I personally love to read and my illiterate friends often poke fun at me. It seems that reading and intellectualism are confused with daintiness these days. No matter, I continue to read voraciously at least four to five books each month.
Reading is a wonderful thing and I am truly sorry when I see that kids these days watch hours and hours of worthless TV programs these days when they should be reading. Reading enriches the mind and teaches us things about places and people all over the world. The most popular books of all time transport us to faraway lands and give us glorious adventures and daring escapes.
One of the most popular books of the last ten years is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and rightfully so. It is a modern classic about a small boy and his best friend growing up in Afghanistan. The boys friend is from a minority sect and is ostracized and bullied by all around him. The tragic story follows the boys throughout their childhood and later to the aftermath of their actions in much later years.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is also one of the most popular books in recent memory. It tells the story of a fugitive escapee from an Australian prison who hides in the slums of Mumbai and becomes the doctor of the ghetto. This is a huge, epic story with incredible adventures and details so rich that they absolutely have the ring of truth in them. This is one of those books that you never want to end, even though it is a thick book with an excess of six hundred pages.
One of the most popular books of the last 10 years is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This magical book tells the allegorical story of a boy who survives a shipwreck only to be set adrift in the ocean on a lifeboat containing a Bengal Tiger. This book is now being made into a movie by the great director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) but you should definitely read the book first.
Another great book that has already been made into a film is The Road by the great Cormac McCarthy. This book tells the tale of a father who is trying to protect his son while traveling through the dangerous wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world where tribes of cannibals are on the loose. This dark book is tremendous literature and will not be soon forgotten.
These are just some of the most popular books of the last ten years that are worth mentioning. Remember that the more you read, the more you will want to continue reading.