2026 Reading challenge

Part travel memoir, part philosophical inquiry, this book follows a father and son on a motorcycle journey across America while grappling with questions about meaning, quality, and the nature of a well-lived life. Through reflections on technology, art, and classical philosophy, Pirsig invites readers to slow down and think deeply. The narrative challenges conventional ideas of success and rationality, making it as introspective as it is intellectually stimulating.

This book explores one of humanity’s most enduring questions: why death is inevitable. Drawing from biology, evolution, and medicine, Ramakrishnan explains aging in a clear and accessible way while examining attempts to extend human life. Thoughtful and balanced, the book combines hard science with ethical and philosophical reflection, encouraging readers to think about longevity beyond just living longer.

Set in a provincial English town, Middlemarch is a richly layered novel about love, ambition, marriage, and moral responsibility. Through deeply human characters, Eliot explores how private desires collide with social expectations. The novel rewards patient reading with its psychological depth, social insight, and timeless understanding of ordinary lives and quiet disappointments.

This sweeping novel follows twin brothers born in Ethiopia and bound by their love for medicine. Spanning continents and decades, it weaves together themes of family, exile, devotion, and healing. Rich in medical detail yet deeply emotional, the story balances professional calling with personal sacrifice, making it both immersive and profoundly humane.

Marshall explains global politics through the lens of geography, showing how mountains, rivers, borders, and climate shape nations’ decisions and conflicts. Each chapter focuses on a different region, offering context for current world events. Written in a clear, engaging style, the book helps readers understand why countries act the way they do on the global stage.

Set in South India, this expansive family saga traces generations shaped by faith, medicine, and inherited destiny. The novel explores love, loss, and the quiet strength of endurance across decades. Lyrical and emotionally rich, it blends personal histories with larger cultural and social shifts, making it both intimate and epic in scope.

In this gentle and comforting novel, a father-daughter duo helps people rediscover forgotten dishes tied to meaningful moments in their lives. Each story revolves around food, memory, and emotional closure rather than crime or suspense. Warm, nostalgic, and quietly moving, the book celebrates how taste can reconnect us to our past.

This novel explores love, distance, and emotional restraint within modern urban life. Through subtle interactions and unspoken feelings, it captures the quiet ache of loneliness and longing. The storytelling is understated and introspective, focusing more on inner lives than dramatic events, making it deeply relatable and emotionally resonant.

Following a solitary narrator wandering through New York City, Open City blends memory, history, and observation. The novel reflects on migration, identity, and the weight of the past through quiet, thoughtful prose. Plot-light and idea-driven, it reads like a walking meditation on belonging and displacement in a global city.

This powerful novel follows a missionary family whose rigid beliefs collide with life in the Congo. Told through multiple perspectives, it examines colonialism, faith, cultural arrogance, and moral blindness. Emotionally intense and ethically challenging, the book forces readers to confront the consequences of imposing one worldview on another.

A fast-paced thriller built around memory-altering technology, Recursion explores how time, identity, and love intersect. As reality fractures into multiple timelines, the novel raises questions about what defines a life. Combining emotional stakes with relentless momentum, it is both thought-provoking and impossible to put down.

This quietly devastating novel tells the story of an intense but restrained love shaped by isolation and emotional vulnerability. Set across Turkey and Europe, it delves into inner lives more than outward action. Subtle, melancholic, and deeply introspective, the book lingers long after it ends.