In your life, you’re bound to stumble onto many adventures that will leave you a different person. Every tiny bit of story might change your perspective on how you’re living your life. Here is a list of 5 books you might want to read in your lifetime, with adventures worthwhile enough to change you.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi, 2015)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
“I was so absorbed in the things that I couldn’t change, I forgot the most important thing.”
Before the Coffee Gets Cold tells the stories of a coffee shop that offers an unusual service: it can take you back in time. There are lots of complicated rules, one of the most important ones being that you can only go back in time as long as your cup of coffee stays warm. While the book itself is based on a fantastical element, the essence is rooted in human connections and emotions. A simple concept, with a very interesting execution, that will definitely touch your heart.
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories (Raphael Bob-Waksberg, 2019)
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories
“You had every intention of being depressed forever, but as it turns out, there’s work to be done, meals to eat, movies to see, errands to run. You meant to be in ruins permanently, your misery a monument, a gash across the cold hard earth, but honestly, who has the time for that? Instead, you survived – apparently, you both did – and things are shockingly okay.”
All about love: the good and the very, very bad. This idiosyncratic collection of short stories written by the creator of the animated comedy series BoJack Horseman is extremely fun to read. It dissects the concept of love in a clever, one-of-a-kind way. These stories jump around throughout various genres, from realism to fantasy, all of them tinted with a magical, dreamy feeling. While it is fun, it will also leave you weeping uncontrollably. It tears you apart and pats you in the back at the same time.
Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami, 2002)
Kafka on the Shore
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
The world of Kafka on the Shore is a metaphysical reality, explored through the two main protagonists: Kafka, a fifteen-year-old boy who runs away from home and a gruesome prophecy, and Nakata, an old man with the ability to talk to cats. Their story is riddled with philosophical concepts, along with fish and leeches raining from the sky, a murder, and things even more bizarre than that. Murakami’s surrealism is written in a way that cannot be replicated by anyone else. He does not hold back on many unsettling and taboo concepts. As you finish reading the book, you might not even understand everything that just happened, but you will find that the air around you feels somewhat different.
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
The Little Prince
“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”
The Little Prince is a timeless classic. This beloved book is disguised as a book for children, but the truth is, adults might need to read this story even more than children do. Through the narrative of a pilot who crash-landed in the Sahara desert and a little prince from the small asteroid B-612, an allegory of internal peace, mysticism, love, and the ups-and-downs of what it means to be a human unfolds. This is a book you can read a hundred times and would still feel warm on your hundred-and-first.
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories (Hilma Wolitzer, 2021)
Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories
“She was the product of her circumstances, of her time and place…”
The stories in this collection zero in on the moments of ordinary life. Marriage, family, and how heavy a normal, daily life can be. Wolitzer writes of a world often overlooked and the deep, intimate feelings encompassed inside. Most of the stories in this collection were published in the 1960s and 1970s, but they all feel just as relevant today.
Or, if you feel like creating your own life-changing adventure, you might want to try some opportunities we provide. Whenever you’re ready. The world is waiting for you!