BOOK

8 Books to Read Before You Die

13 Feb

A few months back, one of our customers sent us a special request for a list of 8 books we felt everyone absolutely must read in his or her lifetime. The question intrigued us and we immediately launched into a heated debate.

As it turns out, we couldn’t. We posed the question to our fellow book-savvy colleagues and, after receiving some 700 nominations(!) and putting it to a vote, we ultimately settled on 10 titles. Instead of worrying so much about what had to be included, we opted to present a collection of books that has the ability to change the way you think and feel and reflects our diverse interests here.

We hope you enjoy our suggestions.

 

 

1. Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran (DELUXE EDITION)

“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”
From social issues to human concerns; from the tragedy and power of love to the longings of the soul; from good and evil to crime and punishment; from happiness and sorrow to life and death; from inner beauty to dreams and mysticism; Kahlil Gibran’s poems, parables, aphorisms and stories are a source of timeless wisdom.

This collectable hardbound Deluxe edition is beautifully crafted and designed. Perfect for gifting as well as for keeps. A prized edition for any library.

This book is a priceless collection of some of his most notable works including The Prophet, The Wanderer, The Madman and The Broken Wings. The third best-selling poet of all time after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, Gibran continues to enlighten his readers through his celebrated works.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint! Publishing; Deluxe edition (5 March 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 632 pages
  • Country of Origin : India

About the Author

A writer of the New York Pen League, Kahlil Gibran was born Gibran Kahlil Gibran in 1883 in the town of Bsharri, Mount Lebanon, Ottoman Syria. Owing to his family’s poor financial condition, Gibran did not receive any formal education in his childhood. He was taught at home by the visiting priests.
Most of Gibran’s early works were written in Arabic. His first work was a work about music. It was titled Nubthah fi Fan Al-Musiqa and was published in 1905. Ara’is al-Muruj, his second work, was published the next year. It was translated as Nymphs of the Valley, Spirit Brides and also as Brides of the Prairie.
Many of his works were written and published in English. These include The Madman (1918), Twenty Drawings (1919), The Forerunner (1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand and Foam (1926) and The Earth Gods (1931).
With a strong element of mysticism, which is influenced by Islam, Christianity, theosophy and Judaism, his works deal with spiritual love, joy and sorrow, marriage, children and death.
Gibran died from tuberculosis and liver cirrhosis on 10 April 1931 in New York.

A compilation of the Nobel laureates literary masterpieces, this exquisitely designed leather-bound edition with gold gilded edges contains the English translations of his twenty-five classic short stories namely

The River Stairs, The Postmaster, The Cabuliwallah, Living or Dead?, The Supreme Night, The Home-Coming, The Hungry Stones, The Auspicious Vision, Master Mashai, and Mashi among others. Also included is Gitanjali, his most celebrated collection of poetry; My Reminiscences, his memoir; and the well-known novel, The Home and The World. A small editorial note precedes each work.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint! Publishing (1 April 2019)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 672 pages

About the Author

One of the leading figures of Bengali literature, Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 7, 1861. He was brought up in a literary, intellectual, and social household, and began writing at an early age. The bibliography of his writing contains more than two hundred works and around two thousand two hundred songs. From poetic dramas, social plays, short stories, philosophical and critical essays, and travelogues to letters, memoirs, lyrics, drawings, and paintings, Tagores life was marked by uninterrupted literary and artistic creations. Many of Tagores stories and novels have been adapted for film and television. His works continue to be translated into many languages worldwide.
3. The Complete Novels of Sherlock Holmes (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

This collectable hardbound deluxe edition is beautifully crafted and designed. Perfect for gifting as well as for keeps. A prized edition for any library.


“There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life and our duty is to unravel it and isolate it and expose every inch of it.”
Sherlock Holmes
Consulting Detective
221B Baker Street, London.


This is where begins a historical partnership between Dr. Watson the archetypal gentleman from the Victorian era and the eccentric, legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. Join them as they gather clues, ranging from bloodstains and footprints to cigarette ash and wedding rings and arrive at unusual and surprising conclusions.


This leather-bound, deluxe edition is a collection of the four novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet (1887), the Sign of the Four (1890), the Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and the Valley of Fear (1915). Featuring the timeless detective Sherlock Holmes, these novels have been successfully engrossing readers for more than a century now.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint Publishing; First edition (1 June 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 632 pages

About the Author

An exceptionally talented storyteller, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in May 1859. Doyle began writing while studying at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, which he joined in 1876. Doyle graduated in 1881 and was employed as a surgeon on the steamer Mayumba on its voyage to the West African coast.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and writing stories about him which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.
Pointing out the social injustices, Holmes offers a new and just approach in a world which is unfair. Sherlock Holmes, the most well-known fictional detective, has been listed with Guinness World Records as the “most portrayed movie character” in history.
Doyle died of a heart attack in July 1930, aged seventy one.
4. The Art of War – Deluxe Edition

This Collectable Hardbound Deluxe Edition is beautifully crafted and designed. Perfect for gifting as well as for keeps. A prized edition for any library.


“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”


The Art of War is an enduring classic that holds a special place in the culture and history of East Asia. An ancient Chinese text on the philosophy and politics of warfare and military strategy, the treatise was written in 6th century B.C. by a warrior-philosopher now famous all over the world as Sun Tzu.

Sun Tzu’s teachings remain as relevant to leaders and strategists today as they were to rulers and military generals in ancient times. Divided into thirteen chapters and written succinctly, The Art of War is a must read for anybody who works in an competitive environment or who is interested in warfare, strategy and Chinese history.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint! Publishing (1 December 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 232 pages

About the Author

Sun Tzu, a military general and strategist who lived in ancient China, is one of East Asia’s most important historical figures. Traditional historians believe that he lived between 544–496 B.C. Sun Tzu’s birth name was Sun Wu; the name he is well known with is an honorific that means “Master Sun.” He is most famous for writing The Art of War, a timeless classic and one of the most important works of Eastern literature.
5. The Iliad & the Odyssey (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

An exquisitely designed leather-bound edition with a gold-foiled cover, this omnibus featuring Samuel Butler’s translations of the two Homeric epics comes with a ribbon bookmark, gilded edges and beautiful endpapers. Ideal to be read and treasured, it makes for a perfect addition to any library.


The oldest extant works of Western literature, Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey are an important part of the Greek culture. The Iliad gives a detailed poetic description of the war of Troy and expounds the battle and the events during the weeks of quarrels between King Agamemnon and warrior Achilles. The Odyssey expounds Homer’s energetic vision of everyman’s journey through life. It recounts the tale of Ulysses’ ‘nostros’—journey back home, after the ten-year-long Trojan War and the fall of the city of Troy.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint! Publishing; Deluxe edition (1 August 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 768 pages

About the Author

Homer is known to have authored the first known literature of Europe. He is revered as one of the greatest of the ancient Greek epic poets in the Western classical tradition and is credited with the enduring epic tales of the Illiad and the Odyssey, which were an important part of the Greek culture. Though when he lived is not known, it is estimated by Herodotus, a Greek historian, that Homer lived around 400 years before his own time. This places him somewhere around 800-900 BC. While some ancient sources claim that he lived close to the supposed time of the Trojan War, i.e. in the early 12th century BC, most modern researchers place him in the 7th or 8th century BC.
Plato’s the Republic describes Homer’s significance to the ancient Greeks. He was described as the teacher of Greece, for the growing influence of Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized. His works are about fifty per cent speeches and provide models in persuasive writing and speaking.
6. The Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

This collectable hardbound leather-bound Deluxe Edition with Gold Foiling and Gilding is beautifully crafted and designed. Perfect for gifting as well as for keeps. A prized edition for any library.
Leo Tolstoy, one of the world’s greatest novelists, had a writing career spanning across almost half a century.

This edition is a compilation of the writer’s best short stories ranging from stories for children, stories for the people and Russian folk tales to his adaptations from French stories and the ones written for the Jewish pogrom victims in Russia.


It includes ‘The Snowstorm’ (1856), ‘Polikushka’ (1863), ‘The Prisoner of the Caucasus’ (1872), ‘Where Love is, There God is Also’ (1885), ‘Two Old Men’ (1885), Ivan the Fool (1885), ‘Kholstomír’ (1885), ‘The Imp and The Crust’ (1886), ‘The Coffee House of Surat’ (1893), ‘Master and Man’ (1895), ‘Father Sergius’, ‘Work, Death and Sickness’, ‘After the Dance’ and ‘Alyosha the Pot’ (1911), among his other masterpieces.
An editorial note precedes each work.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint Publishing (1 October 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 620 pages

About the Author

Born in Russia in 1828, Leo Tolstoy grew up to become a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright and philosopher.
A master of realistic fiction he had little interest in academics when he was young. In 1851 he enlisted himself in the Russian army and served in the Crimean War (1854-1856). He records his experience in Sevastopol Stories (1855). Tolstoy produced an autobiographical novel, Childhood (1852), followed by Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1857) which earned him literary acclaim.
War and Peace (1865-1869) and Anna Karenina (1875-1877) remain two of his greatest novels. In his short autobiographical story, A Confession (1882), Tolstoy reflects on his mid-life existential crisis. The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and What Is It To Be Done led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901 for a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy. The Kingdom of God Is Within You expresses his ideas on non-violent resistance.
In the last few days of his life, while his health was deteriorating, he separated from his wife and left home. He died of pneumonia at a train station in 1910, at the age of 82.
7. Greatest Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

This collectable hardbound deluxe edition is beautifully crafted and designed. Perfect for gifting as well as for keeps. A prized edition for any library.

A compilation of Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known works, this classic leather-bound edition is perfect as a keepsake. It includes some of his timeless masterpieces namely ‘Annabel Lee’, ‘The Raven’, ‘To Helen’, ‘MS. Found in a Bottle’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘The Gold-Bug’ among others.

Also included are his seminal essays, Poe’s review of the Twice-Told Tales, and a selection of his letters written to the editors of periodicals, his friends, his wife and to Mrs. Whitman.
An editorial note precedes each work. This deluxe edition is perfect as a keepsake.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint Publishing; First edition (1 June 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 516 pages
  • Country of Origin : India

About the Author

One of the most Gothic short story writers of the nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe was a predominant figure of the Romantic movement in American literature and is regarded as the inventor of the detective story. His literary career began with Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) but it was his deftly plotted short stories which attracted attention. He was also a noticeable literary critic and an unwearying reviewer and essayist. The recurring themes in his works the death of women, bereavement, horror, madness, premature burial, decay, revival of the dead, life after death are suggested to have resulted from his own life, which was a sequence of tragic events and frequent abandonments. Poe skillfully weaved these themes into his meticulous plots and created the macabre world of terror and dark romanticism bringing alive the horror through his choice of words. More than a century and a half after Poe’s death, his works still remain as fresh and scary, sending a frightening chill down the spines of his readers.
8. The Diary of A Young Girl (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

This leather-bound edition is exquisitely designed with a silver-foiled cover, gilded edges and beautiful endpapers. It is ideal to be read and treasured and makes for a perfect addition to any library.
Anne Frank’s diary needs no introduction.


This beautifully written memoir of a young girl caught in the middle of one of the most horrific periods of human history, is a testament to the indestructible human will to persevere and survive in the face of the most adverse of circumstances. Where Anne Frank herself became one of the victims of the Second World War, her words, crowding every available inch of space in her diary, survived to keep her story and her memory alive for the rest of the world through the ages.

  • Publisher : Fingerprint Publishing; First edition (1 October 2018)
  • Language : English
  • Hardcover : 400 pages

About the Author

Born in June 1929, Anne Frank would’ve probably led a life of obscurity had her diary not been published by her father in 1947. She would have remained a number, a faceless statistic lost in some government file, but, it was not to be so.
Anne’s diary was, for her, a space to express herself in the most honest and candid of terms. She shied away from writing nothing, revealing all and baring her very soul on the pages of the diary.
Anne remained in hiding with seven other people in a sealed-off room concealed behind a wooden bookcase in the upper annex of the building her father worked in, in Amsterdam for two years until they were all caught and transported to different concentration camps. Anne Frank was sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp where she died of typhus, a mere two weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops. She was fifteen-years-old.
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