This one’s for the sick days, the rainy days, the hermit days, the break days, the I’m-going-to-procrastinate-on-studying-for-midterms days:
Here are five books you definitely should read.
1. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
This book really makes you think about time and its significance—it takes “looking at the bigger picture” to a whole new level. Known as one of the greatest anti-war books, Slaughterhouse Five is full of subtle punches of truth. It’s gut-wrenching in its casual discussion of heavy issues and in its innocent descriptions of the world.
2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Just to go off of our last book, as Kurt Vonnegut once said, “Do you realize that all great literature — Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible, and The Charge of the Light Brigade — are all about what a bummer it is to be a …human being?”
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
If you actually want to understand all the references people make when they talk about government conspiracies… here it is.
4. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Only one quote is needed to tell of its importance: “And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”
5. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This book will leave you tender. It will make you feel fragile and courageous, it will leave you feeling empty and full. If you want to experience a world that is simultaneously both completely outside and completely inside your own, read this book.