Books | Confessions of a Disquisitive Writer

My last 3 reads of 2012

December 29, 2012 Leave a comment

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):

satanicverses

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):

intothewild 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):

motorcyclediaries 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.

Filed under Books, Reading List Tagged with Biographies, Books, Che Guevara, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, Reading, Reading List, Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses, The Motorcycle Diaries, True Stories

Reader’s Block

November 27, 2012 1 Comment

Is there such a thing as a Reader’s Block?

About 2 months back I wrote a blog on Writer’s Block that I was suffering from, and still do from time to time. And about 4 months back, I wrote another Blog called OverBooked, in which I described another situation similar to my Reader’s Block but with a peculiar difference.

In Overbooked, I spoke about how I felt spoilt for choices when it came to choosing what book to read simply because I have too many books and could not make up my mind on any one of them. But now, I write about my Reader’s Block, wherein I do want to start reading, but I want to know that with every page I turn I am gaining something important. I want to know that my life is much better, even by the tiniest bit, because of the last page I just read. I just don’t want to read for the pleasure of reading, for that pleasure I will inevitably find in whatever I read. I want to read because I would be miserable if I did not. And so, the book needs to be one which can remove that misery and fill the hole that is there in my heart.

For instance, when I read “A Demon Haunted World” by Carl Sagan about a year ago, every line I read gave me sheer pleasure of the wonderful writing of Dr. Sagan and every page I turned made me feel my life was that much more enriched because of what I’ve read. Similarly, there have been books like “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan, Sherlock Holmes, “IACOCCA” by Lee Iacocca, “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank and (oddly enough) “Confessions of a Conjuror” by Derren Brown, all of which have made me feel better about having read a book from which I am taking away something.

And, so I started reading “Relativity” by Albert Einstein this evening, hoping to understand the world much better and peep into the mind of the man who stunned the world with his genius. It is a good book and challenges your intelligence but it isn’t what I want, though I will still finish it very soon.

But now, I am stuck again, this time not for choice but for content. The book I read needs to give me something of intellectual value, where each page turned makes me happier than before. Something, that I should be proud of having read. A book that gives me a reason to be happy or a book that destroys my closely held prejudices. But most importantly, a book which upon opening makes me forget the world. It’s a tough choice because what I might see as an intriguing read might be boring to someone else. I keep remembering this quote I found on the internet:

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. ~P.J. O’Rourke

So, please dear reader, help me out and suggest a book that you think I will open and then lose myself. Please leave your suggestions in the comments section.

Thanks for reading!

Filed under Books, Reflections Tagged with Books, Carl Sagan, Life, Reader's Block, Reading, writer's block, Writing

My Bookshelf

November 10, 2012 Leave a comment

Just cleaned up and rearranged my Bookshelf. It has over 150 books in this area alone and some others are stacked away in some corner of my house that I don’t really remember.

Arranged these books categorically into Literature and Fiction, Science, Philosophy, Biographies, Management, Motivation, Software, etc.

My personal book collection is a matter of pride for me because of the range of subjects that I like to read and how immensely I value books.

How do you keep your book collection clean and safe? Please share your suggestions with me.

Filed under Books, Reading List Tagged with Book Case, Book Collection, Book Shelf, Books, personal book collection, Reading, value books

Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell

October 12, 2012 Leave a comment

This book, written by the literary genius George Orwell, is a fantastic read that takes you almost a hundred years back in time to Paris and then London, cities which are today the epitome of modernism, but this book shows how low life really had fallen for thousands who lived in them. Orwell starts the story from Paris, where he lives in abject poverty and never knows where his next meal would come from. He admits to spending many straight days without food, and describes in great detail how he would keep his mind off hunger by sleeping through days or just lying in bed to avoid any physical effort that would increase the strain on his body. Tobacco replaces food and sometimes there is no water as well and Orwell spends many days at a stretch without even taking a bath.

He moves from Paris to London in search for better work but bad economy and bad luck, both wreak havoc on his life and just when the reader starts to feel that things could not get any worse and the story might turn around in the next few pages, circumstances just manage to become worse.

At the end of the book, it is saddening to read that an author of Orwell’s brilliance faced such a lonely and sad life as a tramp roaming the streets of London, looking for a different shelter every night. The conditions of the lives of an average tramp have been laid bare and no reader can read this book and continue to feel contempt for tramps.

Orwell also exposes the unhygienic kitchen conditions of the best of Paris hotels in such grave detail that it becomes very difficult after reading this to trust a nice and smart looking hotel. The entire account is very interesting.

I bought this book a few months back, but never really got down to reading it because I always thought I had something better to read. Though I must say that I was mistaken in thinking that this book was going to be a bore and had I the faintest idea about the brilliance of it, I would have read it the day I bought it.

It is a great book, hard to put down because it engrosses the reader immensely into the life of the author, owing to its spectacular first person narrative. Orwell was a genius and his writings exhibit depths of the intellect that are hard to associate a tramp with.

If you haven’t read it, you have missed something great.

Filed under Books Tagged with Autobiography, book review, Books, George, George Orwell, London, Orwell, Paris, Poverty, Reading, Tramp

Taking Down Bob – My First Short Story eBook

October 10, 2012 Leave a comment

Finally, I have managed to write my first short story, something of an achievement considering the fact that I’ve been toying with the idea for a couple of months now.

Bob is the hostel psycho, a brash fat giant who often loses himself in enthusiasm and whose idea of fun often meant suffering for others. Most of the hostel inmates are tired of Bob’s bullying and their inability to return the favor. Tonight, a weird shoe fight riot has broken through the hostel and Bob has already been dominating the entire proceedings by beating the crap out of most inmates with his heavy boots. Though scared of him, they ultimately hatch a plan of getting him alone and attacking him in a group. The story deals with how 18-year olds of this Bob dominated hostel work together to catch him in a spot through conspiracy, risk, teamwork and double-crossing.

Taking Down Bob is a story that is close to my heart as it reminds me of the great time I’ve had in our college hostel and, though it is a piece of fiction, it will certainly seem inspired from a series of events sometime in 2005, to those who spent their time in the same hostel as me.

The story has been published today as a multi-format ebook by Smashwords.

I hope you will read it. It’s completely free and available at:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/243973

And if you like it, don’t forget to let me know by leaving a short review.

My profile page at smashwords is:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/shitijbagga

Filed under Books, Literature & Fiction, Writing Tagged with Author, Books, college, ebooks, Fiction, Humor, self-published, smashwords, Writing

Book Review – The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

September 21, 2012 Leave a comment

Last night, I decided to read ’The Importance of Being Ernest’ by Oscar Wilde. It is a humorous short story described as a drama setting. The main protagonist is Jack Worthing, someone who needs to be well behaved due to him being the guardian of an 18 year old girl, but on the other hand, has a fun loving side to him, which he can only fulfil using an alternative identity of “Ernest” in another part in the country.

Being a comedy, the story is set in a world where some people follow a flawed logic, for instance, Jack’s friend Algy says to him, “..girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right..” and on another occasion, Gwendolen, who is Jack’s darling says, “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”

In such an illogical and humorous world, the alternative identity of ’Ernest’ cause great troubles for Jack and his friend Algy and they constantly try and work their ways out of it, when a clever twist of the plot towards the end unveils a decades old mystery.

Though the book is a pleasant read and may not appeal very much to an experienced reader, owing to the fact that the plot has been exploited hundreds of times in other writings and cinema, I still suggest one reads this simply to enjoy the writing of the literary genius of Oscar Wilde. This is a very easy to read book and the humorous dialogs by each character are really a treat and some of these even made me laugh out loud.

Filed under Books, Humor, Literature & Fiction Tagged with book review, Books, Ernest, Fiction, Humor, Humour, Literature, Oscar Wilde, Reading

The Liebster Award

August 19, 2012 3 Comments

After a very busy day of wandering about in Delhi looking to buy the iPad, but returning empty handed (a very long story, more on that later), I was feeling very tired and just logged in to check my blog. And what do I see? A fellow blogger Wanton Creation (hereafter WC), whose blogs I really like, has nominated my blog for the Liebster Award. (See http://wantoncreation.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/the-liebster-award/)

‘The What Award?’

Well, really, I had no clue about what this means because I am only 2 weeks old on Blog-land and wrote only a handful of posts. Then I went through his detailed post and other posts linked with it and that’s when I understood what the Liebster Award basically means.

So, let me start off by saying a big THANK YOU, WC (I can’t figure out your actual name from your pages so I hope you don’t mind me calling you WC for now). It is very nice of you to nominate me and I hope I will do justice to your questions.

The Rules

So, here is how it works. The award is targeted for those bloggers who have less than 200 followers. I had 15 when I started writing this post and 16 when I finished, so I guess I qualified pretty nicely.

Moving on, the rules say that I must answer 11 questions put up by the award giver. Fair enough, I will do so below.

Next, the rules go on to say that I must, in turn, pick 11 people of my own choice for the award and pose 11 new questions to them as well. Now, that’s pretty interesting. I am also listing my list of 11 below and hopefully you, dear reader, will find them interesting as well.

But I liked the concept. I really did. It is a really nice way to introduce new bloggers like myself to the rest of the blogging community and give us some platform to talk about us and hopefully, a larger no. of bloggers will read what I have to say.

So, without further ado, here are my answers to questions put up to me, after which I will post my 11 nominations and their 11 questions:

Wanton Creation’s Questions (and my answers):

Q1. What’s your favourite word in the English language?
— My favourite word in English language is: “Sweetheart”. It just is.

Q2. What are you listening to as you write the answer to this question (if not music, what sounds)?
— I am listening to the slow hum of the air-conditioner in my room.

Q3. What was the last thing you ate that you really, really enjoyed?
— My mom cooked chicken curry at home and I went ballistic.

Q4. You’re at a job interview, and the interviewer asks you to make them laugh. What do you do or say?
— I would say, “Sorry Sir, but my doctor told me not to be myself today until I reach home.” And then I would look towards an imaginary figure behind him and wink.

Q5. The world is about to blow up, but you’re being saved, and are allowed to take five things to another planet (aside from the clothes you are currently wearing), where you and only 999 other people will now exist (ignore the bleakness of this question). What do you take?
— 1. My complete collection of Books.
(special mention: The book ‘Pale Blue Dot’ by Carl Sagan, so that I can remember my home planet when I miss it.)
— 2. My complete Photos Collection.
— 3. My iPod.
— 4. A Telescope.
— 5. My folder that contains all the Greeting Cards that I have ever been gifted.

Q6. What’s your favorite drink to consume first thing in the morning?
— Tea.

Q7. What was the last book to make you cry?
— Love Story by Erik Segal.

Q8. What’s the most ridiculous or silliest way you’ve been injured?
— I was reading a book and got a paper cut and it bled.

Q9. What’s your favourite city in the world? Why?
— My favourite city in the world has to be Paris. It’s just an awesome place to be if you are living there, or just visiting. There is absolutely so much to see and enjoy. Plus, I found people there to be partying really well in the few days that I stayed.

Q10. What’s the most embarrassing album in your music collection? (Be honest)
— Well, when I was a kid, I bought the album “Govinda” by an Indian actor turned one-time-singer of the same name. I basically did it because I was a big fan of the actor and I loved whatever work he did. In hindsight, I feel though he did make a serious effort of singing, the album was mostly crap.

Q11. To borrow an old line from a Crowded House song, would you rather a mansion in the slums or a caravan in the hills (i.e. a nice house in a not nice area, or a tiny living space but with views)?
— A caravan in the hills.

My list of 11 nominated blogs for Liebster Award:

My list of 11 questions to each of these award recipients:

Q1. What is your favourite book of all time?

Q2. Which is your favourite post from your own blog till date and why?

Q3. You’re meeting your girlfriend/boyfriend’s parents for the first time. What do you say or do to break the ice?

Q4. You are 100% free from work and other shackles for today. How would you like to spend your day? (in couple of sentences at most)

Q5. Have you ever read a book that challenged your intellect? Which one and how was it challenging?

Q6. Mention one of your obsessive compulsive habits that you’ve ever had. (like climbing stairs two steps at a time.. come on, everybody HAS something)

Q7. One thing that you have always been really good at.

Q8. One thing that you have always been really bad at.

Q9. What did you want to become when you were little and what have you become? Is it the same?

Q10. One thing that you would love to procrastinate forever, if it was so possible.

Q11. Favourite age at which you could go back and live it again.

I wish the nominees have a fun time trying to answer my 11 questions. I hope to see everyone’s response very soon.

Good Luck and Enjoy blogging….

Filed under Awards, Writing Tagged with Awards, Blogging, Books, Liebster, Liebster Award, Questions, Reading

Books I Read Last Week – Part 1 (Aug 6-12, 2012)

August 12, 2012 Leave a comment

Last week has been miserable in terms of the amount of reading I’ve done. It has also been the first (extended) week of my blogging here so I guess I am dividing time between blogging and reading. Further, I’ve been very busy at work and at home as well, due to which I couldn’t concentrate on reading much.

But this is what I read last week:

1. Joy in the Morning
by: P.G. Wodehouse
Literature and Fiction / Humor
Status: Half Read, Still Reading

As I am a big admirer of books by Wodehouse, it is quite difficult for me to not read one of his classics. This week, I’ve started reading Joy in the Morning, another classic novel from the Jeeves and Wooster series. Till now, Bertie Wooster has refused Boko and Nobby to cooperate in their second scheme to sacrifice him for making poor old Boko look good in Uncle Percy’s eyes. At the same time, young boy scout Edwin has burnt down an entire house as a result of his act of kindness. Sadly, I haven’t been able to finish this during the week but I plan to keep this as my target in the coming week.

This book also belongs to the series of the Books I Like to Read Before I Sleep which is another blogs posting of mine.

2. Billions and Billions – Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
by: Carl Sagan
Science / Astronomy / Philosophy
Status: Half Read, Still Reading

Being a staunch admirer of everything that the great Carl Sagan has ever written, it is truly amazing to read his books like Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot, The Demon Haunted World, etc. This week, I’ve started reading Billions and Billions chapter-by-chapter. My intention is not to read the entire book at once because most of the chapters are dealing with different topics so it is possible to read each chapter even after some gap of time. Till now, I’ve read Dr. Sagan’s musings on how, in human history, the significance of numbers has increased and Millions led to Billions led to Trillions. I especially enjoyed Sagan’s light-hearted commentary on observing how people all over the media were increasingly attributing the phrase “Bbillions and Bbillions” to him, despite him having never uttered it even once in his popular television series: Cosmos.
Overall, An excellent read.

What about next week?

I plan to finish Joy in the Morning and Read Billions… a little more. Would you like to recommend me a nice book?

Filed under Books, Reading List Tagged with Books, Carl Sagan, Humor, Novels, Reading, Review, Wodehouse, Wooster

August 10, 2012 Leave a comment

Is that me?

Biblioklept

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Filed under Books Tagged with art, Books, Reading

OverBOOKed

August 10, 2012 1 Comment

Too Many Options?

I am a voracious reader. And a compulsive-obsessive book collector. For me, genre is not and has never been a barrier. Science, Philosophy, History, Politics, Literature & Fiction, Biographies, Psychology, you name the genre and I have read something related.

So, it is imperative for me to carry a book wherever I go. Whether I am going to office in the morning, or visiting friends and relatives over the weekends or simply out for break, I always need to carry a book with me. I am building my personal space for books, a mini-library if you may. As of now, it contains over 130 books (as of last official count), all of which I have bought in the last 2 years. That basically means 1.3 books a week. And most importantly, each of those titles has been purchased after careful deliberation on my part.

That is not to say that I am reading a lot of books in practice or that I must be a speed reader. No, I am hardly able to cover a book in less than 2 weeks and there is a very bad reason for it. I don’t seem to have the time for it. When I am travelling to office every morning, I read for about half an hour. Then I start to feel sick because of reading in a moving car (does that to me a lot). In the evening, I reach home quite late and it is only when I get into bed that I continue the book. Needless to say the tiredness of the entire day gets the better of me and every night I fall asleep with the book still held open in my hands. Yes, every single night. Next morning, the cycle continues.

Weekends are when I really cherish the idea of reading a lot. I have mostly been able to pick up a book and, provided there are no distractions, have been able to enjoy my reading quite a lot. On the whole, I think I have read at least 110 of those 130, but having 20 unread books can sometimes be very troublesome. Let me explain.

I sometimes get into a phase, in which I have termed myself as being ‘Overbooked’. It is a state in which I am eager to start/continue reading a book but I am unable to decide which one. For instance, should I read ‘The Republic’ by Plato that I bought a long time back and really want to get through, or should I pick up from where I left off with my PG Wodehouse collection? Things get complicated when, simultaneously, it occurs to me that I have recently bought Sam Harris’s ‘The Moral Landscape’ but deep within my heart, I really now need to read Christopher Hitchens’s ‘Hitch-22’, an autobiography that I have secured in a plastic bag since last 2 yrs for the fear of it catching even a mote of dust. I could even read up the 2^nd volume of Stephen Fry’s autobiography, titled ‘The Fry Chronicles’. But, Truth be told, there is no greater masterpiece like the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ collection that I have. So, basically, I am spoilt for choices.

Sometimes, this phase can get really frustrating and absorbing, with the result that I spend most of my energy in this futile attempt at decision-making and end up reading nothing at all. But I often wonder why this happens to me and it might make you wonder if I am simply a spendthrift who keeps buying books by the dozen but does not care to read them.

But it’s not that I don’t care, for I purchase every single title after very careful deliberations and am very touchy about the condition of each book in my collection. I take care to even wash my hands before I take out some of the special books form my library. It is just that I do feel spoilt for choices and with the kind of affection I have for my books, it is somewhat like having many girlfriends, all of them being equally amazing (well, not really), but you can’t spend time with all of them together. I know I could have used a better analogy and this one might make me sound like a nerd or a geek who really doesn’t understand the difference between women and books, but I hope you will not judge me on this because I do understand the difference and never mix the two.

Has this ever happened to you, being spoilt for choices and feeling actually frustrated about it? If yes, I would love to know what you do in such a situation. How do you come out of such a dilemma when you are spoilt for choices? Please share your experiences with me.