The five books I’ll take to heaven

Well, Ranga, taking five books to heaven is tough. Both, literally and figuratively.

But since you have assigned this task, and it a nice mind exercise on a jobless day, I might as well do it!

Before I choose the five books, I’ll take to heaven, I’ll tell that I have chosen these five books purely on the basis of emotion. How well they touched me. not on the basis of the author’s reputation, style of writing, or any other external polls or popular choice.

Also, in this list, there are no first among equals. That would be asking whether I value my right eye more than my left eye.

1. We, The Living

Though, not the best book by Ayn Rand as per my own confession, this book is on my list purely because I fell in love with Kira. She has always been the closest I came to romancing a character. And she just added imagery to my painter girl vision. And I loved her death. And her smile to all that could have been possible.

Also, this was as autobiographical a work Ayn Rand ever wrote. And, she is a motherfucker of a writer. No writer has ever made my adrenalin rush and blood boil as she did.

2. If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him

This has been the single-most important book in my life. In a way, it changed the way I looked at Zen, life, and Hinduism. Sheldon B Kopp through this book narrates nine tales in a way that it shakes you.

This psychotherapist has helped me heal my wounds and worries through this book. I’ll forever be indebted to him. He doesn’t need to write another book.

3. Lust For Life

Vincent van Gogh. Irving Stone captures his life in this beautiful novel. Painstaking effort has paid of well. I don’t understand van Gogh even now. I don’t understand what Impressionism is still. I don’t appreciate a style of painting more than another. But this book made me bond with a creative spirit like none other. I relate to van Gogh’s aspirations and pain only because I read Lust for Life. And he’s been an inspiration ever since. And that I think makes Irving Stone happy and satisfied. His job has been well done.

4. Conversations with God I, II, and III

Neale Donald Walsch has written what no man ever wrote before. Conversations with God. That title hits. Suggested to me by one of India’s leading behavior scientist, KK Mehta, I devoured the three part volume in three nights flat! And yes, the book does come to you when you really need it. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. And this book has been a good teacher. It restored my faith in my god the way I thought. Beautiful book. A must read for all children during their growing up years.

5. One

Richard Bach weaves this beautiful story of possibilities and paths his life would have undertaken if he hadn’t taken the decisions he did. Man, flashback redefined. This book shows how you can make an idea into a book.

Few of his other books came close to the list and so did Paulo Coelho’s books such as The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes, By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept, (it would be blasphemy if I did not mention these close runners-up). But the point is by the time, I read Paulo Coelho and later works of Richard Bach, the ideas and concepts were all familiar. I too thought on similar lines; sometimes even wrote on similar lines. So the magic did not astound as much as it would have had I read them earlier in life.