Last week on Instagram, I had shared about my addiction problem. How I kept amassing books that I couldn’t find the time to read. Many people shared the same sentiment. The Japanese even have a name for it.

Tsundoku (Japanese: 積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.

If there is an exclusive word for something, then it is not a rare phenomenon. So many people had the same problem that they invented a word to talk about it easily. Anyways, I followed by confession with the next logical step: book suggestions.

I asked people what’s that one book that had a lasting impact on the way you see the world?

I know, it’s a difficult question to answer, but so many people responded with so many interesting books. There were some crappy books in between as well(thou shall not be named). While so many were busy sharing their ‘life-changing’ books with me, a few others texted me on the side asking for the list of books that are being shared, and thus, this post.

I’ll start with my ‘life changing’ books, followed by the ones that were suggested.

Ganesh Babu

Obstacle is the way
Sapiens
The death and life of great American cities

Raghu

Thanneer
JJ Sila kuripugal

Sam

The inheritance of loss

Christinaa

The subtle art of not giving a f*ck

Vijay

Manuscript found in Accra

Bharat

Threee contributions to theory of sex

Guru

Motorcycle diaries
The namesake

Srinath

The Metamorphosis

Mythili

The Alchemist

Anam

One hundred years of solitude

Haritha

Fountainhead

Swetha

The book thief

Dinesh

The Alchemist

Mohanabrabu

Kelvi pathil

Jane

Fountainhead

Aravind

Inferno

Vamsi

The stack

Naren

The eyes of the skin

Anjanaa

Tuesdays with morrie

Gopinath

Madras rediscovered

Soundaryan

Pasitha manidam

Siddarth

The saint, the surfer and the CEO

Sakthi

The Alchemist

Ratnam

Annihilation of caste

Niranjan

Sculpting in time

Devasena

A thousand splendid suns
Thinking fast and slow

Mona

You can win

Joe

The feast of the goat

Chandru

The death and life of great american cities

Vijay

50 shades of grey

Jayabharathi

Nine lives
Roots
Pachinko

I came across some gems through this exercise, that I hope to read one day. If you have a book that changed your perspective in life, do share that below via the comments section.

Instagram stories is a great tool to know people’s opinions. It’s the right mix of social and personal that people are comfortable replying. Now, back to my addiction problem, I don’t have any immediate solutions. However, I am planning to read at least one book a week to get through my backlog. Will be back with something else later.

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