There’s a famous quote by Oscar Wilde that says, “If you can’t enjoy reading a book again and again, there is no use in reading it all”. Every fiber of my being believes in this saying. Since our childhood, we come across many books, some we love, some we just don’t admire that much and some meant no more than just passing our time with something. So, here I’m sharing some of those books that I feel everybody should read once in their lifetime. I know that we like books based on our taste in genre and a book liked by one may be strongly criticized by the other. But I believe that there are some books that have a certain kind of comfort in them, so one day or another, most people are going to like them. So, here are some of those books from my side. Hope you enjoy them.

• The Kite Runner

This book written by Khaled Husseini will forever stay in my heart; crippling it, hurting it, and at the same time, comforting it at its most. Believe me, nothing can match the feeling of reading this book for the first time. While reading this book, you would vail for a person you never met in your lifetime. You would try to protect that character from all the sufferings that come his way. You would want to hug a certain character a little more tightly for all the trauma and mistreatment he endured. This book will take you on the journey of an emotional rollercoaster that will tear your heart apart and make you numb to feel anything other than pain.

The Kite Runner is the story of two friends, Amir and Hassan from Afghanistan. It's the story of friendship, betrayal, love, sacrifice, guilt, and hope. The story starts when USSR influenced government was there in Afghanistan. Where birds sang their sweetest melodies in the morning, where kites soar high in the sky, where the children had their childhood and toys in their hands, and where marketplaces were full of people who were breathing freedom of their own. But then, a regional Islamic terrorist organization took over Afghanistan and changed everything. The war changed everything!

This story of Amir and Hassan will teach you that sometimes a single moment can change the whole course of your lifetime. It will teach you that there’s always a way to be good again. It will teach that your single act could change your life for better or worse. It will teach you a lesson to never hurt the one who betrayed himself just to remain loyal to you. It will teach you that we all are pawns when time plays its game. But above all, it will make you feel the pain of the people of Afghanistan.

After completing this book, you would wish that the people of Afghanistan may one day wake up to the sounds of chirping birds and not to the sounds of the roaring gun. You would want them to have a day when a gun in their hands gets replaced with books that would give them the taste of true humanity.

Best quotes from ‘The Kite Runner’

1. “It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”
2. “I'm so afraid. Because I'm so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening...They only let you this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.”
3. “War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace."
4. “Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end…crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of Kochis (nomads).”
5. “All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman.”

• A Thousand Splendid Suns

This book is yet another masterpiece by Khaled Husseini. It is a tale of two women from Afghanistan, who were separated by age but connected through their misfortune. Oftentimes, it’s the grief that connects us; that’s what happened with these two women. This is the kind of book where you grieve for the character, where you wish that destiny could have been hard on them. It is a book where you carry the scars, blemishes, and hurt that the character holds. And when the book ends, you feel as if you have lost your forever best friend whom you had known for eternity.

This book is based on two heroines whose names never get inscribed in history books because sometimes hiding bravery itself is the greatest act of bravery. These are the heroines whose strength and endurance get crippled by those who were spiteful of their power. Let me make it clear, the word heroine here does not mean someone who does an extraordinary act for others; sometimes saving oneself for their loved ones and freeing oneself from the shackles of customs and fundamentalism is more than just being brave.

A thousand splendid suns will give you a glimpse of the Afghani people and their daily lives filled with terror. It will give you a glimpse of a much harder life for women who are no more than a puppet in the hands of their husbands, who get beaten for not wearing their burqa properly, or forgetting to leave their homes without any male companion. It will give you a big picture that Afghanistan has lost a lot. More than just a country, it has lost its true identity. It will show you how strength and suffering go hand in hand with the people of Afghanistan.

Note: The best part of this book was the letter from Mariam’s father that she found after his death. In it, he mentions how he mistreated her in her childhood for the sake of societal status. But after the war, these things seemed so little. He wishes that he could have accepted her and given her all the love she deserved, but he didn’t. His letter almost ripped my heart open for the reason of how war takes away decency, but at the same time, it reminds us to be more kind to the people we love. The war breaks all the societal barriers that once seem supreme to us. It reminds us of the devastation where we don’t even get a chance to say ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m extremely sorry’ to the people who matter. It reminds us not to wait for the better time to say or do something, do it now.

Best quotes from ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’

1. “Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”
2. “A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”
3. “Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”
4. “Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.”
5. “Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.”

• The Palace of Illusions

Since your childhood, you have been told the story of Mahabharata from the perspective of men. The whole story revolved around men and their struggle for power, in which women were sidelined to play the role of not-so-important actors in the history of one of the greatest battles ever fought. The story of these women and their respective struggles were never been talked about. They were sidelined on account of being the weaker sex. This book by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni breaks this legacy by writing the whole narrative of Mahabharata from the point of view of Draupadi, who’s been blamed by the male perspective of Mahabharata for initiating the whole battle on account of her laughing at the wrong time.

This book will make you rethink the whole story of Mahabharata. It will give you answers to your long pending questions such as “Why Draupadi was shared among Pandavas without even asking her for what she really wanted?’’ “Why Draupadi was blamed for the battle when in fact it was the Pandavas who called upon this trouble on themselves?”

In this version of Mahabharata, Draupadi is not a meek and obedient homemaker, she is outspoken, fierce, and powerful to question every dogma that she finds unacceptable. She is brave enough to ask questions and intelligent enough to know when to stay silent.

This book will also invoke strong emotions of anger for the way women were treated in that era. This book will make you fall in love with the characters such as Bheem and Karna for being the true embodiment of men.

Best quotes from ‘The Palace of Illusions’

1. “Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you.”
2. “There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed!”
3. “The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness.”
4. “Because ultimately only the witness -- and not the actors -- know the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi)”
5. “Wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you’ll wait forever.”

• The Midnight Library

This story is about Nora Seed, a woman struggling in almost all areas of her life and practically no one on her side to love her. When all her hopes die, she decides to take her own life. But she doesn’t die. She ends up in a place between life and death i.e. ‘The Midnight library’. Through this library, she can try out the infinite possibilities that her life holds by traveling back and forth to all those possible lives.

I would recommend this book to everyone who is struggling with mental breakdowns, depression, or loneliness. Because this book will give you a whole new perspective on the life you are currently living. Now, just imagine that you are in this midnight library where bookshelves go on forever. Where every book provides you with a chance to try another life you could have lived. It will give you a chance to see how things would have turned out if you had made some other choice. Would you have done anything differently, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

This book is a strong reminder that everybody of us is struggling with one thing or another and sometimes we all try to hide our struggles in order to look stronger in front of society. And in this way, everybody thinks that the whole world is happy, excluding them. This book teaches us that the only way to learn is to live and to never ever underestimate the big importance of small things. This book teaches us that sometimes we regret things that haven’t even happened, and if they had happened, we would have regretted more.

Here's my favorite paragraph from the book that explains this better;

“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other talents, and said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee, or done more bloody yoga.

It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret and keep regretting until our time runs out.

But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemies.

We can't tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”

Best quotes from The Midnight Library

1. “If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of yourself. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give it a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.”
2. “And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness forever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.”
3. “Sometimes just to say your truth out loud is enough to find others like you.”
4. “The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and cools, it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil-rich, fertile soil. She wasn't a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano, she couldn't run away from herself. She'd have to stay there and tend to that wasteland. She could plant a forest inside herself.”
5. “Happy moments can turn into pain, given time.”

• Tuesdays with Morrie

So, here’s a book that I believe everybody should read once in their lifetime. This book is about professor Morrie and his former student Mitch. It takes you to the place where these two characters discuss topics ranging from love, hate, regret, life, death, etc. The book is written in simple language where every chapter holds special lessons for every person living on this planet.

You can imagine a person in your life who teaches you from the smallest of things to mountainous things, that person is Morrie. The writings of this book give the message of slowing down, finding time for the ones who love us, being kind, and extending empathy to even those who you think have hurt you in the past. It teaches us that when death hits, nothing materialistic matters. All that you really should leave behind is kindness and your way of loving people more gently when they need it the most.

Best quotes from Tuesdays with Morrie

1. “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
2. “Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side wins? Love wins. Love always wins”
3. “I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life.”
4. “This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.”
5. “Everyone knows they are going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

• 101 Lessons that will Change the way you Think

This book is authored by Brianna Wiest. The reason I’m adding this book to the list is that it is the kind of book that will make you think about the things that seem mundane yet they have a profound impact on your overall life. It will make you ask yourself questions like how it will feel to have the life you want, a list of things that turned out to be very right for you, what you would say if you could tell every single person in the world just one thing?

This book will introduce you to everything from psychology, emotional intelligence, cognitive biases, expectations, etc. It will guide you on various pillars of self-esteem, the importance of gratitude, mind detox, and the experiences we don’t have English words for yet.

It will be your go-to guide if you are heading on a journey of self-exploration through analyzing the mundanity of life.

Best Quotes from 101 Lessons that will Change the way you Think

1. “The worst happened, and then it passed. You lost the person you thought you couldn’t live without and then you kept living. You lost your job and then found another one. You began to realize that “safety” isn’t in certainty—but in faith that you can simply keep going.”
2. “The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself. The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself.”
3. “The universe whispers until it screams, and happy people listen while the call is still quiet”
4. “The path to a greater life is not “suffering until you achieve something,” but letting bits and pieces of joy and gratitude and meaning and purpose gradually build, bit by bit.”
5. “A quick cheat sheet for you: The heart will tell you what; the mind will tell you how. Let them stay in their corners of expertise.”

• The Strength in our Scars

Do you remember the last time you felt so lonely, so misunderstood, and prayed to God to just send an angel in the form of a human who can understand you and tell you the words that have the power to heal you? This book is about that angel who is here to tell you that it’s okay to not be okay, but it’s certainly not okay to stay in the condition that traumatizes your existence. It's the book that tells you that this world is going to give you the most exquisite form of beauty, but it will also give pain and the greatest lesson you will have to learn is that this pain too is a gift.

This book by Bianca Sparacino teaches us to stay soft in a world where it’s too easy to be hard on people. It tells us to not turn into the person we are not, just because something bad has happened to us. And last, among many other lessons, it teaches you not to worry about the love you have given to other people. It assures you that this love will soon find its way back to you.

The strength of our scars book is in the form of short poems and paragraphs that teaches and soothes us more than any other book could have. I promise that this book will be your best friend for you when you need it the most. It will prove to be your therapist who understands you better than anyone else. Curl up in your bed and find comfort in this book when this world feels a little too heavy to bear!

Best Quotes from The Strength in Our Scars

1. “Sometimes, it’s the people who have been hurt the most who refuse to be hardened in this world, because they would never want to make another person feel the same way they have felt. If that isn’t something to be in awe of, I don’t know what is.”
2. “What a shame it truly is— that some of us have lived our entire lives under the impression that the love we have been searching for was to be found, first and foremost, in anyone but ourselves.”
3. “You guard yourself against sadness, not realizing that you have closed yourself off to all of the happiness the world is trying to give to you. Stay open; it is how the light gets in.”
4. “Lose yourself in books, in art, in the haze of new horizons. Lose yourself in curiosity, in knowledge, in passion. Lose yourself in feeling it all; lose yourself in the world, in the stories and the lessons it has to teach you, but never lose yourself in love; never lose yourself in another person. You are your own home—please don’t ever forget that.”
5. “I asked her what happiness felt like, to which she replied, “It feels like everything inside of you has become light again, like for the first time in years, your heart has finally learned how to float above water.”

Happy Reading!

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