A science fiction novel written in 1895, The Time Machine has been widely acknowledged to be the original inspiration of modern popular concept of time travel, where time travellers rely on a device or vehicle to move deliberately forward or backward in time. The narrator identifies the protagonist as the ‘Time Traveller’, and narrates the Time Traveller’s journey to A.D. 802,701, where he met the graceful and childlike Eloi communities, who are characterised by a lack of curiosity and discipline, and the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who lives underground.
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A reminder of the salience of geography in international affairs – the relationship of countries and their neighbours, the threats posed and the issues faced by different countries, Tim Marshall’s book is a rollercoaster ride around the globe. The book offers a glance of the international political affairs and the issues surrounding some parts of the globe. Insightful, subtle and somewhat intriguing, Marshall does not explore the issues of the environment and the implications of the imminent hydrocarbon here.
An ageless human story and also the most renowned literary work from Greek antiquity, Odyssey is written by the author behind the masterpiece The Iliad, Homer. The poem follows the journey of the hero, Odysseus, who struggled to return to his motherland after the Trojan War.
The Alchemist, originally written in Portuguese and published in 1988, follows the adventures of a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago as he journeyed towards the pyramids of Egypt in seek of his Personal Legend.
“I wish you all a long and happy life,'' she said in the end. What does it take for the rape victim of a gruesome murder case, devastated and desperate to return to Earth, to find such closure?
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels, the award-winning trilogy of an epic fantasy written by J.R.R Tolkien was first published in 1954 as the Lord of the Rings. An epic set in a fictional world, the novel brings readers on an exciting journey with the hobbit who inherited a powerful ring, Frodo Baggins. Elegiac, thrilling and intriguing, join the young hobbit as Gandalf entrust him with the immense task to destroy the ring by throwing it into the fire of Mount Doom.
Oliver Twist is a Dickens novel serialised from 1837 to 1839. An early example of a social novel, Oliver Twist tackles the issues of poverty, child labour and crime, and an industrialised society by following Oliver’s life, from his birth to poverty and misfortune to the different communities he enters and escapes growing up.
Have you ever wondered, from prehistoric, animal-like sapiens to the powerful human beings conquering across the globe today, what sort of revolutions occured to facilitate such dramatic changes to humanity?
Matt Dickson is not only the author of the fascinating thriller ‘North Face’, but also a climber of Mount Everest. In this novel, Dickson tells the story of an adventurous rescue attempt on Mount Everest’s north face linked to the tale of a family of fleeting Tibetans.
Gulliver’s Travel, originally named ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships’ is a satire novel published in 1726 by Irish writer Jonathan Swift. It consists of 4 parts, following the journey of Lemuel Gulliver to Liliput, land of the tiny folk; Brobdingnag, kingdom of giants; Laputa and Balnibarbi, where rulers rule from the floating island, as well as Luggnagg, an island of aged immortals, and Japan; and finally Houyhnhnms, ruled over by a cold and rational race of talking horses of the same name.
A proud piece of work published by American author and Youtube content creator, John Green, The Fault in Our Stars brings you on a roller coaster of emotions as it touches you with the story of how two teenage cancer patients, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, find love, hope and closure on their venture together as they search for Peter Van Houten, the author of their favourite novel.
A fascinating, eloquent and beautiful story, this non-fiction written by Jon Krakauer in 1996 unveils the story of young Chris McCandless as he abandons everything he possessed to embrace a life of independence in the relentless wilderness of Alaska, and after approximately 113 days, his own death.
What sort of motivation can drive McCandless, an impressive and well-off college graduate, to venture alone into the wilds with such determination? Was it an escape, a quest, a search, or something more? What do you think may drive you to make the same decision one day?
We often mistake the name ‘Frankenstein’ to the hideous sapien monster, but in the original novel by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein is the young scientist who produced the creature out of an unorthodox experiment, whom he does not name throughout the novel, instead identifying the creature simply as "creature", "monster", "daemon", "wretch", "abortion", "fiend" and "it".
Have you ever wondered "what will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves”?
Written in 1929 by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, this novel reveals the extreme physical and mental sufferings endured by countless unnamed German soldiers in war and the detachment encountered by them upon returning from battle.
How does having Paul Bäumer as a first-person narrator instead of a third-person narrator give a better look on this personal toll the war took on the soldiers?
An award-winning young-adult fiction novel written in 1986 that follows the heart-stopping adventure of thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson who survived a plane crash as he was traveling to visit his father for the first time since the divorce of his parents.
The Chrysalids is a science fiction novel published by British writer John Wyndham in 1955. David Strorm, the protagonist, leads an ordinary life in what was left of the world after a global nuclear war, never questioning the religious and genetic beliefs of his community in which no deviation is tolerated.
Life of Pi is a philosophical fiction written by Yann Martel in 2001. This novel tells the story of how Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an intelligent and resilient Indian boy explores issues on life and reality as well as how they are perceived and told. All this happened during his 227-day-survival from a shipwreck together with a tiger he named Richard Parker.
This masterpiece of science and ‘mathematical’ fiction is the work of clergyman, educator and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A.Abbott, which was published in 1884. The charming book chronicles the tale of imaginary beings and the dimensional universe – Victorian values about women and social status.
This mystery novel, written by British writer Mark Haddon in 2003, tells the story of 15-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone solving the mysteries associated with the death of his neighbour’s dog and all the events and encounters along that journey.
Malcom Charles Peet, also known as Mal Peet, was a famous English author and illustrator. Peet wrote ‘Life: An Exploded Diagram’, a semi-autobiographical novel in 2011, which later also became his last book for young adult readers.
In this book, Peet unveils the horrors of war and how close the human race was to destroying ourselves through the narration of young Clem Ackroyd about how his family survived World War I and II.
A collection of short stories named after the periodic table in Chemistry, chemist Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table is an elegantly interlace collection of the author’s experiences in Italy and later in Auschwitz, published in the year 1975. The book offers a combination of fiction, non-fiction, allegory and reality, from young love to political savagery. In your opinion, what do you think the reflection of these experiences are inspired by?
This classic novel by Tolstoy focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and the story revolving the three literary characters – Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostov. The story features the unforgettable scenes of the magnificent nineteenth-century Russia and its imperfections. Which scene left the deepest impression on you, and why?
‘Crusade’ is an epic historical fiction written by British author Elizabeth Lairdin 2007. This story revolves around two boys, Salim and Adam, who come from very different backgrounds and may never have met if the Holy War did not break out.
As they venture on, Salim and Adam realize that they have much more in common than they thought, even though they are on opposing sides of the war.