The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo

I get why this book has remained popular after all these years since its first publication. Its so simply written. And states all these things that we already know about life and ourselves, though we hardly acknowledge because they're so fundamentally ingrained. These understated but profound aspects of living and believing that are so organic to the human way, that they're somehow no longer conceived or remembered.  Nuances of communication, and thought and logic and belief that we almost ignore, if we even remember that they're there.
For a Fantasy genre fan as myself, I found this book compelling because it almost makes the reader the protagonist  of the book. The actual protagonist - Santiago -  is simply referred to as the 'Boy'. As with all the important characters of the book, they remain mostly nameless when referred to. All the reader can visualize is their journey.
This is a book of journey and lesson. A good friend of mine inspired me to read it and it seemed to pop up randomly so many times in my life that it was meant for me to read it.  Coehlo often relays via the Boy, 'don't ignore the omens', and I dared not ignore this one.

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

I read the series (the Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay) in about 2 weeks, only because life pulled me away from them. I found myself coming in tune with Katniss, our heroine, who beyond the deadly and kick-ass exterior was so failingly human. And, unapologetic about it. This is how I grew to love her, not for her selflessness or protectiveness, but because she was so real. 
The flavour of the Hunger Games series was like eating some really expensive chocolate. Mostly bitter, moreish and leaving a sweet tingly feeling when you break. The first book opens the reader up to much expectation and almost a feeling of achievement on her winning the games. Catching Fire is where the reader is exposed to much more drama - the dotted lined triangle between Peeta, Katniss & Gale - and a sort of introduction to the brutality one can expect in Mockingjay.
I read somewhere that Collins's father was exposed to the scariness of wartime and that her inherited knowledge regarding the tactical and political aspects of warfare influenced the Hunger Games.
A delicious read.

You Can Heal Your Life - Louis Hay

Ok, so this is kind of cheating as I watched the movie, not read the book. However I'm told they are similar and both convey the same message.

I came across the book/movie a couple of months ago, not exactly by chance. As someone who had previously scoffed at the validity of self-help material, I can now assent to a 'maybe it can help?'. Life tends to send us its own form of help, and the messages come in different ways.

When I started to watch the movie, still I was skeptical. But as I watched, I realised that the purpose was not only to 'self-help' as such, but to show you that at some point or other in all our lives we come to a cross road...choices & change, and if we're lucky, a sort of enlightenment. This book/movie is a kind of documentation of the journey of a few individuals who had to walk these tough roads. All started with one lady, Louis Hays who overcame poverty, an abusive adolescence, teenage pregnancy and divorce. Louis built an empire - a publishing firm called Hay House which publishes works from well known speakers like Deepak Chopra,  and has a motivational site  which shows articles and affirmations of many folk (mostly the medical kind) who follow the same principles she lives by.

You can Heal Your Life was published in 1984, the movie made in 2008. The best selling book was succeeded by "You Can Create An Exceptional Life" in 2011.

We forget how powerful our thoughts are, and how they manifest into actions. We also forget that we can learn form others. Sometimes, we need the reminder.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

What is it about old English that it feels as though no harsh word spoken could ever harm the receiver of them? Could it be the grace of the fluidity of speech? Or the mild but poignant way in which terms in the language is spoken? Or could it be the author, in this case Austen who despite never having married, understood the fairytale of love more than most who have experienced matrimony.
First published in 1813 but written years before under the title First Impressions, the story follows the experience of Elizabeth Bennet and Sir William Darcy, equally flawed due to their tendencies of prejudice and pride respectively. In the process of pairing the lovely Jane Bennet (Elizabeths sister) with the eligible Charles Bingley (Darcy's friend), Elizabeth come to loathe, respect and then love each other. One of my favourite parts of this read is where Elizabeth trots over to her sick sister form Netherfield traipsing though mud puddles that soils her petticoat, and presents herself with flustered glowing cheeks and wind blown hair to the genteel society. Causing a flurry of gossip from the socially superior Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, without defending her the reader almost feels the turning in his affections for her from this point. Drama unfolds with the charmingly wicked Wickham, fear of loving beneath the social acceptance line and unwanted attentions for either the female protagonist or the male antagonist. Against all odds including time, they find each other and live in love.

The Lucky Series - Jackie Collins

Lucky Santangelo. The epitome of a kick ass woman triumphing in a mans world. When I first read about Lucky in the aptly titled book 'Lucky', I completely fell in love with this character, this force of nature who overcame obstacles in her life that befits any Mafia type movie worth its salt. Seven books altogether, we see Lucky growing from a rambunctious little girl who witnesses her mothers dead body floating in the pool of her childhood home to becoming a mother herself - years later after a forced teenage marriage by patriarch Gino; a tragic affair with Marco whom Collins frequently refers to as Lucky's first love;  a doomed marriage to tycoon and father of her former best friend; and most frequently overcoming enemies and stereotypes. Its profound that even though this character was first published in the early 1980's (though Lucky was born in the 1950's) , the character frequently defied the idea that a strong successful woman would be anything other than feminine or perform so called womanly roles i.e being a mother, a caregiver and a wife. We see the character growing from a normal little girl thrust into an early adulthood and literally claiming her place in the world. One of the underlying themes of the Lucky series is that solitude need not equal loneliness and in there you can find strength. As the family motto goes, "Never xxxx with a Santangelo".

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

There is something irrefutably romantic about older English, a charm that extends to even the harshest phrase. Titled as an autobiography, the dark toned fore chapters of Jane Eyre certainly become more digestible with a charming dialect. Relating to many - social outcasts, black sheep, ugly ducklings and the like - Jane's story begins as a ten year old orphan. With scenes all to familiar  to some, she endures - not quietly! - physical, verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of relatives, and the school benefactor of Lowood, the charity school she is gladly carted away to from her miserable existence at Gateshead. Discovering for the first time acceptance, friendship and love from a doomed girl Helen and Miss Temple, Jane would spend 8 years of her life at Lowood as both pupil and teacher.
Off to Thornfield as a governess and to meet Mr Edward Rochester who later after tribulations (an insane wife) ; trials (Mr Rochester losing sight and a right hand in an attempt to save the wife from her suicide after she sets Thornfield ablaze) ; a proposal from an austere clergyman and coming into an inheritance and family, Jane marries Edward and would devote her life to taking care of him.
Bronte's depictions of the unshakable love between Jane and Edward inspires the type of writing that today would be used as a love quote. The closing chapter ethereally explains:
"No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than
we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together"

The Twilight Saga - Stephanie Meyer

What can I say? The millions that flock to cinemas and the fact that these books were on best seller lists for literally years bares testament to the hysteria that Meyer's books have caused. All a result of a dream she had of a beautiful boy in a a clearing which inspired the books and movies that have a cult following of 'Twihards'.
Certainly designed with an adolescent age group in mind, the books are narrated by Bella - a plain Jane who both vampires and teenage boys tend to find equally appealing. The Saga takes the reader on an older crowd fairytale journey that culminates in Bella birthing a vampire/human hybrid and - out of necessity - transforming into a vampire to save her life.
Meyer authored the lessor known and officially unreleased work 'Midnight Sun' which is the tale as experienced through Edwards eyes. Its said that a few versions of Midnight Sun have been drafted, but due to the leak of the work,  Meyer retracted intention to publish until the popularity of the Saga waned.