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---
title: Awesome books
date: 2025-04-20
author: Wickramage Don Sadeep Madurange
layout: post
---
## Cloud Atlas
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.
## Ender's Game
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.
## Flowers for Algernon
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.<sup><a href="#footnote-1">1</a></sup> This is my
favourite book in the list.
## Dead Souls
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.
## The Overcoat
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.
## Demons
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.
## The Outsider
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.
## Frankenstein
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.
## Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
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.
## Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four
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.
## Memoirs of a Madman
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.
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li>
<a href="https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/flowers-for-algernon/about-flowers-for-algernon"
class="external" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Cliff's Notes </a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
|
