Books - Why didnt they become friends to me earlier?

Books are something which I thought are for "time pass". The only book , outside text books, that I have tried before 2004 was "My experiments with Truth".I didnt complete it. Other than that, I was a stranger to books. Books , as I saw was "Novels". In India, reading novels is seen as an upper middle class activity and a symbol of class. Somehow, I never liked novels. I tried to read but never could really get a grasp of it.

When I was in Crest Animation, Mumbai, I developed friendship with Suresh Lakshman.Suresh is a tamil brahmin and a native of Bombay. He always carried a book wherever he goes and we started identifying things that are common to us, especially in the subject of motivation/self help. He gave books to me to read and the first book I tried was "Your Erroneous zones". It took lot of time but I found this book and the subject very interesting.The next book I got was "The Alchemist".It blew my mind and I started taking the spirituality path.

I then read Pulling your own strrings, The Monk who sold his Ferrari, Who Moved my cheese, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and then oneday got to read Lee Iacocca's Autobiography.Suprisingly, my reading speed has increased tremendously and I am developing really good insights.

For 28 years, I have not experienced something like this and this is indeed great. No book is universal.Tastes differ and so it is important that we start to read books on the subjects that we like. After some time, the mind naturally tries to explore new territories and that is when we can start reading books that we didnt like before.

After reading Wayne Dyer (My Guru), Osho, Swami Vivekananda, J.Krishnamurti, Napolean Hill, Deepak Shopra, Robin Sharma , Lee Iacocca, Akio Morita and many others, Now I am venturing into business books which help in developing valubale business insights that are going to help me post-MBA. I read books by Peter Drucker, CK Prahalad, Ram Charan, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, Vijay Mahajan and so on..

I am reading one book every week.Sometimes, I forget reading text books and focus more on "extra curricular reading". Also, I read lot of articles in NY times, Blogs and many many sites.

Learning is always a pleasure. I thank all these authors for coming into my life, all those friends who lead me to these books and for guiding me into this holy world of books. I wish I can create a library on my own and help students utilize it.

My top 5 books

Spirituality/ Self Help/Motivation

1. You will see it when you believe it by Wayne Dyer
2. The Sacred Self by Wayne Dyer
3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
4. Synchrodestiny by Deepak Chopra
5. Krishna by Osho

Business

1. 86% Solution by Vijay Mahajan/Banga
2. Seeing What's next by Clayton Christenson
3. The Innovators solution by Clayton Christenson
4. Execution by Ram Charan
5. Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid by CK Prahalad

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