A friend tagged me to share top 10 books that influenced me (early in life). Didn’t dwell long enough to come up with a definitive top-10, but here’s the quick recall top-8:
- Discovery of India – Introduction to the history of India, different from what the textbooks covered. Also helped me further question the usefulness of modern religion.
- Rama series – first, and probably last, sci fi series I ever read. My dreams (both sleeping and awake) for the next few years involved aliens, and me being one of them (or chosen by them).
- Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged – capitalist, individualist thoughts for a young mind. I left extremish Rand-capitalism behind at some time. Individualism stayed.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad – money management. Read it quite late in life (post engineering, I think). Cursed myself for not reading it earlier. Gave a copy to my sister and cousins, begging them to read it. No one did :(
- India Today – Grew up reading this regularly. From as early as I can remember. Most of my political, economic and international geo-politics knowledge foundation was formed there. Might also explain why I was so sad about their falling standards in the late 90s, and beyond.
- Readers’ Digest – My only source of ‘international non-comicbook fiction’ early on. Again, remember reading it regularly from earliest days. Stopped some time around 8th or 9th standard.
- Mills & Boons – I once came upon one of them left behind by a british aunt (she’s just 10 years elder). All my early wet dreams were versions of events in it. Till the internet came along, and I had a far wider variety of acts to choose from ;)
- Jack Welch, Straight from the gut – One of the first business autobiographies I read, and the one I was most influenced by. It helped that I was still going through my Rand phase, so Neutron Jack seemed more a hero than a darkish grey character. Still, learnt a lot about business, decision making, and hard nose politics from this one.
Anyone reading this may pick up the tag and share it forward.