Today, we bring to you a list of personalized book recommendations for all moods. Some days, you’re too stressed for anything that requires you to put your body and soul into. For those days we have a list of books that are tender and joyful, but not really those that you will reminisce and meditate over in the long run. For when you want a book that will lodge itself in your brain, whose prose will dazzle you and move you, we have the deep reads. And for when you’re lost and in grief, when you need a book to guide you and change your life, we have recommendations for that too. Remember, one type of book is not inferior or superior to the other. They’re all just tailored for different moods.
List of Book Recommendations For All Moods:
Light reads – for when you want to feel good and relax
Pillow Talk by Freya North
This is a breezy contemporary romance between two high school sweethearts who meet out of the blue in their adult lives. Petra is a jeweler and Arlo is a music teacher and when their paths collide, sparks fly. This is a warm and cute romance which makes you feel happy and tender-hearted. It definitely has the capacity to salvage a bad day instantly.
Sing You Home by Jodi Piccoult
This novel is a queer romance which will both warm your heart and make you root for the characters. It demonstrates how love between non-heterosexual couples is as valid as love between heterosexual couples and the part that religion plays in convincing you otherwise. The characterization is brilliant, and all the tiny quirks that the characters have will make you fall in love with them. It’s the perfect read if you’ve lost touch with the magic of love and need to experience it in fiction
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This Japanese bestseller is set in a fuzzy, cozy cafe in a forgotten alley of Tokyo. This cafe promises its customers an exclusive experience- to travel in time. But this experience comes with its own rules and regulations – and not everyone is brave enough to take the risk. This book follows the story of four people who do, and how their experiences help them reconcile with their pasts, accept their present and change their future. This is a heart-touching book with an element of magic that makes it even more endearing.
Other recommendations
Beach Read by Emily Henry, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Deep reads – for when you want to fall in love with literature and remember it forever
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
This multigenerational saga set in the fictional town of Machado is Márquez’s masterpiece and needs no introduction. The plot is too intricate to explain in a few lines, but it revolves around the Buendia family and its members. The lucid, sensuous writing style and the magical realism of the plot will transport you to a different world. And trust me, you’ll never want to return. Devoured by literature students all over, this is a book you’ll keep wanting to come back to.
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Murakami is the most widely read author of translated Japanese fiction and every book lover has his favourite Murakami title. Ours, personally, is Men Without Women. Murakami’s third anthology of short Stories is a stunning reflection on loneliness and alienation. All short stories in this collection have a common thread linking them – all their male protagonists find themselves without the women they love. These stories will make you ponder the meaning of human connection and what it takes to be alive when you’re alone.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
This beloved dark academia book is the story of the titular Dorian Gray who desires that his portrait grow ugly with age while his body remain youthful and lovely forever. When he is granted this boon of eternity, he finds himself drowning in sin and amorality under the influence of the hedonistic Lord Henry. This is a tale of pleasure, youth, death, sin, duplicity and morality which is ripe with brilliant philosophical passages. You will remember and reflect on these passages and dialogues throughout your life.
Other recommendations
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Profound reads – for when you want a book that will change your life
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
This is a series of letters that prolific German writer and poet Rilke wrote to Franz Kappus, a younger poet. Kapus was in the same military school that Rilke attended, and faced a dilemma – whether to continue with his military education or give it up to become a poet. He asked Rilke for advice and their correspondence became a lengedary source of motication for poets and artists. Rilke’s advice for Kappus generalizes to every action of life and becomes a profound philosophy of life that will chage your life.
Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
The only poetry collection in our list, this is a collection of poems dedicated to the creator that fetched Tagore his Nobel prize. Incorporating various elements of traditional Indian poetry and culture, this poetry will fill your heart with love, devotion and unbridled joy. WB Yeats said in his introduction to Gitanjali that he “carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway stations, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger see how much it moved me.” If the greatest English writer was moved by it, we assure, so shall you.
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
This novella by Lebanese poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran is a philosophy of life. It recounts the story of a prophet who is about to set sail and imparts some last bits of wisdom to the people of the village. The villagers ask and the prophet answers. He talks about love, marriage, children, beauty, art, work, passion and more. Reading this will enrich your life and infuse hope into it, for Gibran summarizes the book’s message as “You are far greater than you know and all is well.”
Other recommendations
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, The Shack by William P. Young
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