Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a 1985 surrealistic science fiction novel by Haruki Murakami which is set in two fictional universes – Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World. The amusing aspect of the novel is that none of the characters are named especially but are referred to certainly by their professions, characteristics and cheeky nicknames.

It is no surprise that Murakami builds up a very unbelievably strange universe with all sorts of mystic elements and crazy twists and turns yet he intrigues you with his lucid, simple and fast-paced first-person narrative, dragging you into this weird tale of emotions.

Overall, a strong fast-paced work by Murakami that blows you away with its spiritual, mystic and bewildering climax.

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1984 by George Orwell

‘1984’ is a dystopian political fiction novel published and written by George Orwell in the year 1949, which garnered universal acclaim. The novel is not only dystopian, it is also an accurate and depressive portrayal of what a nightmare Utopia can be, because there can never be a Utopia without bloodshed, and ignorance of human faculties, a perfect world is denounced by Orwell as the bleakest of the worlds.

The novel strongly showcases the reality of totalitarian and authoritarian governments, and how many layers are constructed to give an illusory sense of the word to the proletarians, the bourgeoisie, aristocracy, and the vast disparity between the inner party leaders and the rest of the unfortunate ones. Read more

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a 2006 apocalypse novel written by Cormac McCarthy which is recognised as one of his many masterpieces of American literature which garnered him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 and James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.

The novel is a haunting story of an unnamed father and son who travel across the vast wasteland void of humanity, to live and survive one day at a time, nothing to look forward to and nothing to live for.

The Road is simultaneously a study of morality, character, human depravity and struggle of light and darkness, God and Demon as the marauders go through the roads, and dark houses with cannibals storing humans to eat them up.

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The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

‘The Line of Beauty’ is a novel of philosophical, subliminal depth and beauty that has sacred prose with a poetic voice rarely heard or written, it has a harmony that doesn’t only satiate the intellect, but touches the reader’s soul in a way many other novels haven’t.

Hollinghurst is a writer of keen observation and subtle commentary on the buzzing aristocratic life in London, which was even beautifully written in The Swimming Pool Library, but a notch higher in this piece of work.

‘The Line of Beauty’ is a novel to die for and a symphonic achievement that showcases delicate artistic taste and sense.