I love books, in fact, I feel incomplete having them around the house and I love the smell of old books. I have read quite a few in the last 15 years or so, starting with The Hardy Boys series(when I was 13 years old) to *100 years of solitude *. Some books have affected me profoundly, and those books are mentioned in this review. I don’t want to keep the review long, as people may loose interest by they reach halfway, cos. its not a very light subject, hence won’t mention much about these books, am just compiling a list of 5 best books and if possible will post individual reviews:-)
Fountainhead
No one can deny after reading this book that its very special. It somehow grabs you and pulls you in it from the first page onwards, and you don’t feel like putting it now. I used to dream that I have’become’ Howard Rourke:-). May by it was one of my adolescent fantasies.
It was first released in 1942 and its by Ayn Rand. She is assured a place in literary history because of just two books, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Midnights Children
Probably the best work of Salman Rushdie, a terrific book, with a lot of wonderful characters. Probably Salman was one of very few writers who could use Magical Realism quite effectively.
The book seems quite normal, talks about people born on the 15th of August, 1947(I am not sure as I read it long back), and all those characters possess magical power or a gift. A girl from Kerala can get into any water body and come out of another one! But inside, the book is full of political undertones. And of course, it’s about India.
One of the most entertaining books I have ever read. And Salman Rushdie won a Booker Prize for this one.
Catch 22
You may wonder why Catch 22 is here, its because I simply love this book by Joseph Heller. I had posted a comment about the same in the review on this book by one member. Am reproducing a part of it here. Well, you may wonder what is Catch 22 situation? Read this:
why doesn’t Luciana wants to marry Yossarian? She thinks Yossarian is Crazy. And she thinks yossarian is crazy because he wants to marry her. He wont be crazy if he doesn’t want to marry Luciana, and then she will marry Yossarian cos he is no longer crazy, but why would he marry her if he doesn’t want to marry her, am confused now and I hope u got the point.
Great characters and superb humor puts this book in this list., who can forget * Yossarian, Doc Daneeka, Captain Black and Milo
A Fortune Teller Told me
Its by *Tiziano Terzani * who was a correspondent in South East Asia for 30 years, One day one fortune teller told him not to fly and it changed his life completely. I could relate somewhat to the books, particularly about the Travel part of the story, which takes hem from Thailand to Malaysia, China to India, as I have myself, journeyed though most of these countries. He traveled by foot, land and sea, but he never flew.
His greatest dream was to settle in India, where he feels that the can find nature and people unaltered by Industrialization and Globalization. I love the comment and observations he made on the various countries and their customs and people, some that I still remember are (Rephrased by me though.)
Singapore is now an Air-conditioned island, you can’t smell the food and spices anymore.
The first thing you hear when you reach china is Money, money is everything and people are mad about money
I could go on, but I would suggest that you pick it up, and believe me its not full of superstition as the Title indicates:-)
A Brief history of Time
Its by Sthphen W Hawkings. Anyone with an inclination towards Science try to pick it up. It made me realize how insignificant Iam in this world. He has made the concept quite simple and anyone can understand it, if he/she has some teeny weeny knowledge of Physics. I can’t even imagine some of the things he says for eg:
- there are ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million(1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe
The meter is defined to be the distance travelled by light in 0.000000003335640952 seconds, as measured by a caesium clock.
A black hole with a mass of a few times that of the sun would have a temperature of only one ten millionth of a degree above absolute zero.its temperature would be so low that when it starts loosing mass, it would take about a million million million million million million million million million million million years to evaporate completely.
I am awestruck with what is written in this book, it made me think about my life and life of the people I love differently.
That’s it guys. Happy reading any do try to pick up one of these books if you have not read it; and post or send me your comments.
Rgds
RR