Motivation is a genre, very close or perhaps synonymous to self-help and inspirational, that does the best business in the book industry right now. And, if you analyse it with a cool head, it has been doing the best business in the writing industry for a very long time. When people started striving for more and more money, they needed literature to calm them down and make them aware of their excesses and wrong balance in terms of goals, material and spiritual. And then, self-help, motivational, spiritual, inspirational and all these genres came into existence. However, different writers have different approaches and what we read depend on what we like. So, what kind of motivational books do I prefer reading? I will tell in this article.

I read books by many authors when it comes to the spiritual genre. And there are the authors who are motivational as well. For example, there are writers like Swami Vivekananda and Jiddu Krishnamurti. They are philosophers, spiritual masters as well as motivational figures who can stir the dead as well. However, their philosophy is mostly towards realism, grave realism and vairagya within the social life which seems almost impossible for the common beings. Yet, their writings are the most-liked ones by me.

However, there are authors like Sri Sri Ravishankar, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and Osho whose works are very much within the ambit of common readers’ understanding. And I like them as well. Nevertheless, they are still in the domain of spiritual more than motivational or inspirational. We do need corporate as well as real-life, material life motivation at times and then we turn to the authors like Deepak Chopra (do you think so?) and Shiv Khera and others who write for the worldly readers. And then, there are a few authors who overdo in terms of their strategy and philosophy and make a mess out of their otherwise well-moving script and ruin the piece of literature. I do remember reading a few titles which were so confusing that I could not make anything out of those. I will list a few.

The best example I remember is Robert Greene’s book. The 33 Strategies of War is a book which tries to convey the art of conquering the enemies within and outside by citing examples of great warriors and wars fought between nations, kings and armies. However, the book fails miserably in conveying anything material to the readers. You can read more about the book here: The 33 Strategies of War Review

Likewise, the books by relatively new authors in the industry are often confusing more than those are motivational per se. I generally avoid reading those writers. I prefer those who are already established as the writers of motivational books and have a considerable pile of books under their names. This gives me extra confidence in pursuing and perusing their literature. What do you do? How do you decide which author to read and which one to skip? You can also share your opinions with me in the comment section. Happy reading and all the best!