The last book I read was Animal Farm by George Orwell. A friend recommended me on Instagram during a conversation. It took me some time, but I finished reading it on the 18th of April.

Surprisingly, the next day, I saw a tweet by Sahil, founder of Gumroad. He’s a good man and a straight-forward guy, who tweets good shit. Most of the times, his tweets are statements, similar to the following -

People who ask for book recommendations don’t read.

— Sahil Lavingia (@shl) April 19, 2020

Of course, I don’t agree with him all the time, and it was one of the events. The thread has good responses which counter his statement pretty nicely, but again, he’s not entirely wrong. It’s just that I don’t agree with what he stated, and the reasons are limited to my experience.

Indeed, a lot of people don’t read what others recommend to them, or they just don’t read in the first place, at all. But this doesn’t happen all the time, and that’s where statements fail. Generalization will always bring disagreements, and it’s acceptable.

Yesterday, when I came home after a quick walk. I thought why not ask people to recommend me some books. Since I’m not active on Facebook and Twitter might not have done justice, I chose Instagram, as I use it daily, and I get responses, in case I ask something.

There was another followup story which I posted to make sure people do recommend me something.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of asking somebody to suggest me books, as I usually find interesting things to read, but the people I’m friends with are quite intelligent and well-informed, so I thought it would be a good idea to get to know what books they like. I’m happy to say that I’m not dissatisfied with their recommendations.

Here’s the chronological list of suggested books along with the name of people who replied to the story -

• Vijay
  • Roll of the Dice by Anand Neelakantan
  • Rise of Kali - Duryodhana’s Mahabharata by Anand Neelakantan
• Harneet
  • The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Animesh
  • Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
• Apoorv
  • The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi
• Mrigank
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Vardhan
  • The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• Hari Priya
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• Shahina
  • Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Shruti
  • The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen
  • The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru
  • The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown
• Pranjal
  • Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal
• Siddharth
  • The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
• Erica
  • I Know A Secret by Tess Gerritsen
• Vimlendu
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A few anonymous recommendations, as some friends asked me not to share their name.

• Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
• Art of War by Sun Tzu
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

The God of Small Things was recommended twice!

There are total twenty-one books, some are pretty heavy, and a few of them are light. I’ve heard the names of a couple of them before, on the other hand, to me, a vast majority of them are new. My end goal is to read all the books, and I know it will take a quality amount of time, but I’ll do it.

The good thing is that I won’t be asking for book recommendations for a while now.