Two of my favourite authors are dating ! Orhan Pamuk and Kiran Desai....way to go !!! :)

Its the time for annual book fair in city i am currently living. my last post on books already read or to be read was this . have i been able to read all of them ?

nocturnes - kazuo ishiguro - a charming collection of short stories. reminds me to add "remains of the day" to my list of books to read/buy.

short stories by franz kafka - i need to give him some time to grow on me. i will give him a few more chances. i am not so accommodating with writers. my simple theory is - there are so many books to read in this world. why waste time on one writer if he/she isnt able to fascinate you in their first shot ?

note: An embarassing confession - my "fascination" with kafka was with his personal life, especially his last few years with his partner Dora Diamant and her daughter Franziska Marianne (who wasnt fathered by Kafka but named after him).

papillion - henry charriere - not even halfway through the book. i blame it on the fact that i own the book. i always think i will have enough time to read my own books.

the world is flat - thomas friedman - not the most interesting book on the changing world and globalization.

thousand splendid suns - khalid hosseini - read it, mulled over it and dedicated a blogpost on it.

the white tiger - arvind adiga - another casualty of "i own the book, so will have enough time to read it". i have lost my copy now. hmpf.

In my defense of this tiny list, i have also read a lot more that i hadnt included in the list. they would be:

Ramchandra Guha's India After Gandhi

Anjum Hassan's Lunatic in my head

Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road - Whattey book ! i saw the movie much before reading the book. i dont have words to say about sam mendes and his brilliance at casting winslet. it felt like yates had winslet in mind when he wrote the character of april wheeler. normally i dont have too much faith in books being made into movies, but this one was certainly among the few exceptions. (now now...am i raving about the book or the movie ? err...)

Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale

Homer's Illiad - just to give a pat on my back, that i too can read this book.

Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Little Women - read these books again and again and again. 


Here goes my next list.

M.J.Akbar's Have Pen, Will Travel.
Ishiguro's remains of the day
Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of life
Ian McEwan's Atonement
Rohinton Mistry's A fine balance, family matters
Nehru's Discovery of India
Vikram Seth's (non fiction) Two Lives
Obama's The Audacity of Hope - the title is reason enough to read the book.

these are some from the top of my head.

i have the strongest urge to write when i am really really caught-up with work and when i really really shouldnt be doing anything else, forget blogging. but i have to write it out before i can concentrate on my work

so, for now, i am done and i can rest in peace and get back to work.

Magical Realism

This is why he is called a magician, or an author who can spin a web of magical realism:

"The Shah of Blah lost his Gift of the Gab and fell under the evil spell of the Prince of Silence and Foe of Speech".

his son complained to him that he wrote books for everyone but children. and then came this book. a father who had to leave his family and go into hiding, writing to his son, teaching him through allegorical stories about darkness, loss, pain, hope, faith, laughter. i havent come across a book that is so powerful in telling us the importance of stories and dreams. there is a healthy dose of reality, albeit without cynicism.

he dedicates this book to his son, Zafar with these words:

Z embla, Zenda, Xanadu:
A ll our dream-worlds may come true
F airy lands are fearsome too
A s I wonder far from view
R ead, and bring me home to you.

India After Gandhi - Ramachandra Guha

Never been so excited about a book before reading it ! So much so that i am not even starting it in a hurry ;). it rests on my table among the India Todays, Time, Newsweek...in all of its 950-page glory. thank god it isnt a hardback !

950 pages..it is going to be a long time before i finish that book. who knows, i might even stop blogging by then ;)

Personal opinion about a book

i was crying by the end of the book. yet something stops me from raving about the book.

the story of Afghanistan is out there for all to know. the plight of women and children in particular. it needs world attention, i dont deny that. i am sitting in a far-off country and commenting on it and i admit i cannot  even imagine the horror of everyday life there. but i am digressing from my point. what i am trying to say is  that if you take-out the Afghanistan part of the story and try to juxtapose it somewhere else, i think it will not be so effective. the sheer desperation of the lives of the people in the country is what makes the book. and that is a fact. other than that there is little else. he's no Vikram Seth who creates a beautiful languid story out of places that have only a historical importance. nor is he like Rushdie whose writings feels like he is weaving a magical thread of story around you. what i mean to say is the writer here has only Afghanistan and the real happenings there to convert into a work of fiction. not much of imagination.


yet, in all fairness, with this book, he has reached-out to more people than a Nat-Geo article or a news piece in CNN, BBC or any other news channel can. when one reads the detailed horror of life that people have to go through, then it is hard to stay impassive and just treat it as a piece of news article. page after page of vivid description compels you to think, feel, form an opinion and perhaps read more about them. probably that's why it is definitely an important piece of literature.

and yes, i did buy this book after reading a copy from a friend.

Why I love this book

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy

- post colonialism, post partition, free India. it would be an understatement to say the book is set in one of the most interesting times.

- has the social, political and historical backdrop of the country. the ignorant can learn a lot about those times. the knowledgeable can enjoy the vivid and charming descriptions.

- set in few of the most beautiful, ancient, historical and my favourite cities of India - Lucknow, Calcutta, Delhi.

- no melodrama, no high-tension plot, not a strict page-turner. you cannot hurry to the end. this is a book that is like life. keeps going on and on and on. with ocassional spike of something interesting. then again settles down in its languid pace.

- 1350 pages of close-spaced, times new roman font, size 10 (meaning: really small) writing. if you read multiple books at a time, you can read this book in the background. take your time to read it. 2-3 months.

- on a lazy holiday afternoon, with a nice cup of tea or coffee, if you are not in the mood for brainstorming, mysterious, life-altering writings, then this is the perfect one. you have already read the book once. you can still pick-up this paperweight of a book and open any random chapter and read.


- this book fits my perfect description of trying to have a library where all the books occupy the shelves because you have read them, loved them and then bought them.

oh ! did i mention Kabir Durrani ?! Sighhh..... ;)