I started reading books from the very young age of 5 years when my parents bought me those’Read It Yourself’ books with hardly ten words in one page with lots of pictures. But that early introduction made me really enjoy books. As I grew older, I moved along from Enid Blyton to Fairy Tales; from Nancy Drew(ONLY A SHORT TIME), to Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot; from Erle Stanley Gardener to Jack Higgins, Jeffrey Archer and John Grisham, I had read a large number of books. I had also begun to develop a taste for classics such as Charles Dickens, Shakesphere and the likes.
When writing a list of good books which is only limited to five, it is really impossible to do justice to all the good writers and books which I have read. Bearing this in mind, I wont write books from authors like John Grisham, Jack Higgins and try to limit myself to really wonderful books which made me think a lot about them. Some of the books that follow wont be page turners, because its very difficult to honour one such book without honouring the thousands of others.
I repeat again, its really quite difficult to write only five books out of a selection of many good ones. In the end, I guess, these books which I consider to be’some’ of my favourites, may not neccessarily be liked by every one.
I would like to clear up one small detail. Apart from the book in the first position(Yeah, Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien), the rest wouldn’t have been in my list if you had asked me a couple of months ago. But as of now, April 7th 2003, I feel that these were the best books I have read.
5.Rebecca
Rebecca, the story of a woman who is haunted by the memories of her husband’s first wife, only to detect many terrible secrets about her is a new addition to my favourite books list.
Everyone who meets the new Mrs deWinter(her first name is not revealed), cannot help compare her with the dead Rebecca. Rebecca, the beautiful, kind, generous, social person whom everybody liked in her lifetime, whose death has completely wrecked Maxim deWinter’s life. With the sinister Mrs Danvers, Rebecca’s faithful maid seemingly intent upon not letting Maxim’s new wife settle down. Mrs deWinter’s only friends seem to be a dog, her irritating and extremely talkative sister-in-law, and her husband’s employee and she begins to feel that Rebecca’s impression in Manderley will outlive her.
In my opinion, the suspense, thrill and enjoyment of reading this book(if you survive the first two chapters) is one that will never die. It will continue to live in your heart and mind as you begin hating Rebacca even before the final outcome of the story.
4.David Copperfield
This story deals with the struggles and difficulties faced by David Copperfield from his birth. I seem to remember that this was the first unabridged classic book that I had read. From then onwards, I have never read an abridged version of any book.
David Copperfield is a very touching book which will always remain alive in the hearts of all those who come to read it.
3.Sherlock Holmes Collection
’Elementary, my dear Watson.’ The words which made Sherlock Holmes famous, even though he never even said it in the books. Holmes, a drug addict who didn’t believe that the earth moved around the sun, is my favourite literary character of all time. His amazing powers of deduction of true events from seemingly insignificant things and ability to solve mysteries which has the entire Scotland Yard baffled has come in many short stories and four novels. I prefer the short stories in general but The Hound Of Baskervilles is one of my favourite books. Any person who likes reading mustn’t miss reading ACD’s Sherlock Holmes. Other authors who have tried to write about Holmes have, in my opinion, not been satisfactory. They have made Holmes seem like a magical person whereas the deduction’s of the master detective from Doyle were quite natural. After reading on, you feel, why didn’t I think of that.
2.The Chronicles of Narnia
Yeah, I’m into fantasy nowadays. Harry Potter was ok, Dragonlance was bearable, Enid Blyton was kiddish(which she intended to be in any case), Artemis Fowl was poor, Tolkien was superb(no surprises), but here I’m talking about C.S.Lewis, another very good writer. Imagine Tolkien trying to write like Enid Blyton and what you get is C.S.Lewis. His stories go on smoothly with not even a single boring moment in them.
The Chronicles. are a collection of seven books. The first one, The Magician’s Nephew, introduces us to the lands beyond ours. With a magic ring(no, not like Tolkien’s) which allows the wearer to travel out of our world, a young boy and a girl reach a place which seems like a forest with a large number of pools. They soon realise that every pool is a world. After marking the pool from which they came, they enter another world, which is already dead. After a lot of enchantments and magic at work, the terrible queen of that world who had saved herself by killing all her subjects follows the kids to earth where a lot of funny incidents take place. The kids then plot to take her back to her own world but instead they reach a newly born world, Narnia, which is being created by Aslan, the Lion. The story builds up from there.
The rest of the books deal with four kids Peter, Susan, Edward and Lucy and then later Eustace and Jill who somehow enter the magical world of Narnia and their adventures in the land where some Animals and Trees can speak, centaurs, dryads, dwarves all live freely. The four brothers and sisters become the kings and queens of Narnia under High King Peter.
In the last book, Narnia dies after living thousands of years, with High King Peter locking it(the time period is quite different. A single hour in Earth may be many years in Narnia.)
In all, I really liked this book and would recommend it to any Tolkien or fantasy fan.
1.Lord Of The Rings
I first read the book when I was 13 and now I have read it more than six times and wont mind reading it once again in the next few months. The real magic of Tolkien isn’t just the creatures and languages and races which he has created. No, not at all. His real genius lies in his manner of writing through which he makes us believe that all these things indeed do exist and he’s simply writing from an expert viewpoint. In a nutshell, Tolkien’s a perfect fantasy writer in an imperfect world. Any downsides? Yeah, it does take a lot of will power to continue at times. But every reader has got understand that Tolkien never intended any of his books to be page turners. He wanted to create a legend which would remain in our hearts forever as a whole after we finished reading it. And he has succeeded. The genius of the book lies not only in the long hours of pleasure that it gives to a reader but also that it completely transports you to a separate world.
Anyone who has read even half of my reviews will have a pretty good idea what a big LOTR fan I am. I love the stories written by Tolkien, even the most boring ones. But no matter how hard I try to write this review, the fact remains(like with most books, but more so in this case) that only after reading it will you be able to grasp the true magnificance of the book. I can go on harping about’look at the languages he created’ and you’ll just say’YAWN! alright already. I have heard that hundreds of times’ the fact is that you wont come to appreciate it unless you know what it is.