I read these books during a particularly difficult time in my life early this year. And they have left an impact on me.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A woman giving birth by herself in the bandit-ridden, medieval forests of England. The building of a huge cathedral with not so modern technologies. The long search of her lover through Europe by a young woman carrying her newborn and on foot most of the time. A builder who walks around England with his impoverished family looking for work. The gang rape of a princess. There is love, hate, jealousy, bullying and pillage. There is betrayal...over and over again. I have heard of Ken Follett's bestseller but never bothered picking it up. With a new found convenience of the Kindle app on my iPad, I had this book in front of me after just a single click. I couldn't put it down. Amidst my everyday duties, I finished reading it over a period of two weeks. Over the past years, I have read some really droll novels. Now my standards are back up to their old levels.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
This is a thin book. But the human beings at the heart of it were probably thinner. Surprisingly, despite the obvious heavy-handedness of the subject and the various cruel experiences described, the overall tone of the book remains light and carries with it a noticeable feeling of positivism and hope. It made me wonder how light I had made of opportunities that have come my way and how I could, going forward, seek out purpose and face it with a twinkle in my eye.
Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
I read this book last December and already my life has taken a significant turn for the better. I have become a results-oriented person who now consistently thinks through what he wants to achieve, sets goals and works hard at finishing what he started. Equally importantly, I have become good at putting things behind me and moving quickly and decisively forward. I know a lot of people don't like Schwarzenegger and, certainly, I saw a lot of reviewers on Amazon viewing the book in a dispassionate way. However, to a lot of people, including yours truly, Arnold has been a source of inspiration if only to reinforce the thought that you can be a much better person with a more fulfilling life regardless of what might be happening or not happening in your life at that point. As a kid, I grew up in a country of cinematic superstars but none of them impressed me in the slightest way. And the everyday people who surrounded me were simple folks: hard-working, honest, unpretentious but completely uninteresting, unoriginal and content with their traditions and rituals. Into this mix, a teenager's mind found western novels by Louis L'amour, the sultry beauty that is the countryside of Tamilnadu and, of course, Hollywood movies. To put it more bluntly, this book is about a guy who lived in a closet in a gym in Germany while earning a living as a trainer there and attempting to pursue his dreams of becoming the world's best bodybuilder and coming to America to make use of the enormous opportunities here. Almost every few pages, I was picking up a thought process or observation by Arnold that I had more or less observed in my own life. There were yet other such observations by him that, to me, were big takeaways from the book and immediately applicable in fixing several long suffering habits of my own personality.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A woman giving birth by herself in the bandit-ridden, medieval forests of England. The building of a huge cathedral with not so modern technologies. The long search of her lover through Europe by a young woman carrying her newborn and on foot most of the time. A builder who walks around England with his impoverished family looking for work. The gang rape of a princess. There is love, hate, jealousy, bullying and pillage. There is betrayal...over and over again. I have heard of Ken Follett's bestseller but never bothered picking it up. With a new found convenience of the Kindle app on my iPad, I had this book in front of me after just a single click. I couldn't put it down. Amidst my everyday duties, I finished reading it over a period of two weeks. Over the past years, I have read some really droll novels. Now my standards are back up to their old levels.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
This is a thin book. But the human beings at the heart of it were probably thinner. Surprisingly, despite the obvious heavy-handedness of the subject and the various cruel experiences described, the overall tone of the book remains light and carries with it a noticeable feeling of positivism and hope. It made me wonder how light I had made of opportunities that have come my way and how I could, going forward, seek out purpose and face it with a twinkle in my eye.
Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
I read this book last December and already my life has taken a significant turn for the better. I have become a results-oriented person who now consistently thinks through what he wants to achieve, sets goals and works hard at finishing what he started. Equally importantly, I have become good at putting things behind me and moving quickly and decisively forward. I know a lot of people don't like Schwarzenegger and, certainly, I saw a lot of reviewers on Amazon viewing the book in a dispassionate way. However, to a lot of people, including yours truly, Arnold has been a source of inspiration if only to reinforce the thought that you can be a much better person with a more fulfilling life regardless of what might be happening or not happening in your life at that point. As a kid, I grew up in a country of cinematic superstars but none of them impressed me in the slightest way. And the everyday people who surrounded me were simple folks: hard-working, honest, unpretentious but completely uninteresting, unoriginal and content with their traditions and rituals. Into this mix, a teenager's mind found western novels by Louis L'amour, the sultry beauty that is the countryside of Tamilnadu and, of course, Hollywood movies. To put it more bluntly, this book is about a guy who lived in a closet in a gym in Germany while earning a living as a trainer there and attempting to pursue his dreams of becoming the world's best bodybuilder and coming to America to make use of the enormous opportunities here. Almost every few pages, I was picking up a thought process or observation by Arnold that I had more or less observed in my own life. There were yet other such observations by him that, to me, were big takeaways from the book and immediately applicable in fixing several long suffering habits of my own personality.
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