scribblings

I am tagged by Kesavan to write on books. For those who wondering what this tagging is all about, this is something sort of a relay race. When I get tagged i have to write on the thing i m tagged to write on and then i tag somebody else to write. It in some sense also looks like the meaning-less-forwards. but then, whathehell, u get a free topic to write on. what else can u ask for. Well, for some people this may be a bane to write on some topics where you dont know head or tail of what is happening. Otherwise, it isnt a bad idea to do something of this kind.

Books I own:

My dad is biblio-phobic. He just hates books. I can never get him to buy a book of any kind, unless it is academic. That being really helpful, my access to books was obviously very minimal. In the contrary, my mom likes books. She like to read tamil novels and also collects them in the good old way. Subscribe for monthly/weekly magazines which have good novels and then take out relavant pages of each issue and get them bound to make volumes of novels. (Lets not drool over copyright issues here ok...)

Given this, there are about 30-40 books of this kind. All of which are books written in tamil. Mostly novels of writers of yesteryears and contemperory. Mom does have a taste for good tamil writers and hence i have read some of the good writers in tamil of yesteryears. Beyond that, i have one book by Dorothy Gilman and some two or three which i dont remember the names as they fail to impress and hence dint register.

Book I read recently:

I recently finished R K Narayan's My days. I am generally slow to read and take quite sometime to finish a book, however thin it is. The book of RKN is just too good. Though autobiographical, it is just amazing to read it. Historically, i finished it in record time. It took far less amount of time that what i normally take to read any other book of similar size. Thats RKN.

Other Books:

Have read tonnes of RKN. English Teacher, The Guide, Vendor of Sweets, Bachelor of Arts hmmm and it goes on. I must have already read atleast half of all that he has written. Another Indian English writer, i relish is, Khushwant Singh. I do like his writings as well. It is true that the man wrote wierder things over advancing age, i did like his Train to Pakistan and Company of Women equally. Beyond that havent much explored anybody who writes english.

All that said on English, well thats not all, i have also read lot of tamil works, Kalki aka R Krishnamurthi being the man who stole my attention a lot. Have read his Ponniyin Selvan, Alai Osai and Thyaga Bhoomi. I can boast of reading tamil works faster than tamil, ah... well, that because of sheer interest. Also have read a few short stories of his.

I like Jayakanthan and Balakumaran who write good tamil works. Balakumarans 'Thirupunthuruthi' is another book which i read in gods pace and finished it off in a record time.

I usually prefer to read fiction. I am keen in history, but havent found the right kinds of books to read. Peotry and Sci-Fi stuff arent my cup of coffee. Presently, for the first time, i m reading a non-ficitonal book. This book called 'Advice to a Young Scientist' by P B Medavar. I am told by a person who i respect a lot, that this is a very good and useful book, especially for people who wish to take up research as full-time job.

Now comes the tough job. To tag others... i would want to tag Sarath, Hari, Ramasubramanian, Ashish, Ganesh, Pavan, Harshavardhan, Deepak J, Shamanth, Santosh, Sanjeev, Sudhon and all those others named and unnamed who read this blog to consider themselves tagged and write on the books they have read...