Book Box | Eight life-changing books to read in your twenties and beyond
From inspiring stories of artists to tackling writer's block, these eight books make adulting easier.
Dear Reader,
It is the last class of the semester. Twice a week for the last three months, the students of 'Storytelling in Business' and I have spent a lively eighty minutes discussing character archetypes, the hero’s journey, brand stories, data storytelling and even sci-fi.
Each student has written a memoir, describing their obstacles and triumphs and the people and places in their life. Reading their autobiographies, intense and heartfelt, has made me smile, laugh out loud and cry.
Today, I return their manuscripts to them with marks (numerical evaluations being the way of the world and certainly of the B School world). I have a set of awards for the best memoirs, and books, of course. This is a book list I have spent much time mulling over — for what books would readers in their twenties enjoy and find inspiring?
Dear Reader, if you are in your twenties, or if you have colleagues, friends and relations in their twenties, what are your favourite books? Write in with recommendations. Here is my list of eight:
Prize book 1 of 8: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: If you are a writer who is feeling blocked or any creative person, this book is the magic potion that will rescue you. Spend an hour a day for eight weeks doing the exercises the book lays out. You will be stunned at the results. This one is for a brilliant writer, a student who would like to be a novelist by night.
Prize book 2 of 8: Stories I Must Tell by Kabir Bedi: This page-turner has something for everyone, music, theatre, film, spirituality, tragedy and love. Actor Kabir Bedi’s British-born mother Freda Bedi fought alongside her Sikh husband for India’s Independence, even going to jail, and her story is here in this book. Bedi writes compellingly and with candour. This one’s for an award-winning student who wrote his story in a similar episodic style.
Prize book 3 of 8: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese: From Obama to Oprah, this has been on every best book list last year, and deservedly so. The lush descriptions of the Kerala landscape, and the colonial city of Madras, all come vividly to life in this family saga that unfolds from the early 1900s to post-Independence. It's for a student who shares the same geography as the books, and I hope she will enjoy it.
Prize book 4 of 8: Daring to Drive by Manal Al-Sharif: A gripping story of one woman’s fight for the right to drive in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The story follows Al-Sharif as she grows up in the holy city of Mecca, studies computer programming, and gets a job in the American multinational Aramco. It’s fascinating and instructive to see how she creates a movement, using carefully thought-out strategy and physical and virtual networks.
Prize book 5 of 8: Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown: “This is one book I’d like to give every one of you,” I tell my students, holding up the beautifully illustrated hardback book. This primer on emotional intelligence is full of insights we are rarely taught, either at home or in school. Read it to understand yourself and the people around you.
Prize book 6 of 8: Ghosts by Dolly Alderton: “How many of you have read The Diary of Bridget Jones?" I ask, and one voice rises above the rest in an enthusiastic "Yes!". Tellingly, this is the student whose witty and warm story has earned her this prize book — a snarky slice of working girl life story set in modern London.
Prize book 7 of 8: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez: This one’s for teenagers and twenty-year-olds who love animals with such abandon. It’s the story of a cantankerous middle-aged writer who inherits a large dog. Of course, she ends up loving him. But more than the feel-goodness of this story, it’s the slow and meditative writing of it that makes it so sublime.
Prize book 8 of 8: Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan: A haunting page-turner about a Tamil family in Sri Lanka. Winner of this year's Women’s Prize, I chose this one because the protagonists are a teenage girl and her dearly beloved brothers. The book follows their growing-up years, as they get caught up in the larger sweep of militancy and how they finally find their way.
And with this, the awards are over. Students cluster around the winners, passing the books around, leafing through pages, and browsing through the chapters. It makes me wish I had a book for each of these twenty-somethings. For these students who are preparing to find their place in the world, starting with rounds of job interviews, what could be a better gift than a book they will find wisdom in?
Until next week, happy reading!
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
Books referred to in this edition of Book Box
The Artists Way by Julia Cameron
Stories I Must Tell by Kabir Bedi
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Daring to Drive by Manal Al-Sharif
Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown:
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
The Friend by Sigfrid Nunez
Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan
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