Books Recommended by Soman Chainani
The Little Mermaid
Hans Christian Andersen
Source: "You look at The Little Mermaid [movie]. Arielle should die brutally in that movie because she’s an idiot, a complete idiot. [...] To read the original [book], where she dies at the end, suddenly made sense." - Soman Chainani
Peter Pan
J. M. Barrie
Source: "Featured a title character who was at once charming and also a complete narcissistic, pathological demon. It was that ambiguous space between good and evil that I sparked to as a kid." - Soman Chainani
The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales
Maria Tatar
Source: "Exposed me to the original Grimm’s stories, which are horrific and dark and insane. And half the time, the evil character wins and half the time the good character wins." - Soman Chainani
The Velvet Rage
Alan Downs
Source: "Ostensibly about if you grow up a gay man, [how] to deal with it in the world. But I think it’s more about modern masculinity and about what it means to be a man in America." - Soman Chainani
Tao Te Ching
Lao Tzu
Source: "I remember reading it and being like okay, this makes no sense. But you just keep reading it again and again and slowly, I started to get the point of it." - Soman Chainani
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
Source: "Half drill sergeant, half Zen voodoo master, [the author] shot me out of my stupor and taught me the meaning of creative discipline." - Soman Chainani
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
Source: "The greatest work of fiction I’ve ever read, with the simplest theme: All of us come with baggage and wounds and pain; all of us." - Soman Chainani
His Dark Materials Trilogy
Philip Pullman
Source: "[The first book is] a little bit easier but then two and three are intense." - Soman Chainani
Garden Cities of To-Morrow
Ebenezer Howard
Source: Soman Chainani referenced this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast.
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman
Source: Soman Chainani referenced this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast.
Cirque du Soleil
John U. Bacon
Source: "One of my favorite books." - Soman Chainani
The Neverending Story
Michael Ende
Source: "An amazing book." - Soman Chainani
