Routinely dismissed as a waste of time, Facebook can often be surprisingly educative. Amid the incessant stream of selfies, Instagrammed dinners and last nights party pix, every once in a while theres a project that makes you think. A few months ago, it was the art challenge, where users tagged friends asking them to post their favourite paintings. It was followed by a similar poetry challenge. Now, as all you Facebookers have probably realised, its all about books. Over the past couple of days, people have started naming 10 books that left a lasting impression on them and then tagging friends, asking them to do the same. If youre tagged, you need to post your list of 10 books, before tagging more friends and so on. So far, all the usual suspects have featured, from the Bronte sisters, to J.R.R. Tolkien and Paulo Coelho. Bringing up the Indian side, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth seem the most popular. J.K. Rowling, now surprisingly, is on many peoples lists. As are a handful of childrens classics: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Anne of the Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe series by C.S. Lewis. Curious about what books authors would pick, the MetroPlus team quickly tagged this set of writers:

Arundhathi Subramaniam

I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj for its piercing and unfaltering clarity, its uncluttered wisdom, because it opens up new possibilities with each reading.

Mystics Musings by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev for the voice of a contemporary sage, not a mere scholar; for its ability to address every conceivable question burning up a seekers innards.

The Tibetan Book Of The Living And Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche for the quiet, unsentimental insight it brings to the subject of death an approach that is searingly contemporary and timelessly Buddhist all at once.

Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes for combining the voice of a storyteller and shaman; she reminds you of the alchemic possibilities embedded in archetypal tales across cultures. An incredibly rich experience.

The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle.Theres nothing fluffy and new agey about this book at all. Remarkably lucid, there is a meditative clarity about each line a sense of poise without tension.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing because it is quite genuinely a modern classic it covers such diverse facets of experience, from female friendship and political commitment to psychological breakdown and spiritual restoration.

The Complete Works Of Jane Austen (Jane Austen): because she still reminds you and with a capacity to slow time down to a series of exquisitely crafted frames that much of the world can be contained in a Regency drawing room.

Hymns For The Drowning by Nammalvar; translated by A.K. Ramanujan. For reminding us lyrically and unforgettably that bhakti is not genteel fervour but a wild, passionate sometimes even cannibalistic experience.

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The books that made us