Awesome books

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AWESOME BOOKS

20 APRIL 2025

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Cloud Atlas

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This highly creative novel rekindled my love of fiction. Cloud Atlas is a -collection of six tales linked across time. As the book unfolds, the stories -riffle over one another like a pack of cards. David Mitchell brings the Cloud -Atlas world and the characters in it to life with beautiful, vivid -descriptions. The novel explores themes ranging from social to spiritual, -including the struggle for freedom against oppression, interconnectedness, and -rebirth.

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Ender’s Game

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In this sci-fi novel, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, an 11-year-old boy, is drafted to -lead a squad of young children in an offensive against an alien race. Ender’s -Game is a complex story that explores themes of war, leadership, and the -challenges gifted individuals must face as they navigate a lonely life marked -by envy, alienation, and, sometimes, much-needed friendship.

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Flowers for Algernon

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This novel, written as a series of progress reports, tells the tragic story of -Charlie Gordon, a developmentally disabled man who acquires superhuman -cognitive abilities through an experimental medical procedure. Charlie’s birth -family abandons him because he is not smart enough; his friends abandon him -because he is too smart. In the end, to spare everyone’s feelings, Charlie must -end up in the Warren Home.¹ This is my -favourite book in the list.

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Dead Souls

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Dead Souls is the story of Ivanovich Chichikov, a traveling merchant who trades -dead serfs. Gogol’s writing style is similar to Dostoyevsky’s. Considering how -Gogol’s work predates Dostoyevsky’s, Gogol is one of the most original authors -I’ve read. Instead of simply describing them, Gogol develops realistic -characters in minute detail by employing theatrical clashes between them.

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The Overcoat

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Gogol’s The Overcoat is one of the finest short stories I’ve read. Akaky -Akakievich, an impoverished government clerk, buys a new overcoat. I recommend -reading Gogol before Dostoyevsky. What Gogol invented, Dostoyevsky perfected.

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Demons

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After reading Demons, a story about an attempted revolution, I realized that -Dostoyevsky’s reputation is well-deserved. Dostoyevsky was a great observer of -human nature. He depicts characters in profound detail. Dostoyevsky’s writing -can feel long and meandering at times. However, as character development goes, -Dostoyevsky wastes no stroke of the brush. Demons is a book that anyone -aspiring to bring about change through revolution, especially in the name of -someone else’s ideals, must read.

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The Outsider

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Camus’s own quote, “In our society, any man who doesn’t cry at his mother’s -funeral is liable to be condemned to death,” summarizes the book quite well. -The book is about the philosophy of the absurd: the contention between our -propensity to seek meaning in a seemingly silent and indifferent universe. To -appreciate the philosophical elements of this novel, check out The Myth of -Sisyphus.

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Frankenstein

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I first got to know the Frankenstein story through its popular derivatives. The -book changed my impression of the story from one about a familiar monster to -one about a poignant genius deserving empathy. Mary Shelley’s intricate writing -style is singularly captivating. In this list, Frankenstein is the most -beautifully written book.

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Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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The story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde needs no introduction. I’m drawn to -Stevenson’s writing style the same way I am to Mary Shelley’s. Both writers -evoke deep feelings and paint vivid images using simple language. The economy -of their language lacks neither precision nor power. If I could write like any -author, I would choose Mary Shelley or Stevenson.

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Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 are inseparable, visionary novels -that depict dystopian futures from two extremes. For some reason, I felt Brave -New World lacked something despite being the more prescient of the two. It may -be Orwell’s eloquence overshadowing Huxley’s brilliance. In any event, these -two books are more relevant today than they’ve ever been.

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Memoirs of a Madman

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Another one of Gogol’s brilliant short stories. Presented in the form of -Aksenty Ivanovich’s diary, the story documents the government clerk’s descent -into madness. His obsession with social status and self-aggrandizement leads -him on a trajectory of envy, wounded pride, and outright insanity.

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- Cliff's Notes -

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by Wickramage Don Sadeep Madurange