A list of books that I am fond of

Random thoughtfulness asked about my favorite books – what a great idea. I have been meaning to write this post for sometime; I guess that time has arrived.

The timing is great too, as I just decluttered my books and selected those that I would not give away. Among them, a number of books stand;

Crime novels: I am a fan of the mystery novels authored by Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter. Both of these writers captured my attention by their stories that are highly vivid in terms of suspense. Their writing is easy to follow and I get to learn about medical examination and all bunch of other stuff a long the way. An interesting and to me an excellent part of their stories is that in the majority of the novels, the main characters keep evolving (marriage, parenthood, divorce, and death) and some unknown clues from their pasts are also revealed. To me that is so cool 🙂 That also means that the novels are better read in chronological order if one wants to know these characters in detail (I recommend it but of course any novel as it is is still interesting).

Also, I should not forget Agatha Christie; her plots are hard to beat.

I have not let go any book written by these three female crime novelists.

I also love the crime novels that involve history: so Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is another book that I enjoy.

Other novels: Shogun by James Clavell; Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevski; and the vampire chronicles by Anne Rice 🙂

Self-help books: Recently those about decluttering were among my favorites. I believe my first decluttering book was “Throw out Fifty Things” by Gail Blanke. I at first did not believe I could find 50 things to throw away from my entire house; but now after years of decluttering, I can throw 50 things only from a room of my house. This book not only challenged me to start throwing things away, but there are also chapters in the book about the “mental decluttering” that I find most interesting.

Another series I like are the “Do not sweat the small stuff” (at work, etc.) by Richard Carlson. The book about “the small stuff at work” has helped me many times to forget the pain coming out of dealing with (or not) rude people at the work place.

Budgeting, saving, and investing: My first book on this topic was “Personal Finance for Canadians for Dummies”. I was mid 30s, slowly realizing that I was way behind saving and investing for my retirement. That was the book that I learnt about RRSP, which facilitated me to open an RRSP account for myself (RRSP stands for registered retirement saving plan available in Canada).

Generally I like reading books by Gail Vaz-Oxlade; she is humorous and feels like she is just like one of us (rather than an authoritative figure telling us what to do).

One of my all-time favorites is “The Smart Cookies – Guide to Making More Dough and Getting out of Debt” by, well, the Smart Cookies.

The list can get long, but I will leave it here for now.

cheers everyone 🙂