On Reading...

There was a time when I read books fast and forgot all about them even faster (even the great ones, no fault of the books themselves; solely mine). Then I started writing about the books I read, and it got a little better - some things stayed at least. Of late, I read books very slowly and often come to a halt when I encounter a line or two that make me think. I don't really proceed with the rest of the book for a while after that. I am stuck at that line, till it becomes too familiar to ponder over. I guess that's a better reading style than before. Very Zen-like, if you will!

One such instance happened recently with 'Doctors' by Erich Segal, a book I started reading simply because a cousin dropped it in my bag and I wanted to get it back to him quickly (without adding to the mountain of unread books lying in my room). Early in the book, one of the characters reads out a few lines by Ben Johnson (a contemporary of Shakespeare apparently and is the only person to be buried vertically in Westminster Abbey!!!) - though the context in the story is the death of a young child, the last line etched itself in my head as the most positive thing I have read in recent times.It goes...

"In short measures, life may perfect be."

You may not believe it, but I have now become so aware of those short measures, and therefore so much more grateful for my life as it is. I would have never ever appreciated the transitory moments of perfection or beauty or just a peaceful state of mind, if it weren't for this reading experience. Well, it may not last forever, this wisdom... but hey, didn't we just learn about short measures? enjoying it while it lasts :-)

Dallas, Lieutenant Eve

My one-time favourite fictional character, a creation of Nora Roberts writing as J D Robb. Eve is the protagonist in a series of books called 'in death series' - set in NY circa 2058, a time when real coffee, real meat, real chocolate, etc are luxuries and people normally eat soy-based stuff; communication is advanced, traffic is not just on surface but on air too. People use links and holos and VR goggles and fancy stuff like that. But one thing remains same - the business of murder. Since Eve is a homicide cop, each story is obviously a murder case but through the series you come across characters that develop and stay with you.

Its mostly about the personal journey of Eve into relationships and the life she makes with Roarke, who she marries early in the series. Its a story of survival from a gory past but not quite from the nightmares it causes. Its about the courage and sense of justice that drives the cop that is Eve. Oh yes, its also about her mean streak, stubbornness and extreme discomfort in social settings - dinners, conversations, gifts and get-togethers. Starting from a life where there is just one best friend and the job, Eve soon finds herself among people she comes to love and consider her own, and vice-versa.

Eccentricities like bad dress sense and aversion to decking up in any way, including getting a decent hair-cut, makes Eve all the more endearing. Some of her traits are even child-like, even if she is not so comfortable around children. It reminds that there is something to her beyond being the cop, even if she doesn’t realize it herself. All in all, Eve has become an integral part of my life, in a way that few would understand. I can almost guess what Eve would think / feel / do in specific situations and that’s more than I can say about some of my friends. For creating a character like this, kudos to Nora Roberts. In fact Eve has spoiled me for any other character the writer has ever come up with. I was wondering if someone will take it up for a telly series like ‘24’ but now I have found a near match in Kate Beckett of ‘Castle’ – happy enough!

p.s. also recycled from my other blog

Notes from Ayn Rand

I once felt I was oscillating between Catcher in the Rye and Atlas Shrugged when it comes to my preference in books and also in terms of what I want in life. The latter was a turning point of sorts in the story of my life, when I read a tattered version of it in college. Sometime back I bought the 50th anniversary edition of Atlas Shrugged for my collection which also has excerpts from her notes while she was writing the book. How naive of me to think that I have read the book once and my relationship with it is over. I always find something in it that makes me question my own premises and think really hard, one such instance...

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone" -

At least in my experience I have spent many a day wondering why someone doesn't see the logic in what I am saying. I don't mind being corrected by a stronger logic. In fact I have tried to see if my logic was wrong and if yes, how. But no! logic doesn't even feature in some discussions... damn right, reason is not automatic!

She continues to write about the creator's ability to achieve anything he wants to, with a clause, that it should not concern others primarily and should not be through the exercise of will of others, demonstrated through Dagny's efforts in the story. While this may be similar to what Covey would call circle of control and circle of influence, there is of course a fundamental difference. Rand is very clear that it shouldn't matter to the creator whether he is alone or there are only a handful of similar people around or everyone is like him. The creator is complete in himself. Somehow I find this more practical and correct than thinking win-win or interdependence or whatever.

On a lighter note, I like to believe that this could work and I don't have to embrace the whole of mankind to succeed in life. While I am no creator with purpose yet, it is definitely worth trying and much more inspiring than my efforts to be a people person ;-)

p.s.: recycled from another blog, hope you don’t mind :-)

Dancing with Maharaja – Sundar

pilanipictures.blogspot.com is one of the many feeds in my Google Reader account and a recent post made me decide in less than 5 minutes to order this book on Flipkart. (An aside on Flipkart: I discovered the brilliance of it after hunting for ‘An Unquiet Mind’ for almost a year and getting it in less than 2 days after ordering over here. I love! for books at least…). I had another reason to buy this particular book as the author is my senior from SIBM and someone I have really looked up to in my brief acquaintance. More about him in the front cover of the book, so that I can get to the book itself now.

Its the story of an unlikely IAS aspirant (or is he?) who makes a deal with his father to attempt the civil services examination in exchange for a promise that irrespective of the outcome, he will become heir to the family business he so loves (or does he?).

The protagonist Satish, is the son of Rajaraman, a wine shop owner in Madurai (not Prabha wines, if you know what I mean ;-)). We get to know Satish as the spoilt and irresponsible brat whose only worthwhile dream is to inherit his father’s liquor business ‘Maharaja Wines’. So till such time his dream comes true, he spends all his time in those activities that define ‘aimless and useless youth’ in our country. The deal with his father, however, changes his life in ways that even the father could not have envisaged and the book takes us through his journey into IAS coaching classes, life in Delhi amidst a myriad of characters in the world of wannabe IAS / IPS officers, a life-changing journey and the inevitable outcome. The story has a Chetan Bhagat-ish twist to it (I said that about Dork too, didn’t I?)and I have to disagree with one of the Flipkart reviews which says it does not sound like a miracle or a movie. That being said, miracles (and movies) do make our world interesting, don’t they?

The happenings in India and the rest of the world around the time the story is set, make for an interesting background and weave through the story in subtle ways. What is not so subtle is the scene setting when the story moves to a new place (Old Rajinder Nagar or someone’s room for example), by describing too many background characters / objects / activities. It is akin to a movie scene where instead of leaving it to the audience to absorb the background, the camera decides to painstakingly pause at each object / activity till everyone has noticed it. May be that’s the only way to do it in a book – I am not sure – but it kind of obstructs the flow of reading, at least for me. Thankfully, that happened only a couple of times in the book and it sure didn’t stop me from finishing it in one go.

Since you probably know my grudge against Indian style English and obviously the story of an Indian boy is bound to be written in that language, I am not complaining. Interestingly, for a brief while I was reminded of Anbe Sivam, may be because of the similarity to Madhavan’s journey through a disaster which changes his perspective in life. But while the movie combined inspiration with humour and leaned heavily on Kamal Hassan’s character to guide the thought process, this book is more a saga of sober self-discovery. Coincidentally, one of the Flipkart reviews suggests that the book has the potential of being made into a movie! I was rather hoping for a sequel you know, especially since the author has first hand experience of civil services training as well. But I guess that’s not what he had in mind, considering he has shown us a peek into ‘a few years later’…

At the end of 2 hours (yes, its a quick read!) I was vaguely craving to study all sorts of subjects like Indian polity, geography and psychology. Its possibly the nerd in me, but its more likely the book itself, showing endless hours of study and the pressures of one of the toughest exams in a completely different light – one that makes it special and endearing!

Happiness Purpose – Edward De Bono

Being a reader with not many strong preferences towards genres, the closest genre I come to favour is self-help. I know…its sad. More so because many of the books in this category are junk, rather than the futility of the pursuit itself. After all nothing is more worthy than an effort put towards a better life, a better ‘me’. Anyway, these aforementioned books usually sell because of one concept or sometimes just a catchy phrase which gives you a temporary ‘Aha’ moment. Like the much used ‘imagine you are dead’ or ‘what if you die today’ concept to make you realize what your priorities in life should be. Or the ‘principle-centeredness’ of Covey, the NLP of Antony Robbins. You get the idea…

The credit of course goes to the magic of words – the same things said with different words have different impact on different people. Which is why so many self-help books and therefore Gurus click well enough to become best-sellers. It makes sense to someone somewhere. And this lengthy preamble is just to say I have found one book that makes sense to me.

Happiness Purpose by Edward De Bono claims to be a new religion, a meta-system, that helps you find happiness. He reasons that when your demand-space / life-space is closest to your cope-space / self-space you are likely to be happy. And when you look at it that way, all you need to do to be happy is

a) increase your self-space and / or

b) decrease your life-space

He lists out specific ways to do both which makes happiness more attainable. It does seem too simple to be true and sometimes it also seems to be fundamentally wrong to take such a thinking-based approach to being happy, considering its unpredictability and elusiveness. But all said and done this is the sanest thing I have ever heard about happiness, especially since I tend to agree with the many dimensions of happiness explained by De Bono.

Another concept that stayed with me from the book is that of a proto-truth, i.e., a truth we accept for the time being till a better truth is found. A lot of our conflicts are around what is true and what we expect to be true forever. So this tolerance of ‘truth-for-now’ which is not too feeble but not very rigid either, makes many things easier to deal with.

The book is highly structured – the chapters and sub-topics very clearly laid out so that there is no rambling anywhere. But hello, this is De Bono! What else does one expect? Thankfully he doesn’t call it the 10 secrets of everlasting happiness or 5 things you need to do to achieve inner peace. For that alone I love this book. It cannot be read just once if you seriously want to give it a shot. But it is also not something you can do 1 day at a time. So you need to read it fully once and then go back to specific areas where you think you can work on. All that if you are looking for a way to be happy of course…

This book is of not much use to you if you are one of those happy souls, except may be to understand why you are happy when others are not. Its also not useful to you at times of crisis or if your life tends to be a series of tragedies. That’s in fact one of the dimensions this framework doesn’t address effectively enough – it does not consider the extreme conditions – terrorism, poverty, ailments, loss or sheer bad luck. Perhaps, it is a proto-truth that some questions just don’t have answers. That point aside, this book and the concept deserve a reading if only to get a thinking mind’s approach to happiness. One can almost visualize De Bono sorting out things in his head, one step at a time, to decode happiness as if were a complex mathematical problem. Interesting!

p.s. The Book now comes with a cover image of a man jumping around with an umbrella. The one I read had the image I have used – a girl leisurely blowing bubbles in air – thought this looked more like happiness :-)

yet another year end

Can you believe that I wrote this post a year ago? So many months, so few books, even fewer posts! Time for the window to get active i say! So here is my bit, so that 2010 doesn’t feel left out (wink!)

Just like last year, I have borrowed some books from Suki which has kind of revived my reading ritual. Completed ‘The Last Child’ by John Hart in 2 days (in snatches of course). A book on a young boy’s search for his lost twin sister, it’s written at a pace that makes you restless to know what’s coming next; its also disturbing, as every character has a predominantly dark nature (the only ones that are on the bright side are missing or dead). Every character also threatens to turn darker any time and you are always expecting something terrible to happen. While that makes the book a page turner, its also a disadvantage as no ending can live up to that kind of tension (unless may be its open to the reader to guess / think beyond the last page – like ‘Primal Fear’ for example). Anyway, worth a read though like Arth says in the previous post - once read, I will want my time back to read something else.

I also read Dork by Sidin Vadakut which reaffirms my belief that moving from a blog to a full-fledged book is no easy thing. I kept waiting for the Laugh-out-loud moments which are aplenty in his blog, but it never happened. I read it fully nevertheless and wasn’t bored at all. The style is something like Chetan Bagat meets Salinger; oh, and for once the setting, the characters and situations are what someone like me would have seen experience first-hand (MBA, campus placements, consulting, clients, etc.) – this I would say is the biggest plus for Dork. It is narrated in the form of someone’s diary and it feels just like that – unintentionally entertaining and not written keeping a reader in mind. gosh! feels awkward to review a blogger’s book (unlike established, distant or dead authors) its like reviewing your classmate or something…but i bought his book and reviewed it like any other. so there.

I still want to read Great Bong’s book except I don’t quite relate to Bollywood (nothing against movies of course, I LOVE movies – in languages I understand that is..) or Bong references (no Bengali friends) or cricket techniques (oh these females!) which I expect to find in his writing, naturally. That must make me sound anti-hindi, anti-everything not south Indian, anti-men and their games. Which I hope I am not. Just unfamiliar milieu. But his blog is the only place I like to read political / social topics and he does them so well. Not like you owe it to your existence to read such topics, but spontaneously readable. As if its only natural that one knows the role of Turkey in the middle-east political landscape… See what i mean?

All the other books read in 2010 are in some kind of distant memory and none of them un-put-down-able. I have not finished any of the books I had vowed to do justice to. Instead I have a new set of books I owe a full reading. The Kite Runner is happening at the moment. I have given up on Thomas Friedman (nothing fried the dietician says! i know - poor joke), wild swans (too much history in one book) and harry potter (i really cant handle fantasyland). Made in America, Diary of a young girl and Mein Kampf still have a chance. War and Peace and a few more classics will join the party. I am also desperately looking for some fun books seeing that FUN has become my new life theme. Inspirational will work too. Don’t they write life-changing books any more? I really do WANT to read. Suggestions are welcome. Here is to 2011, hoping it will be far better in book-reading terms and the rest of the terms too! :-)

So that April doesn't feel left out...

The folks by the window never made it to the window in April as you would see. It has been an exceptionally busy time for all of us and what a start to the year I say! (oh, the financial year that is). But did you notice how its been a season of short stories at 'a book and a window'? Another side effect of not having enough time probably. In any case, since I have not read any new books and the one in hand is the Anton Chekov borrowed from Arth, this post is not going to be about 'a book'. Here is my two bit to end the dry spell of April.

I have to start with my complete agreement on Arth's views on Anton Chekov. That man puts his characters under the microscope and lets us know every thought and feeling behind a person, not just their actions and reactions. As much as I miss the presence of a plot and in some cases closure, he more than makes up for it with his uncanny sight into people's psyche. But I think the translator Constance Garnett, has to, has to get some credit for producing it in real English (as opposed to the fake English we see in most translations). Chekov's analysis of the human nature is so accurate, his presentation of it so profound, and none of it seems to be lost in translation. Well, I can never prove it but am somehow very sure of it.

For a while now, well, actually since I came to know he passed away, I have been wanting to write about 'Sujatha' (real name Rangarajan), who was one of the well-known Tamil writers, a versatile one at that. He specialized in short stories too. But his stories typically have a strong and sharp plot with the characters always a step ahead of the reader. His love of science and fascination for the English language often came through in his books. In fact he wrote a science and general knowledge series which ran for years in a Tamil weekly. He was intelligent but his was the type of intelligence that does not stay aloof from the masses or belittles others. He had the knack of explaining complex concepts in simple terms via his fiction as well as non-fiction works. I will never forget how a neighbour of mine who never went to college and used to cook for local goldsmiths for a living, spoke about computers and internet much before they became common in our little town. Thanks to one man's passion to learn everything and then pass it on to the layman who, given a chance at gaining knowledge, has the ability to put it to far better use than any ivy league pass-out. I wish it weren't true, but I feel there will never be another like him. And I hope to write about one or two of his books here sometime soon!

Life's Little Ironies - Thomas Hardy

I read this book throughout February in snatches - partly because I was busy and partly because it is by no means a single read. In spite of it being a collection of short stories and the fact that I can read most fiction books in one go. So why?

a) the language - rich yes, but absolutely mind-numbing at times. Fine, call me an ignoramus but I really think the language does nothing to help the stories or the reader

b) talking of stories - Well, I know the theme is irony and all, but please, each character is a bigger loser than the other. Some situations are  actually interesting - one can almost personally feel the if-only's and the could-have-been's, but what could a reader possibly gain by reading 1200 such situations? (alright! some 15 of them)

c) the publisher - a cheap popular classics version (disclaimer: not the one whose cover page I have used in this post) with terrible illustrations that just made the whole experience a highly forgettable one for me

I was very hesitant to write about this book at all, especially since its Thomas Hardy and its possibly text book material for English language or something; or that I may sound incredibly naive and shallow. But what the heck! I didn't like it at all. And the only use for this book I can think of is, as a part of the curriculum in Non-detail or English Paper II as we call it. You will find a treasure of words to be used for the synonyms and antonyms sections. One of the stories starts like this:

'Whether the utilitarian or the intuitive theory of moral sense be upheld it is beyond question that there are a few subtle-souled persons with whom the absolute gratuitousness of an act of reparation is an inducement to perform it; while exhortation as to its necessity would breed excuses for leaving it undone'.

Impressive but surely not my cup of tea! same goes for the book...

Banker to the Poor - Muhammad Yunus

This is the story of Grameen Bank and its founder Muhammad Yunus, also winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2006. He is truly the father of micro-credit, now a prevalent system across the world and especially in India. Since enough is being said about the concept these days, I will stick to the story around it rather than the underlying math, which is in fact equally important.

The story begins with an 'aha' moment of an economist who realizes that all the theories he teaches in the university do not answer the oldest and biggest economic problem - poverty. Not job losses or inflation or sub-prime crisis - the hard-core, seemingly hopeless cycle of poverty. And the real lesson here, which hits you at an emotional as well as logical level is that, when you look at the poor - one person at a time, it actually doesn't take much to lift him / her out of that abyss. Like the 22 US cents it took for Yunus to save one poor woman from merciless money-lenders.

Not to belittle the effort that goes behind setting up a whole system to address this problem, but the bottom line is - when compared to all the aid and charity that we see being announced everyday and the difficulties in making them reach the poor, micro-finance systems are much more doable and sustainable too! And I completely agree with Yunus' views on charity that robs the poor of their dignity and tells them in many ways that they are not capable of changing their destinies. Credit on the other hand tells them that someone believes in them enough to give them resources to build their own lives. What a world of difference it makes!

I have personally seen through some of my recent experiences that what really works is an approach which:
a) involves a study of the causes of poverty specific to the local population rather than depending on existing global theories, and
b) gives a large role for the poor to play in finding the answers instead of assuming that we the big people, know what needs to be done.

The book is otherwise filled with anecdotes of his personal life, frequently inter-twined with the political history of Bangladesh. I was surprised to see how closely involved he was in the creation of a separate state of Bangladesh, from what was East Pakistan. I was also amused to see how he doesn't even touch upon India's role in this or even later when he talks about replication of the Grameen model in other countries. India and Bangladesh are similar in many ways, so it was easy for me relate to the examples used across the book. Only when I read about children who didn't want to be a part of India or hated Gandhi, did I remember that it was not 'our story' so to speak. May be its a blind spot for Indians like me, how well-hated India as a people is. Here I must clarify. This is not about Yunus' opinion of India but just what I infer from the tone of our neighbours like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (our other 2 neighbours are screaming out their love for us anyway!) as well as not-quite-neighbours like the Aussies...

Coming back to the book, Yunus' writing style is very effective and hard-hitting. For example, he uses the phrase 'worm's eye view' as opposed to 'bird's eye view' when it comes to understanding poverty. It got the point across in a way that I can never forget. Though he goes back and forth in time for a while, one can follow the journey of a movement that has and still is changing lives of the poorest. What did strike me as odd was how he would go from one stage of Grameen to another in a broad stroke but suddenly talk about something as trivial as how a room looked or that there were mosquitoes around. May be its just me, but it was quite funny whenever he did that...

I shouldn't let this take away the focus from what this book is about  though - an economic revolution. His ability to build an able and committed team, influence key people and organizations around the world, are all very inspiring. It makes you believe in his dream that this world can be free from poverty  through a system, a planned approach - not just a few well-meaning but clueless men and women trying to do their bit; definitely not through charity. Finally, this book is a must-read even if you don't intend to fight poverty or start a micro-finance institution. Because it echoes something I once read in a friend's status message:

Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

2 Stories - Chetan Bhagat

With '3 idiots' breaking all sorts of records and lot of controversy surrounding the extent of credit Chetan Bhagat got for the movie, its timely that I read 2 of his books last week. You have to give it to the guy - his writing style is engaging enough to make you read his books in one go. Beyond the fact that I read really fast and typically stay up till I finish a book, I surely feel that his narration is such that one just can’t put the book down. ‘One night at a call center’ was an exception though. It took me a week to read it in bits and pieces. But in general, this man can tell a story in relatively fewer pages, and it sells for INR 95 which is undoubtedly value for money. The only other books I see at that price range is from M&B (you can read all about 'em here) and that is not even a fair comparison. Thanks to Rupa & Co. for that. And hope other writers follow that route too! It gets them a wider audience and at this price point more people tend to buy a copy for themselves rather than borrow it from someone. Seems so simple, right? But you will be surprised how many people follow it in reality. Anyway, coming to the books…

It is the story of a businessman, set aptly in Gujarat for more than one reason. As usual there is a trio of characters, childhood friends in this case, led by the protagonist (I am not sure if he was meant to be, I usually assume that the narrator is, but you never know with this man!) who venture into a small business – a cricket store. The book takes us through the journey of three youngsters as they start their business and build it amidst a few serious setbacks. Somewhere the religious angle sneaks into the story and takes a turn into communal riots and finally comes to a tragic end. Oh no, that wasn’t the end – I almost forgot that there was something to salvage out of the situation after all. Apparently now, All is Well (LOL!!! Sorry… I really couldn’t resist that one). He manages to keep cricket alive in the storyline throughout and also has a love angle of sorts within the plot. That it has no element of humor is not surprising considering the seriousness of the issues he has taken up through this book; but I suppose funny comes to him a lot more easily and he must have found it a different experience to write without his best weapon.

The quintessential love story, the one we have seen in endless number of movies where parents are against the young lovers’ union for one reason or the other. As is obvious from the title in this case it is the states which the boy and girl belong to. In India, each state (and language and caste and community, etc) has a unique culture and a natural aversion and snobbishness towards people not belonging to that culture. That the boy and girl meet at IIM has no real significance but anyway the story starts there and moves to the respective families who as expected hate each other. The couple takes turns in trying to impress each other’s parents and extended family and after many, many attempts… manage to make it to the wedding stage. Applause! There is a father-son drama to add another dimension to the story but otherwise it’s a pretty smooth ride from beginning to end. Also as a South Indian, my verdict is that he keeps his promise of making fun of people from the South without being insulting. The tone is rather endearing and not so much looking down on them. And of course, here he has the liberty to use humor and he has made the most out of it, I think.

While both books were supposed to be based on real life stories, they still had the cinematic element of miracles – not the bullet-dodging sort but the ‘business does well right away’, ‘girl loves you already’ and ‘here is the key to their hearts’ sort. I would know because ironically both topics are relevant to me personally – convincing stubborn parents for a love marriage as well as running a business of my own someday. The kind of miracles that come by in these 2 stories haven’t happened in my life yet, not even close! But then to borrow and extend a quote – if ‘a book is a book; a film is a film’ then ‘life is life’ right?

p.s.: Since the author insists on having a number in all his titles, (like KJo's K fetish) I thought I will also humor the sentiment with my title :-)

BiblioBlah! The year that was...

My reading in the last year diversified a bit from my usual comfort zone of fiction, known authors and famous books. I also had a prejudice against English books by authors for whom English is a second language (including Indian ones). It always felt like reading a translation (which I am still not comfortable with), but this year I did read a few in that category as well. Changed our minds didn't we? In terms of number of books its been a pathetic year and there are so many I don’t remember either.  They are probably not worth writing about then! So here is what I do remember...

My family and other animals by Gerald Durrell made it to the list of my all-time favorites and changed the way I look at animals, insects and plants forever. And the quaint island of Corfu made it to the list of places I want to see in this lifetime. I have always wished for a crazy family just like the author's, unfortunately my family is way too sane and sober but for minor lapses here and there. Loved it. Totally.

Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of those books I was telling you about. The author is Nigerian but her comfort with English language makes it an engaging read in the first half  where we get familiar with the main characters and the many hues of life in Africa during the 60-70s. The second half plunges us into civil war and reveals the true nature of the characters we have just become accustomed to. The fall of the supposedly radical and rebellious is contrasted by the quiet strength of those who claim no such greatness. And though we are given ample warning right from the beginning of the book, it still doesn't make us ready to face the ugliness of war and poverty. Nothing will. Nothing should.

On the lighter side, the book still had traces of what Stephen Leacock calls 'foreign fiction'; a sample from the great Russian Novel (translated!): "Drink, little brother," he would say to Yob, and Yob would answer, "Little Uncle, I drink your health," and he would go down the road again, stamping his feet with the cold. What was that about?

Its probably callous of me to jump from a sensitive book to this but we had to move on, right? Moving on, the above lines are from Leacock's work aptly named 'Further Foolishness' - talking about which, I now know that if I were to pick one genre of books as my favorite, it has to be humour bordering on satire. This collection of stories and essays is available for free download or online reading (click on the title to read on) and is just right for those times when I want to read something mindlessly and laugh out loud.

Other mindless reading includes the Death Series by J.D.Robb (a romance writer's mystery avatar) which is just on the verge of getting repetitive simply because we are at 35+ stories and no one can possibly keep the interest alive for that long. But some of the stories in her first 20 or so are real entertainers. (I wrote about the protagonist here long time back if you are interested.) Great potential for being made into something like '24'

And finally there are these books that I started reading but didn't quite make it to the end for reasons I can't figure out. The World is Flat by Thomas Fried(?)man (which is probably dated now), Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, Made in America by Sam Walton, Mein Kampf: Adolf Hitler, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl  and gasp! The Harry Potter series (yes I ought to die for this cardinal sin)!!!  I intend to finish them though. I owe that to every book I start. I also owe that to the many books I have bought / borrowed and left orphaned in my shelf.  So here is hoping that 2010 is the year when I live up to the book-lovers' code of conduct which says... 'READ!'

A line is all it takes

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there...... ~ Rumi
courtesy: facebook status message of a smart woman

Seeing this had me browsing for the author and more from him. And also made me wonder, if I can actually write about whole books, when a single line robbed me of all the words I knew!