BUILD A LIBRARY OF HEROIC BOOKS

 

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read. 

                                                           - Mark Twain

My personal library is built over a period of  more than three decades. Perhaps it is in January, 1990,  I added my first book to my personal library when I was in my final year of graduation. 

Computers were then in nascent stage and they  were being used mainly for bookkeeping and secretarial works. The internet revolution has still not dawn in.

In fact, the  idea to have a personal library was in seed form much before it surfaced  in 1990  when my desire to improve my  language abilities shot up to unfathomable levels.  My visits to district and community libraries during childhood days  further strengthened the need to have my private library so that I can read my interesting  stuff at my own pace and time. In my younger days whenever I see librarians,  I cherish their job as they get ample opportunity/time to read all the interesting stuff.


Like Rome was not built in a day, my library has taken years in building up. I choose my books  very carefully.  The sources of knowing good books are many viz.  newspapers, magazines, TV news, book reviews, visits to bookstores etc.  But a final decision is only after seeing  the contents and  reading reactions. The chapters also play a role in selecting a book.  Generally, my choice of books are : self-help, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, personality development. My taste of books is an assortment of  both humanities and sciences.

Whenever I am in low mood, I open the door of my bookshelf and gaze them to recoup my energy.     I read simultaneously 8-10 books in daily instalments.  When I don't find time to read, I feel dry.  During the course of reading, I also take notes in  separate notebook, so that the  information would be handy to me whenever required.

 
Personality development guru Robin Sharma in his book Who will cry when you die ? suggests  to build a library of heroic books.   In that book Sharma suggested 13 heroic books  of which I read the following six.

- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

-The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

-Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse

-The Power of Your subconscious Mind, Joseph Murphy

As a Man Thinketh, James, Allen

Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill

I want to add one more book Awaken the Giant within written by Anthony Robbins.   

 

Books change your destiny. Personality development guru Anthony Robbins says that music change your state of mind and books change your focus.

Let me wrap up the importance of books  with these  immortal words of Ruskin Bond:

“Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again and the joy first derived from it will still be there.”