Other years: 1999/2000. 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014,2015,2016
 

The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck

Habibi, Craig Thompson

 

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

 

Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau

 

The Blue Line Imperative: What Managing for Value Really Means, Kevin Kaiser and S. David Young

Eye opener. Even a year back, I would not have appreciated this book as much as I do now, and I expect I will be re-reading this many more times.
 

Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era, Eiji Yoshikawa, Charles Terry

The obvious part - terrific story, broad canvas and more coincidences than a hindi movie! What I liked most about this book is the spirituality. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seems to me that all the characters represents different facets of a single personality. I'm not sure about the Japanese (zen?) version, but these seem to me to be in the form of 'shadvikaars'. The other striking thing is something that I obsess about -- what is the infinitesimal nudge that sends one person on one path and another person, despite multiple opportunities, down a completely different one?
 

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Amazingly well written in six (I think) different styles. I spent way too much time thinking about the linkages between them; not the birthmarks and characters, but the philosophies. These are not six stories, but one story of all of humanity. And we're doomed.
There are some sentences and passages that are amazingly well crafted, and ironically, I found an exerpt from Walden that describes this the book most aptly.
 

A Letter to a Hindu, Leo Tolstoy

 

Anathem, Neal Stepenson

 

A Profile of the Oil and Gas Industry, Linda Herkenhoff, Donald N. Stengel

 

Crude World, Peter Maass

 

Rework, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

 

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip Heath, Dan Heath

 

The Psychology of Computer Programming, Gerald Weinberg

 

Jeffery Gitomer's Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, Jeffery Gitomer

 

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

 

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, Adam Zamoyski

 

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo

 

Apex, Ramez Naam

Crux, Ramez Naam

Nexus, Ramez Naam

 

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

 

Lucknow Boy: A Memoir, Vinod Mehta

 

Malgudi Days, R. K. Narayan

 

Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt

 

Grandfather Gandhi, Arun Gandhi

 

The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations, Tom Peters

 

Influence Without Authority, Allen Cohen

 

Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

 

The Art of Work, Jeff Goins

 

The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal With the Toughest Negotiators You Know -- Your Kids, Paul Raeburn, Kevin Zollman

 

Animal Farm, George Orwell

 

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan

 

How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, Edward Hirsch

 

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

 

The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen

 

Ghachar Ghochar, Vivek Shanbhag, Srinath Perur

 

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Steven Pressfield

 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, R. Stephen Covey

 

The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker