When I graduated high school, my English teacher gave me a list of 50 books I should read to make myself a better person. So, I decided that I would make my own short list. Reading is a great way to gain insight to the world around us. It allows you to see things in the perspective of someone else. The following 9 books, are ones that I believe everyone should read and lessons that can be learned from them. They cover a variety of topics and are truly excellent reads.
1. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
"The Kite Runner" follows the story of Amir, a young boy from Kabul. Amir starts to face challenges when he and his father are forced to move from their home in Kabul to America. After he moves to America, Amir realizes the mistakes he had made when he was in Kabul and tries desperately to fix them. This classic bildungsroman shows us that we should reflect on our lives critically and own up to and learn from our mistakes.
2. "Wit"
"Wit" is a play about Vivian, a 50 year-old professor of seventeenth century poetry, who is in the last moments of her life. Vivian has stage 4 cancer and goes through a series of experimental treatments. She shows us the extremes that some doctors will go to in order to get research and the frailty of life. We should live life to the fullest and we should be overflowing with passion.
3. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
This dystopian novel follows the travels of a man and his son over several months. The duo try to find a place that is warm so that they can survive the winter. They have a constant battle trying to figure out what is good and what is bad. They are "carrying the fire" that represents the hope that they have. We are able to see that we should always have hope even when things are looking dim.
4. "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
Atticus Finch is a lawyer with two young children, Scout and Jem. Atticus gets assigned to a case in which a black man is accused of attacking a white woman. Although he knows that the man is innocent, he receives pressure from the townspeople to prove that this man is guilty. Atticus shows us that we should always do what is right even if it is not the popular opinion.
5. "The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian" By Sherman Alexie
Arnold Spirit, Jr. is a 14 year-old boy who lives on an Indian reservation. He decides that he wants to go to school off of the reservation and as a result, gets a lot of backlash from the people in the community. While he is dealing with problems back at home, things at his new school aren't exactly easy either. He places stereotypes on his new classmates, but as time goes on things get easier because he realizes that his assumptions were wrong. This is another reminder that we shouldn't judge people by what we see on the outside because it's what's on the inside that counts.
6. "Never Let Me Go" By Kazuo Ishiguro
"Never Let Me Go" is the story of Kathy H., a clone who is about to give her first organ donations. As she is preparing for this process, Kathy thinks back on her school days with her two best friends, Ruth and Tommy. She thinks about how her fate was inevitable, but she could have taken a different path to get there. Ishiguro is trying to tell us that even though the clones had a set fate, nothing is for certain and that the only thing that keeps us from moving forward is our own mind.
7. "Little Women" by Louisa M. Alcott
Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy are 4 sisters who live in New England with their mother while their father is off fighting the war. Each sister has a different dream, but as time goes on they find themselves in a different place than they had expected. Like the sisters, we are able to realize that things come and go, but family is forever.
8. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
Okonkwo, a man from the village Unuofia, is scared to share his thoughts for fear of being seen as weak until he gets violent and kills a man. He is forced to leave his village, but when he comes back things have changed drastically because of the white missionaries. The main lesson to learn from this novel is that things are often up to interpretation and to remember that the "winners write history."
9. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
This allegorical novella by George Orwell is about a group of farm animals who rise up against the farmers and start to act as if they are humans. The allegory within the story involves Karl Marx and communism. The pigs represent Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky, while the other animals represent the common people. I think that Animal Farm is a great read because it helps us understand communism and its consequences even more.
