Books you are reading

[ajay124]

@alcy
Huge blunder on my part!The book which I did not like was Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and while writing my original post I somehow confused it with Robert Pirsig's Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.Memory playing tricks.Perhaps it was the Ferrari/Motorcycle factor.And to make amends I will immediately obtain Zen which I have wanted to but not read from our local library.It is usually issued out but I feel I have a date with Pirsig today....

 

[moktan]

wow interesting thoughts.......so I am not that behiend in the heavy book reading...........I feel good.

BTW "coma" is written by Robin Cook, and was directed as a feature film by Michael Crichton.........another fact I though to share.....

thanks, i was just quoting the book though..the editors at Verso perhaps needed to be more vigilant....

 

[alcy]

@alcy
Huge blunder on my part!The book which I did not like was Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and while writing my original post I somehow confused it with Robert Pirsig's Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.Memory playing tricks.Perhaps it was the Ferrari/Motorcycle factor.And to make amends I will immediately obtain Zen which I have wanted to but not read from our local library.It is usually issued out but I feel I have a date with Pirsig today....

Heh...in that case I'm cool ! Sorry for the (slightly) harsh words earlier.

 

[gobble]

gobble, +1 to your thoughts on Coelho. I was gifted "The Alchemist" by a friend of mine and to be honest, I found the book to be shallow in terms of depth and complicated in terms of prose and continuity. After reading it, all i thought was that the message "follow your dream" could have been said in much more simpler and engaging ways.

No offense taken Alcy.With both Alchemist and Zen I stopped reading after the first 30 odd pages as I found both the prose as well as the ideas in these books quite superficial.

The alchemist it is! Thanks for jogging my memory. hyeah:

Exactly about 30 to 40 pages is when I quit too

Regards

 

[thevortex]

Perhaps the title of this thread should be changed to 'Books you have enjoyed' or something to that effect. That would be more relevant.

 

[gobble]

To me - The most important book an Indian can read is a series of essays titled "The Renaissance in India, and other essays in Indian Culture" By Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (ISBN 81-7058-685-2 444pages, Rs.160/-). If you pick any other ISBN it may be incomplete.

If you are born and brought up in India and struggling to make sense of your country after 30 years of living in it, this book will bring perspective to our seemingly bizarre (to western minds) and diverse culture, its history. This is wisdom talking - he had his finger on the pulse of Mother India, a clairvoyant genius who has read her past going back many thousand years and described its core essence, the driving forces and inner values of our civilization since a seemingly timeless past, filtered, distilled and crystallized in words of incomparable beauty. Each sentence is like a precious jewel to be "picked up" and read by ones eyes again and again. His thoughts and words caress ones mind like soft satin to ones cheeks. The reader becomes like a treasure hunter who has discovered and prised open that jewel box after a great and life endangering adventure. It is next to impossible not to stop at each sentence and read it again. I usually let my mind play on the same sentences over and over, and it feels like the words have so much hidden depth and wisdom, there are new doors and dimensions that open up in my mind each time I re-read them.

I'm still to complete it. But the one thing that pricks me after I started reading his book is the poverty of thought of the many western writers (and Indian English educated thinkers) who try to explain India. You can pick up book after book over the next few years, spend a few thousand bucks, but all them will not add up and suffice to explain Mother India like Sri Aurobindo has in this set of essays.

The other thing that will hit you is his sheer Genius. You immediately realize as you complete his first essay, that you are reading the works of a super brain and mind, a towering intellect like Chomsky of contemporary times.

Regards

 

[gobble]

Perhaps the title of this thread should be changed to 'Books you have enjoyed' or something to that effect. That would be more relevant.

That would be a disaster. Lets stick to the original focus

Cheers

 

[thevortex]

That would be a disaster. Lets stick to the original focus

Cheers

Well, Gobble, see you are yourself talking about books that you have read and enjoyed. And I see a lot of scope for the thread on these lines. Hence the suggestion for the change in title.

 

[gobble]

Well, Gobble, see you are yourself talking about books that you have read and enjoyed. And I see a lot of scope for the thread on these lines. Hence the suggestion for the change in title.

Exactly why I am re-iterating your words. I know I deviated and lets stop there ...

Cheers

 

[moktan]

vortex..
of course there are books that we enjoy..others that we need to labor through but then the ideas are worth the effort, the experience while excruciating is enlightening....

gobble..
haven't read sri aurobindo...but your thinking seems right up the post-colonialist alley..

 

[thevortex]

Sometime back I had enjoyed reading the book 'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle'. Given that it dealt with the theme of a young deaf-mute boy as well as dogs (particularly about the creation of a new breed of shepherds), it was a must-buy for me. Over the next three days - after acquiring the book - this body of work affected me so much that I ended up writing a little something about it. As in:

Yesterday again I was lost,
lost without hope of being found.
Lost without smoke or fire, without fog or frost,
never wanting to be found and bound.
Blissfully unaware of time's cost,
spinning in somebody else' world round and round.

Yesterday again I was in torture,
breathless, witless and fearful of what's in store.
Stagnant myself but racing to somebody else' future.
Stirred, shaken but still whittling towards the core.

Laughing when being asked to,
Simmering, pouting and crying on cue.
Even ruminating about what he is to say or do
and beginning for his misgivings to rue

Riffling remorselessly through his life,
sniffling, smiling, misting up but not ready to give up.
Its all in there - every smile every strife.
Conceived of wood and with ink given life and lit up.

Again Yesterday,
I held it in my hands - that in which I am still lost,
drowned but not wanting to break for air,
floating, diving and living through the ink.

 

[gobble]

Sometime back I had enjoyed reading the book 'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle'. Given that it dealt with the theme of a young deaf-mute boy as well as dogs (particularly about the creation of a new breed of shepherds), it was a must-buy for me. Over the next three days - after acquiring the book - this body of work affected me so much that I ended up writing a little something about it. As in:

Yesterday again I was lost,
lost without hope of being found.
Lost without smoke or fire, without fog or frost,
never wanting to be found and bound.
Blissfully unaware of time's cost,
spinning in somebody else' world round and round.

Yesterday again I was in torture,
breathless, witless and fearful of what's in store.
Stagnant myself but racing to somebody else' future.
Stirred, shaken but still whittling towards the core.

Laughing when being asked to,
Simmering, pouting and crying on cue.
Even ruminating about what he is to say or do
and beginning for his misgivings to rue

Riffling remorselessly through his life,
sniffling, smiling, misting up but not ready to give up.
Its all in there - every smile every strife.
Conceived of wood and with ink given life and lit up.

Again Yesterday,
I held it in my hands - that in which I am still lost,
drowned but not wanting to break for air,
floating, diving and living through the ink.

Very good effort Vortex!!

Really Nice! I liked the last bit, turning a complete circle ...

Cheers

 

[psychotropic]

I've been planning to start this thread for ages! Right now I am reading Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh, a narration of the history the intrigues and finally the solution to one of the greatest mathematical problems ever posed. I'm also reading, in bits and pieces, this book called Perfecting Sound Forever which would be of interest to the people here because it sets out the history of sound reproduction right from the Edison phonograph down to the the modern era, and talks about every battle there was including acoustic v. electrical, horizontal grooves v. vertical grooves, analogue v. digital, SS v. tubes.....everything

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Lovely book set in Shanghai and the London of the early 20th century. His recreations of the cities themselves are enough reason to read the book. I also remember reading and loving his "Remains of the Day" many years ago.

I also recently read Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson. Lovely travel book about his travels through Europe narrated with brilliant wit and humour. Of course, an absolute must-read by him is A Short History of Nearly Everything. Anyone who is seeing this, irrespective of their tastes, inclinations, whether you're reading Kafka or Ludlum, Proust or Perry Mason pick up this book and I guarantee you won't regret it.

Of the books i've read recently (and in some instances not so recently) here are some random recommendations that spring to mind:

Phantoms in the Brain - VS Ramachandran - Brilliant brilliant book, setting off from his experiments relating to the 'phantom limb syndrome' he proceeds to paint a dazzling picture of the human brain and its workings. Gripping read.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif - Beautiful tongue-in-cheek satire about the death of General Zia.

India After Gandhi - Ramachandra Guha - Absolute must-read for all Indians who want to know a bit about the country that we call our own. As Guha says most history books stop the history of India around 1947. This book shows us what happened around and after that, how this nation was formed and how many of the things that we take for granted including equality, secularism, freedom of expression came to form part of our national fabric.

Anything by Nick Hornby - My favourite writer No literary flourishes, just great stories, deft use of language and a lovely sense of humour.

Okay I am rambling.......I could make this post several pages long, but I'll stop now

 

[moktan]

i am not a great fan of fiction (as in the novel)...but some that i recently enjoyed courtesy a kind friend ( meaning she shipped me these novels) were...
the raw shark texts by steven hall (the one caveat is that the author's presumptions about his plot being movie material kind of transgresses big time and quite a few chapters are written as if they were scenes)..

another that i read a couple of years ago , when the da vinci code (on which i will transact a lively extract from zizek) was another publishing block buster- less vocalized journalistically for its relatively non controversial content- was 'the rule of four'...by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason...

 

[thevortex]

Very good effort Vortex!!

Really Nice! I liked the last bit, turning a complete circle ...

Cheers

Thanks Gobble. But I should perhaps not have cluttered this thread with that sort of nonsense. Will try to stay on topic.

 

[thekinge]

nice list of books there psychotropic!

I've been planning to start this thread for ages! Right now I am reading Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh, a narration of the history the intrigues and finally the solution to one of the greatest mathematical problems ever posed. I'm also reading, in bits and pieces, this book called Perfecting Sound Forever which would be of interest to the people here because it sets out the history of sound reproduction right from the Edison phonograph down to the the modern era, and talks about every battle there was including acoustic v. electrical, horizontal grooves v. vertical grooves, analogue v. digital, SS v. tubes.....everything

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Lovely book set in Shanghai and the London of the early 20th century. His recreations of the cities themselves are enough reason to read the book. I also remember reading and loving his "Remains of the Day" many years ago.

I also recently read Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson. Lovely travel book about his travels through Europe narrated with brilliant wit and humour. Of course, an absolute must-read by him is A Short History of Nearly Everything. Anyone who is seeing this, irrespective of their tastes, inclinations, whether you're reading Kafka or Ludlum, Proust or Perry Mason pick up this book and I guarantee you won't regret it.

Of the books i've read recently (and in some instances not so recently) here are some random recommendations that spring to mind:

Phantoms in the Brain - VS Ramachandran - Brilliant brilliant book, setting off from his experiments relating to the 'phantom limb syndrome' he proceeds to paint a dazzling picture of the human brain and its workings. Gripping read.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif - Beautiful tongue-in-cheek satire about the death of General Zia.

India After Gandhi - Ramachandra Guha - Absolute must-read for all Indians who want to know a bit about the country that we call our own. As Guha says most history books stop the history of India around 1947. This book shows us what happened around and after that, how this nation was formed and how many of the things that we take for granted including equality, secularism, freedom of expression came to form part of our national fabric.

Anything by Nick Hornby - My favourite writer No literary flourishes, just great stories, deft use of language and a lovely sense of humour.

Okay I am rambling.......I could make this post several pages long, but I'll stop now

 

[thevortex]

Nice list of authors there psychotropic. I see one or two tickling my enthusiasm.

I wonder how many here have read 'One hundred years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

For sheer imagination and breadth and scope of story telling I am a big time fan of two people. J.R.R. Tolkien for his almost living, breathing fantasy world in his timeless 'Lord of the Rings' and Stephen King for his spellbinding 'Dark Tower' series. The latter is a very large body of work - 7 discrete novels if I remember right. The sense of breathlessness that this series leaves you with has to be experienced to be appreciated. Emotionally exhausting and perhaps therefore intensely fulfilling.

 

[gobble]

Thanks Gobble. But I should perhaps not have cluttered this thread with that sort of nonsense. Will try to stay on topic.

Its not way OT since its a book that inspired you.
As long the excursions are brief its ok I guess?

cheers

 

[V Madhu]

Ever wondered why we are not able to save enough in spite of our increasing salary? I did, many times. And I realized where I could be going wrong when I started reading this book - Rich dad Poor dad by Robert T. Kyosaki.

A very good book to gain financial literacy. Recommend reading it.

Read an excerpt from the book.,

"OK, $5 an hour."

Suddenly there was a silence from inside me. Something had changed. The offer was too big and had gotten ridiculous. Not too many grownups in 1956 made more than $5 an hour. The temptation disappeared and a calm set in. Slowly I turned my left to look at Mike. He looked back at me. The part of my soul that was weak and needy was silenced. The part of me that had no price took over. There was a calm and a certainity about money that entered my brain and my soul. I knew Mike had gotten to that point also.

"Good." rich dad said softly. "Most people have a price. And they have a price because of human emotions named fear and greed. First, the fear of being without money motivates us to work hard, and then once we get that paycheck, greed or desire starts us thinking about all the wonderful things money can buy. The pattern is then set."

"What pattern?" I asked.

"The pattern of get up, go to work, pay bills, get up, go to work, pay bills... Their lives are then run forever by two emotions, fear and greed. Offer them more money, and they continue the cycle by also increasing their spending. This is what I call the Rat Race."

 

[Asit]

Currently reading

"The Lost River: On the trail of the Sarasvati"

by Michel Danino.

Penguin Books India 2010, (ISBN 9780143068648, 340 pages)

Progress is slow because of current heavy workload and my eye condition. But highly engrossed in it at the moment. Originally driven by a search to find ancient history of Indian music, I finally landed on this book which has nothing on music, but talks of pre-history and proto-history of India. I have already ordered another book on the subject and going to get a few more.

Regards.