My last 3 reads of 2012

This week, I have been reading a quite a lot and the reason is that each of these books is supposed to be excellent. Let’s find out.

1. The Satanic Verses (by Salman Rushdie):

This book has been at the heart of a huge controversy ever since it was written by Salman Rushdie more than 2 decades back and that is the reason I felt so attracted towards reading it. Banned in India, I obtained a copy from abroad over 6 months back, but only got down to reading it this week. I have just crossed a hundred pages (the book is over 540 pages) and it is turning out to be a difficult and incredibly slow read. The reason for this difficulty is the toughness of language and also the way in which the author has been jumping the plot from present day to flashback and the sequences of events are also slightly difficult to follow, even for a seasoned reader like myself. Though, I will not talk about the plot here because I have myself not uncovered it yet, but I will certainly say that I am impressed by Rushdie’s writing skills. They way he has described his characters and their lives is excellent and the plot seems to be developing still.

2. Into the Wild (by Jon Krakauer):

I took a short break from Satanic Verses and started reading “Into the Wild”. This is a gem of a book and I was so incredibly hooked to it that I finished it within a couple of days. It recreates, with incredible emotion and detail, the sad but true story of a young man, Chris McCandless, who decided to give up everything he had and break all links with civilization to spend a few months alone in the Alaskan wild. A few months after he goes into the wild, his dead body is found and it turns out he has died of starvation. The news is made public and then different people respond to this in different ways. Some call him careless, reckless and immature to have undertaken such a journey without preparation, while others have a more humane view of the psychology of McCandless. the author recreates the entire adventure using the photographs McCandless has taken and notes he has maintained in his diary. The book is really excellent and a must-read for everyone. If you haven’t read this, you have missed something.

3. The Motorcycle Diaries (by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara):

A very popular book, it is the diary of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara in which he recounts his exploration of South America along with his friend Alberto, on Alberto’s motorcycle named ‘La Poderosa’, the Mighty One: a 500cc Norton. Guevara describes the days they spend on the exploration and the kind of places they visited, the people they met and the troubles they got into throughout the journey. I have not know much about Guevara before reading this book, but I understand he has been an icon for many and this book is an incredible read that will appeal to all exploration and motorcycle enthusiasts alike. I am halfway through the book and I think it is a very pleasant read.