Friday, September 15, 2006

Booked..

I don’t like tags. I blog rarely to start with, but to be instructed on what I should blog about; that surely cannot fly. Except that I loved this tag, I could not wait to start writing on the list below. So, here’s what I am going to do. I will continue to dislike tabs except the ones I like. The bloggers can tag me all they want, but I will only write on those tags that I want to. Savvy?

The list below is based on reasonably current reading. I do not remember what all I read, nor how I felt about it when I was much younger. I might have found Jack and Beanstalk stitches-in-the-stomach hilarious but today it’s a silly story about a very gullible country idiot.

  1. Book that changed my life –I would have to say that it is not a book, it is a poem instead. IF by Rudyard Kipling. However, if I must choose some book, I’d pick the Fountainhead (not the entire series) by Ayn Rand. Not life changing, but the concept of objectivism was very alluring during teenage years.
  2. Book you’ve read more than once – Several (Prescribed course books for English notwithstanding). Fountainhead – I got something different from it every time. A slew of Jeffrey Archers, Michael Crichtons, Frederick Forsyths , the brilliant Foundation series and the ‘Robot‘ stories By Asimov.
  3. Book you’d take to a desert island – The biggest baddest Roald Dahl Omnibus of short stories I can lay my hands on. I’d probably return more cynical or if it is like one of his stories, it’ll more likely be dead. I will thoroughly enjoy my stay though.
  4. Book that made you laughSurely you’re joking Mr. Feynman - Richard P. Feynman’s autobiographical reminiscences. You will laugh too, and loud, and learn that geeks are SO much fun. For a more British sense of humour, Three men in a boat, or for that matter even, Three men on the Bummel both by Jerome K. Jerome
  5. Book that made you cry – None ever moved me to tears, well maybe War and Peace (but that’s for a whole different reason) but Five People you meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom was a touching story.
  6. Book you wish you had writtenThe Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A trilogy in four parts! by Douglas Adams. In fact, this will comfortably make it to the list that answers questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7(!) From the very concept of a babelfish, the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything being 42 to humans being the third smartest creatures on Earth (after mice and dolphins) which in itself is a gigantic computer specifically ordered by Mice to answer the ultimate question. Enough Said.
  7. Book you wish had never been writtenUlysses by James Joyce. How it can be voted 1st among the 100 best novels in English in the last century is very honestly beyond me (but in all fairness, I have never managed to get past the first 20 very boring pages).
  8. Book you’re currently readingA short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Its been a very interesting read so far. Oh, and H2G2 every night before sleeping – the mix of reading both simultaneously (not simultaneously but you know what I mean) is very potent.
  9. Book you’ve been meaning to read – A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. It is daunting. Apparently, the longest single-volume novel ever published in the English language.

2 Comments:

Blogger sherene said...

Very nice post there :)

'A Suitable Boy' is totally worth a thorough read. One of my favourite books, this is.

3:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting - most people with this tag were most impacted by something they read early in their lives. Is it just about being more impressionable early in life, or about being more open minded?

3:30 AM  

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