10+ Books That Stayed With Me

About a month ago on Facebook, there was a chain post going around where you had to name 10 books that “stayed with you.”

It’s a pretty cool idea and tapped into the common feeling that most books are sort of like meals where you consume, digest, get nourished (or not), and then you forget. It’s too bad when you think about how much time and effort the writer put into the book – and how much time you put into reading it.

That’s one reason behind my project to record and review every single book I’ve read (at least since 2007) – to try to get more out of the books I read. And yet still, there’s a certain set of books that I can recall plot, characters, and scenes instantly whether I write those thoughts down or not. Or books that really change how I act or think.

I read fiction & non-fiction very differently and are sort of like apples and oranges in this exercise, so I’m taking the liberty of 2 lists – and trying to mix up the non-fiction with different categories. Here’s my list in no specific order.

Fiction

Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque – review

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

How To Get Rich In Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

Non-fiction

4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Rework by Jason Fried

80/20 Principle by Richard Koch

Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin

Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo

You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier

A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson – review

Procrastination Equation by Steel Piers

That’s it! Be sure to check out my reviews from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and my recent reviews.