#3 sophie’s world By Jostein Gaarder

Little sophie wanders into an intellectual world when mysterious letters begin dropping at her door asking her trivial question like “who are you and what are we?” now those sound like very simple question yet if you think about it more than 90% of people dont know the answer.

in this book Gaarder takes is in a very magical and simplified story of philosophy , so simple anyone could read yet so staggering that its very hard for your brain and mind to not light up a few sparks , Personally i did not enjoy the plot so much -as you would excuse a writer in the early 90's- but the amount and concentration and the narrative of philosophy in the book is brilliant , it will take you step by step through human thought , starting to when Socrates said “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

If you wanna explore how deep your mind could be , if you were ever interested on what those philosophy major student do beside thinking and if you were interested in understanding why we think this way today , this book is the one to start with.

#4 AND THEN THERE WERE NONE -Agatha Cristie

Theres no doubt that agatha cristie is the queen of mystery , she stands tall and well above all others in the crime and mystery department , when most of her sales and fame come from her popular characters (Hercule poiriot and miss marble) this book challenges that statement with over a 100 million copies sold .

i remember this book very clearly because its one of the ones that are very hard to put down , you might have not read the book but you probably seen the plot in many shows or movies based on this great novel -family guy for example aired an hour long episode based on the book- .

it starts with building the characters of 10 strangers each with an invitation by a mystery millionaire to a dinner in a remote castle in an island ,of course i could not dare to spoil the novel for the respected leader but the story is pretty simple , those 10 start dying one by one , lets see how many of them has to die before they realize they're actually being snatched one by one?

#5 Everything is F*cked By Mark Manson

Honestly this one is a personal favorite to me , it sheds some real light on some subject that we as humans find mysterious or even hard to admit to our self , the cover says its a book about hope but from my point of view .. its nothing about that at all , finishing this book will result mostly in one of three things , the first of which is to throw the goddamn book away and call it a piece of whatever the worst thing on your mind is , the second is for you to chose to defy against this horrible writer that is making dozens of cash of telling us that we are nothing , but the third and what i believe is that smartest choice is to simply just inhale the book for what it is .. a book about nothing.

we as humans have contributed so much in this world in both good and bad , we are the reason that our pets get medical care and our children live longer than those in the past century , but also we are the reason for pollution and war and global warming and plenty of blood shed over a paper we call money or a chair we call throne or even mania we call love .

we consider our selves very important when we are actually just a dust in a huge galaxy , that should either let us acknowledge the fact that we are mortal and try to live more freely without pressure of missing out on whats already missed out , or we can strive for a lost hope which is to live forever , i lay beneath this introductory my favorite quoted paragraph from the book hoping it might not annoy you too much to read it :

“How may i help you ? if i worked at starbucks, instead of writing people’s names on their coffe cup, i’d write the following : one day you and everyone you love wil die . and beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time , little of what you say or do will ever matter . this is the uncomfortable truth of life . and everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it . we are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck. we imagine our own importance . we invent purpose- we are nothing”.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade