About Mubashir
Mubashir Mehdi founded LifeWithBooks with a single, stubbornly held conviction: that access to great books should never be determined by a person's postal code or bank balance. Growing up in Pakistan, he had seen firsthand how geography and economics restricted access to the materials that shape educated, empowered minds — how students in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad had reasonable access to bookshops and libraries, while students in smaller cities and rural areas did not, and how the cost of quality English-language materials placed them beyond the reach of the families who needed them most. LifeWithBooks was his answer to that inequality. The site began modestly — a curated collection of public-domain PDFs and a few original editorial articles on reading habits — but it has grown into one of Pakistan's most substantial free book libraries, covering English learning, literature, language instruction in German, French, and Spanish, IELTS and CSS preparation, children's learning, Islamic books, health and wellness, programming, and much more. Every book on the site is either a public-domain classic or original content created by the LifeWithBooks editorial team, reflecting Mubashir's insistence that the site operate with complete legal integrity rather than becoming another PDF piracy repository dressed up as a library. Mubashir's editorial philosophy is shaped by a core belief in self-directed learning. He is sceptical of any system that tells people they need expensive credentials or institutional permission to access knowledge and improve their lives. The great self-development tradition — from Emerson and Samuel Smiles through Napoleon Hill and modern psychology — holds that the most transformative changes come from within: from deliberate thought, sustained effort, and the willingness to learn. The LifeWithBooks library is built around this philosophy. Everything on the site is designed to empower readers to direct their own intellectual growth. As Editor-in-Chief, Mubashir oversees the overall direction and editorial standards of LifeWithBooks. He writes the site's most widely read pieces — the practical habit-building guides, the examination preparation frameworks for CSS and Matric students, the public domain explainers, and the self-development articles that reflect his own reading across philosophy, psychology, and business. He holds himself to the same standard he expects from the site: before he writes about a book or a method, he has used it himself and observed its effects. Beyond the site, Mubashir is a regular speaker at reading promotion events in Pakistan and an active participant in the national conversation about education, literacy, and the role of self-directed learning in a country where the formal education system is under extraordinary strain. He believes that every Pakistani with a smartphone has access to world-class education if they know where to look and how to use it — and that helping people find that access is among the most socially valuable work anyone can do. He reads every morning before the rest of the house is awake, keeps a detailed reading journal he has maintained for over a decade, and will enthusiastically recommend As a Man Thinketh to anyone who will listen. He genuinely believes it is one of the most important short books ever written, and the dog-eared copy on his desk suggests the belief is not performative.