reading, publishing & giving away books

• The books we give away – Books – Salon.com

  We like to think that books line our shelves because we ask them inside, but the simple truth is that they cross our thresholds whether we invite them or not. Books alight under the Christmas tree or beside a birthday cake as presents from people we love. Like a thistle hitching a ride on the household dog, books attach themselves to our palms as we walk through bookshops or rummage sales…
  But any book weeder, no matter how lenient, inevitably wonders if he’s weeding too much. Like many readers, I’ve often confronted the basic dilemma of culling one’s shelves, which is that the book one gives away today is the very title that will be needed — or fervently desired — tomorrow. I feel a tinge of grievance each time I’m required to visit my public library and borrow reference books that, in some previous clean-out, I donated to the collection. As if plotting to spring them from jail, I sometimes wonder if I can secretly steal them back…

  tags: books bookshelves salon reading

• Only Six Books: Excerpt From Jeanette Winterson’s New Memoir – The Daily Beast
• This suggests to me that the pursuit of happiness, which we may as well call life, is full of surprising temporary elements—we get somewhere we couldn’t go otherwise and we profit from the trip, but we can’t stay there. It isn’t our world, and we shouldn’t let that world come crashing down into the one we can inhabit. The beanstalk has to be chopped down. But the large-scale riches from the ‘other world’ can be brought into ours, just as Jack makes off with the singing harp and the golden hen. Whatever we ‘win’ will accommodate itself to our size and form—just as the miniature princesses and the frog princes all assume the true form necessary for their coming life, and ours…
  I was very quiet for a while, but I had realised something important: whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe…
• tags: books memoir reading writing wp

• The Reader and Technology | New Writing | Granta Magazine
  If the computer games which exist now had existed back in 1979 I would not have read any books, I think; I would not have seen writing as an adequate entertainment; I would not have seen going outdoors as sufficiently interesting to bother with. Similarly, I find it difficult to understand why any eleven-year-old of today would be sufficiently bored to turn inward for entertainment.
  This raises the question as to how future writers will come about, without ‘silence, exile and cunning’ – without the need for these things?…
  Readers more accustomed to screens – web pages, iPhone displays – will scan a page of text for its contents, rather than experience it in a gradual linear top-left to bottom-right way. This will make for increased speed and decreased specificity. These readers will be half-distracted even as they read; their visual field will include other things than just the text, because they won’t feel happy unless those things are there. A writer of long, doubling-back sentences such as Henry James will be incomprehensible to them. They won’t be grammatically equipped to deal with him. They won’t be neurologically capable of reading him. Their eyes will photograph fields rather than, as ours do, or did, follow tracks…
  Proposition: ‘The human race is no longer sufficently bored with life to be distracted by an art form as boring as the novel.’
  Perhaps novels will continue, but instead of the machine it will be the connectivity that stops, or becomes secondary.
• tags: reader technology writing reading novels literature fiction wp

• Why trailblazing Amazon should take on the publishing establishment | Books | guardian.co.uk
• I’ve long been curious about why so many people are frightened of a potential future Amazon monopoly while simultaneously so sanguine about the real existing monopoly run by New York’s so-called Big Six. And it’s been interesting for me to see people try to explain away the evidence of collusion between the CEOs of the major publishers as set forth in the US Justice Department’s suit against these publishers and in the equivalent suit brought by 16 states…
  I wasn’t around for previous technology-driven disruptions of industries, but I’m confident that as cars displaced horse-drawn carriages, electric lights displaced candles, and digitally distributed music displaced CDs, to name just a few, the establishments of the day decried the newcomers’ methods and aims and predicted that the new way would inevitably cause The Destruction of Civilisation and the End of All That Is Good. And yet the doomsayers’ predictions have never come true. In all these transitions, something was lost, but more was gained. The same dynamic is now playing itself out as a hidebound and moribund publishing industry, notable chiefly for its decades-long failure to involve itself in even a single innovation, is displaced by something more efficient and effective. And the dynamic will go on repeating itself, again and again, long after the legacy publishing industry has gone the way of the icebox, the telegraph, and the Vulgate Bible. As internet guru Clay Shirky recently put it, “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution,” and in this regard legacy publishing is in no way unique.
  Though I’m certainly rooting for legacy publishers to successfully adapt (and why wouldn’t I? When someone is sick, you don’t want him to die; you want him to get well), I also think Amazon has been an enormous boon to readers and authors. Does anyone really believe that, without Amazon’s innovations, readers would be paying less, or authors making more? Or that there would be remotely as big and vibrant a digital and self-publishing market for books if Amazon hadn’t blazed the trail with the Kindle, the Kindle Store, and digital self-publishing?…
  In the meantime, the publishing establishment wants you to believe that in order to prevent Amazon from possibly one day charging higher book prices, the establishment has to charge you higher prices today. Or, to put it another way, “Hey, you might get robbed if you carry all that cash around, so I’ll just save you the trouble by taking your wallet right here.” This isn’t an argument; it’s a con job. Consumers ought to recognise it as such.
• tags: amazon publishing establishment books reading wp
• You Are Not Your Bookshelf | BOOK RIOT
• But I thought I was!
• tags: books reading wp
• How to Send Web Pages and Documents to your Kindle
  Let’s say there’s an interesting article on the web that you would like to read on your Amazon Kindle while on your way back home. Or maybe you have a couple of PDF eBooks on your desktop that you want to transfer to your Kindle. How do you initiate the transfer wirelessly? You can either use bookmarklets to send web pages to your Kindle or email the documents as attachments to your @kindle.com address. However, a more convenient option is the Send to Kindle app from Amazon.com – this app has been available for Windows PCs for quite some time now and today, Amazon released a Mac version as well.tags: kindle reading web apps labnol technology wp

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

An Author’s Dyslexia

• With Dyslexia, Words Failed Me and Then Saved Me – NYTimes.com

  I couldn’t tie my shoes, tell time or left from right, or recreate musical notes or words. I not only couldn’t read but often couldn’t hear or understand what was being said to me — by the time I’d processed the beginning of a sentence, the teacher was well on her way through a second or third. When I did have something to say I couldn’t find the words with which to say it, or if I could, forgot how to pronounce them.
  My situation then seemed hopeless; I had no idea what a learning disability was, or that it had nothing to do with intelligence…

  I didn’t know then that I was beginning a lifelong love affair with the first-person voice and that I would spend most of my life inventing characters to say all the things I wanted to say. I didn’t know that I was to become a poet, that in many ways the very thing that caused me so much confusion and frustration, my belabored relationship with words, had created in me a deep appreciation of language and its music, that the same mind that prevented me from reading had invented a new way of reading, a method that I now use to teach others how to overcome their own difficulties in order to write fiction and poetry…
  We knew so much less when I was a child. Then, all I wanted and needed, when I learned so painstakingly to read and then to write, was to find a way to be less alone. Which is, of course, what spoken and written language is really all about.

  tags: dyslexia reading writing learning wp

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

#flashreads for Free Speech – III

Another reminder that #flashreads will happen on 14th Feb. (You can see the #flashreads invite or read more about it here)

I’m posting one of my all-time favorite poems below.

सबसे ख़तरनाक / पाश

मेहनत की लूट सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
पुलिस की मार सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
ग़द्दारी और लोभ की मुट्ठी सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
बैठे-बिठाए पकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
सहमी-सी चुप में जकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होता
कपट के शोर में सही होते हुए भी दब जाना बुरा तो है
जुगनुओं की लौ में पढ़ना
मुट्ठियां भींचकर बस वक्‍़त निकाल लेना बुरा तो है
सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होता

सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है मुर्दा शांति से भर जाना
तड़प का न होना
सब कुछ सहन कर जाना
घर से निकलना काम पर
और काम से लौटकर घर आना
सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है
हमारे सपनों का मर जाना
सबसे ख़तरनाक वो घड़ी होती है
आपकी कलाई पर चलती हुई भी जो
आपकी नज़र में रुकी होती है

सबसे ख़तरनाक वो आंख होती है
जिसकी नज़र दुनिया को मोहब्‍बत से चूमना भूल जाती है
और जो एक घटिया दोहराव के क्रम में खो जाती है
सबसे ख़तरनाक वो गीत होता है
जो मरसिए की तरह पढ़ा जाता है
आतंकित लोगों के दरवाज़ों पर
गुंडों की तरह अकड़ता है
सबसे ख़तरनाक वो चांद होता है
जो हर हत्‍याकांड के बाद
वीरान हुए आंगन में चढ़ता है
लेकिन आपकी आंखों में
मिर्चों की तरह नहीं पड़ता

सबसे ख़तरनाक वो दिशा होती है
जिसमें आत्‍मा का सूरज डूब जाए
और जिसकी मुर्दा धूप का कोई टुकड़ा
आपके जिस्‍म के पूरब में चुभ जाए

मेहनत की लूट सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
पुलिस की मार सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
ग़द्दारी और लोभ की मुट्ठी सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती ।

2011 Reading

I read far fewer books in 2011, than I did in 2010. Somehow, there just wasn’t space among all the free time spent doing nothing much! And quite a few books were comfort food.

Anyway, below is the list of the books I read, in the order of reading:

Author – Book – Genre – My Review
1. Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club – Fiction – Some parts of this novel work, but on the whole I wasn’t sure why it was so popular; maybe because it meandered so much!
2. Neil Gaiman – Anansi Boys – Fiction – Most definitely Gaiman’s best work; the concept is pure Gaiman, but the true magic was in the execution which left me breathless.
3. Neil Gaiman – Coraline – Fiction – A chilling tale, which the kids are sure to love!
4. Cali Ressler, Jody Thompson – Why Work Sucks And How To Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution – Business – Interesting premise, and since Ressler & Thompson are coming from their experience at Best Buy, this makes it all the more worthwhile. Wish it read less like a marketing brochure though.
5. Alberto Manguel – A Reader on Reading – Essays – For any reader, or anyone interested in reading as a process, or curious about why we read, this is an invaluable study. And it’s bloody interesting to boot.
6. Various – Batman R.I.P – Fiction – I don’t really think I’m cut out to appreciate graphic novels; this left me strangely unmoved.
7. John Grisham – The Confession – Fiction – Grisham rediscovers *some* of his old story-telling magic; still nowhere as good as his best
8. Neil Degrasse Tyson – Death by Black Hole – Essays – Tyson takes you on a journey of the universe, as befits his stature as one of the leading cosmologists of the world. What was surprising was the wit & humor with which he presents arcane & difficult scientific concepts, making them accessible to the layperson-reader.
9. Tom Holt – Wish You Were Here – Fiction – Not as laugh-out-loud funny as the other works of Holt, but much deeper in parts; what happens when the deepest dreams of a set of people comes true!
10. Dave Barry – Dave Barry’s complete guide to guys – Fiction – If you don’t want to be shunned from all polite company for all time to come, please refrain from reading this book in presence of anyone else, including your dog! You will have tears running down your face, and your uncontrollable laughter will mark you as a degenerate maniac.
11. Shel Silverstein – Where the sidewalk ends – Fiction – Super-awesome poems & amazing sketches!
12. Robert Sutton – Good Boss, Bad Boss – Business – Sutton has been spying on my corporate life, and my many bosses -  this book proves it!
13. Various – My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me – Fiction – New fairy tales; some of them are fairly captivating, but not all of them work.
14. Goscinny & Uderzo  – Asterix in Spain – Fiction – Still trying to absorb all the jokes
15. Nassim Nicholas Taleb – The Bed of Procrustes – Essays – Short, witty aphorisms, which will challenge all that you hold to be true & dear
16. Nora Ephron – I Feel Bad About My Neck – Essays – Ephron, the writer of “When Harry Met Sally” shows it’s possible to write a memoir consisting entirely of short essays, that make a reader laugh with you, while going, “hold on, that happens to me!”
17. Tom Holt – Djinn Rummy – Fiction – Nothing to say, except he is the master of absurd humor writing!
18. Terry Pratchett – Color of Magic – Fiction – The first discworld book I read; I’m sorry I discovered Pratchett so late in life
19. Joe Hill – Heart-shaped Box – Fiction – Horror with very interesting twists; although not comparable to his stories!
20. Terry Pratchett – The Light Fantastic – Fiction – Even better than Color of Magic, this second book in the series rocks!
21. John Constantine Hellblazer – The Fear Machine – Fiction – Discovered Constantine graphic novels at a late stage in life; highly recommended for those into this sort of thing. I wish I were.
22. John Constantine Hellblazer – The Family Man – Fiction – Discovered Constantine graphic novels at a late stage in life; highly recommended for those into this sort of thing. I wish I were.
23. Batman & Robin – Batman Reborn – Fiction – Much better than Batman R.I.P.
24. Terry Pratchett – Wyrd Sisters – Fiction – Laugh out loud funny; but also makes you think. The literary asides & allusions are a treat.
25. Lucy Kellaway – Martin Lukes: Who Moved My Blackberry – Fiction – Strongly reminiscent of Sidin Vadukut’s Dork, this is one rollicking journey through an year of a clueless manager’s life!
26. Jeffrey Deaver – More Twisted – Fiction – Even more twisted than the original Twisted, these stories should come with a statutory warning! Lovely!!
27. Jeremy Clarkson – The World According to Clarkson – Essays – Irreverent, opinionated, and laugh-out-loud funny! Although I did wish I had read it in 3 parts
28. Neil Gaiman – Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader – Fiction – Gaiman has his own perspective on how the death of Batman would play out; could have been fleshed out a bit more though.
29. Terry Pratchett – Mort – Fiction – If you have ever wondered what it would be like to have some really awesome powers, how about being an apprentice to Death! Beware: it might be disastrous for your love life though.
30. Tom Holt – You Don’t have to be evil to work here, but it helps – Fiction – Tom Holt! FTW!!! (Super-awesome, and every office-goer will relate to it)
31. Rob Parsons – Teenagers – Parenting – A timely & valuable guide to raising teenagers: the lessons might be obvious, but they can always do with a repetition
32. Jai Arjun Singh – Popcorn Essayists – Essays – I really didn’t think film-writing was for me, till I discovered Jai Arjun’s blog. In this collection, he introduces us to the musings on this genre by a series of well-known non-film writers.
33. Devdutt Patnaik – Jaya – Fiction – An informed & balanced re-telling of Mahabharata, which draws from various sources, highlights them, and provides a commentary on the much-loved text.
34. Kabir – Ghat Ghat Kabir – Poetry – An impressive effort by “The Kabir Project”. Wish they had included some of the more accessible/popular works as well.
35. Linda Hess – Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir – Poetry – Some great couplets with good translations; but one wishes Hess wasn’t so hagiographically madly in love with Kumar Gandharva’s singing
36. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations – Essays – Aurelius was wise; and this book full of nuggets of his wisdom is exactly what I needed.
37. Gever Tulley & Julie Spiegler – 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) – Parenting – Interesting, nostalgia-inducing & at times, plain scary! Must read, and must-do
36. Jawed Akhtar – Tarkash – Poetry – There are couplets here, which will pierce your heart!
37. Jason Fried – Rework: Change The Way You Work Forever – Business – Whether you are a business executive, entrepreneur or just starting out in your corporate career, read this book! A much-required manifesto of corporate change!
38. Gautam Adhikari – The Intolerant Indian: Why We Must Rediscover A Liberal Space – Essays – While Adhikari’s heart is in the right place, this ponderous rant makes for heavy reading.
39. Steven E Landsburg – More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics – Essays – Starts out slow, but picks up steam; irreverent, unconventional & fun!
40. Rob Parsons – The Heart of Success – Essays – Simple lessons, which bear reminding.
41. Stephen King – Everything’s Eventual – Fiction – These are dark tales. King proves yet again that he is a master story-teller. LT’s Theory of Pets hits you with a bang!
42. Kamleshwar – Hindustani Ghazalein – Poetry – Not all of them worked for me, and maybe that’s to be expected of any anthology; I wish Kamleshwar had selected more representative ghazals by these shayars.
43. Kaifi Azmi – Chuni Hui Shayari – Poetry – Read Azmi, and discover that a romantic idealist can also be a militant, standing up & speaking out for the things he believes in.
44. Vinay Dharwadker – Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs (Penguin Classics) – Poetry – Not as good as the other Kabir books I read this year; too academic & stilted.
45. Scott Adams – What Would Wally Do? – Business – Read & weep…Scott Adams has spies in your office!
46. Vijayendra Mohanty, Vivek Goel – Ravanayan – I – Fiction – Mohanty & Goel take a fresh look at Ramayan, from the perspective of the arch-villain; brilliantly drawn, although the writing could be better. Waiting for part 2 of the 10-part series now.
47. Sarah Herman – I Like My Job – Fiction – A scathing look at life in an office; this isn’t Dilbert. This is the true story of your life – stark, bleak & dystopic!
48. Scott Adams – Don’t stand where the comet is assumed to strike oil – Business – The 23rd book in the ever-popular Dilbert series strikes home with painful certainty. While you may laugh at the antics of Dilbert, his PHB, and his co-workers, you know it’s very close to the cubicle realities.
49. Robert Rankin – Necrophenia – Fiction – Rankin is a true master of cyberpunk. Laced with bitter ironies, and sly humor, this is a look at 60′s as you don’t know it!
50. Ahmad Faraz – Ye Meri Ghazalein, ye meri nazmein – Poetry – Faraz wrote some really romantic stuff; and some really revolutionary stuff!
51. Ashwin Sanghi – Chanakya’s Chant – Fiction – Good story, historical narrative interspersed with contemporary political story, to display relevance. But really needed a better editor!
52. Sri Kant, Shahroz – Pakistan ki Shayari – Poetry – The first 20-odd were good; after that it seems as though they were trying to get to 50 shayars!
53. Nagarjun – Pratinidhi Kavitayein – Poetry – Nagarjun rocks! Such rage, such simplicity, such beautiful turn of simple phrases!
54. Judy Blume – Tales of a fourth-grade nothing – Fiction – Totally empathised with Peter Hatcher; having a brother like Fudge (so cute!) would drive anyone nuts!
55. Anthony Horowitz – Stormbreaker – Fiction – Alex Rider was a refreshing change from the usual spy thrillers; significantly better than the “Young James Bond” thrillers!
56. Judy Blume – Superfudge – Fiction – Fudge is growing up…into an ever-worseing bundle of hassles for Peter Hatcher!
57. Anthony Horowitz – Point Blanc – Fiction – The second Alex Rider has a cool new plot, but the ending does leave a lot to be desired.
58. Olen Steinhauer – Bridge Of Sighs – Fiction – Bleak, unforgiving portrayal of life as a policeman in a post-WWII communist state. If you thought Stieg Larsson rocked, you’ll be blown over by Steinhauer.
59. Amish Tripathi – The Secret of the Nagas – Fiction – A worthy sequel to Immortals of Meluha
60. Scott Adams – I’m not Anti-Business, I’m anti-idiot – Business – Dilbert has spies in my office…and yours!
61. Roger Lewis – Seasonal Suicide Notes: My Life As It Is Lived – Fiction – Lewis’s biting wit & satirical put-downs of the things he finds irritating, and there are so many of them, is hilarious!
62. Rick Riordan – Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief – Fiction – Unputdownable saga of Gods come to life in modern world.
63. Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet – Essays – Rilke’s best work, far more powerful than his poems, urges us to look within & embrace the world.
64. Eric Van Lustbader – The Bourne Dominion – Fiction – Lustbader finally writes something worthy of Ludlum mantle!
65. Bobby Henderson – The Gospel Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster – Essays – A rollicking one time read; too snarky & not funny enough to be read again!
66. Simon Sinek – Start with Why – Business – Too preachy & long; could be condensed into a 12-page article.
67. Louis L’Amour – Taggart – Fiction – L’amour spends too much time describing the desert, and not enough on developing his characters; strictly for his fans.
68. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Andrew Ward – Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters – Business – Only relevant for CEOs, those fired with generous severance packages!
69. James Thurber – Collecting Himself – Fiction – These pieces are fun, but definitely don’t justify Thurber’s reputation as the greatest humorist of all time!
70. Jasper Fforde – Lost in a Good Book – Fiction – Hilarious, but works only for those who have more than a passing acquaintance with a large body of literature.
71. Robert Arthur – The Secret of the Terror Castle – Fiction – The first Three Investigators mystery rocks; just as it did more than 25 years ago, when I first read it!
72. Louis L’Amour – From the Listening Hills – Fiction – Good stories, though not as captivating as the westerns L’Amour is known for!
73. Jonathan Stroud – The Golem’s Eye – Fiction – Engaging & witty, Stroud’s djinni, Bartimaeus is possibly the most interesting creature from the Other World you will ever come across!
74. PG Wodehouse – Ukridge – Fiction – Wodehouse creates another sterling character, with his unique quirks & foibles. Ukridge is a perpetually upbeat gentleman, full of ideas which will make him rich “soon”. Poor Corky, his friend, has to suffer through his schemes & shenanigans.
75. Louis L’Amour – West of Dodge – Fiction – Classic western fiction; L’Amour makes the West come alive like none else!
76. Jeffrey Young, William Simon – iCon: Steve Jobs – The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business – Business – Young & Simon present a eulogy to one of the greatest businessmen of the last 50 years, but succeed in making him out to be not such a nice man to know, or to work for.
77. Sidin Vadukut – God Save the Dork – Fiction – Sidin displays his Robingenuity in this book, with Robin “Einstein” Verghese blundering into one disaster after another, largely of his own making, and barely surviving on his luck alone. Hilarious!
78. Suhel Seth – Get To The Top: The Ten Rules For Social Success – Essays – Seth writes for the social climbers – a banal, cliché-ridden book, which tells you how to throw parties & make friends with important people! Quite a few examples in the book contradict the so-called “Rules”. A total bloody waste of time!
79. John Grisham – The Litigators – Fiction – Grisham returns to his familiar haunts, the world of the lawyers, and delivers a smashing read.
80. Julian Barnes – The Sense of an Ending – Fiction – Barnes won a well-deserved Man Booker Prize for this novel, about ageing, and memories, and our forgotten, or rather selectively remembered past. This is the novel I wanted to write!
81. Michael Robotham – The Suspect – Fiction – The best thriller I’ve read in a really long time, packed with some really good dialogues & one-liners. Robotham is the find of 2011 for me!
82. Tom Holt – Falling Sideways – Fiction – Perhaps fitting that I should close the year reading this. After a really awful week, spent caring for a sick kid in hospital, I needed Holt’s intelligent humor to remind me of the good things in life!

Books Read – 2010

A list of the books I read last year, with a short summary of my first reactions:

1. Jeffrey Archer – Cat O’ Nine Tails – Somehow had missed this set of funny, crime stories, each with a twist; am glad I read it
2. Eric Van Lustbader – Angel Eyes – Lustbader writes another of wannabe-Ludlum thrillers; but fails yet again. I couldn’t get past 100 pages, despite trying.
3. Louis L’Amour – Hondo – Nothing centers you, provides you with unflinching values, as well as a typical well-written western. And L’amour is the best storyteller of that genre
4. Douglas Adams – Salmon Of Doubt – No one does it like Adams! And he proves it with this medley of scattered unpublished works
5. Atul Gawande – Complications – Gawande looks at medicine & the practice of it with a sympathetic eye, making us see the richness, the complexity & the courage
6. Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman – Long Way Round – Although I finished this journey with McGregor & Boorman, it just tasted too commercial to me. Not enough drama, not enough insight into their travails.
7. Gurcharan Das – Difficulty Of Being Good – An interesting take on various concepts of Dharma as espoused in Mahabharata, with a commentary on the relevance to our present
8. Sidin Vadukut – Dork – laugh out loud story of a charmless loser mba’s first year out of college; would have been more fun if he had some redeeming qualities
9. Robert Dugoni – Jury Master – I don’t remember anything 2 months after reading it (except that I finished it, which is saying something); kind of says it all
10. Louis L’Amour – End Of The Drive – L’amour really goes to work with the short stories in this volume; each a glowing beauty
11. Junot Diaz – Brief & Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao – Didn’t work for me, despite some good growing up parts & expat angst
12. Rama Bijapurkar – We Are Like That Only – Neither technical, nor accessible to a layperson; I do hope not all our business writers are like that only
13. Captain Gopinath – Simply Fly – A well-written story of a truly amazing journey of a poor boy to richness & glory, based on hard work, courage & persistence
14. PG Wodehouse – Ring For Jeeves – All jeeves books are fun, but the master in this one was no match for bertie wooster
15. PG Wodehouse – The Little Nugget – a rollicking crime saga – kidnapping a brat was never this much work, or this much fun
16. Alain deBotton – Pleasures & Sorrows Of Work – A leisurely ramble through the various jobs, exploring the meaning of work in our lives
17. Dave Barry – Dave Barry Hits Below The Beltway – Great satirical comment on US politics; Not Barry’s best though.
18. Alan Folson – Day Of Confession – Boring; too long; good premise but old
19. Urmila Deshpande – A Pack Of Lies – Moving coming-of-age story of a lonely young woman
20. Pat Conroy – My Losing Season – “Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass”. One of the most lyrical & moving studies of life I have read; among the best books ever!
21. Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish – Siblings Without Rivalry – Very helpful; some good techniques; not all will work, but you’re sure to find some that will
22. Tal Ben-Shahar – Happier – Some interesting & potentially useful exercises, but lots of not-fully-explained flights of logic; assertions not borne by any study/research/facts
23. Jeffrey Archer – And Thereby Hangs A Tale – Archer’s getting old & jaded; this was a total waste of money
24. Agatha Christie – While the Light Lasts – 9 terrific stories; not all of them are detective fiction
25. Peter Block – Community: The Structure of Belonging – Required a lot of attention, and frequently meandered into areas of faith; but towards the 2nd half laid out a lot of methodologies for engagement & identification; worth a read for all managers & those interested in building a community
26. Agatha Christie – Poirot’s Early Cases – Re-read, just because I wanted to taste Poirot again. No disappointments.
27. Umberto Eco – Travels with a Salmon & Other Essays – Hilarious & thought-provoking at the same time; made me wonder why I discovered Eco so late in life; each essay was a delight in craft
28. William K. Zinsser – On Writing Well – Invaluable; not just tips & tricks, but great inspiration to get your writing juices flowing
29. Daniyal Mueenuddin – In Other Rooms, Other Wonders – Stories of love, loss, deceit & longing set in Pakistan Punjab; eloquent & heartfelt
30. Po Bronson – Nurtureshock – Overturns quite a few assumptions we make about kids, learning & development
31. Michael Lewis – The Big Short – The master of financial non-fiction returns to the subject which made him famous, profiling a few people who not only saw the 2007 crash coming, but figured out a way to profit from it. Makes you wonder if the wall street was corrupt, foolish or both!
32. Warren Ellis – Crooked little vein – Hilarious satirical detective fiction; not to be read while eating or drinking
33. Atul Gawande – The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right – Gawande takes on the myth of heroic loneranger & defends the checklist as a means to fostering better communication, teamwork & identifying critical must-do’s. Short, crisp & awesome.
34. Salil Tripathi – Offence: The Hindu Case – Salil’s long essay on the rise of hindu fundamentamentalism will be a must-read for students of culture, history & sociology for all times to come; the arguments against hindutva have never been made so cogently, coherently & convincingly.
35. Caspar Melville – Taking Offence – Melville takes on multiculturalism & “judeo-christianity as defender of free speech & antidote to islamism” in this nuanced essay
36. John Grisham – Theodore Boone – Grisham disappoints once again; the story seems to build up well, but goes nowhere; lame-duck ending, rather as if he was chasing a deadline
37. PG Wodehouse – Mulliner Nights – Delightful stories with a subtle humor & wit, early Wodehousian, pre-Jeeves; good fun!
38. Francis Spufford – The Child That Books Built – Spufford revisits the books he read as a child, and examines their role in shaping him as an adult. While the book had a lot of “aha!” moments, overall it didn’t really hold my attention, esp. in the second half
39. Louis L’Amour – Night over the solomons – Adventure stories written by L’amour; not as good as his westerns
40. Kevin Eikenberry – Vantagepoints on learning and life – Simply written; has a certain homely charm to it. But if you’ve read scores of “self-help” books already, might be worth skipping, unless you’re a die-hard fan of the genre
41. Simon Singh – Trick or Treatment – Incisive, no-holds-barred look at alternative medicine; even more important as a primer to the scientific method & importance of clinical trials/testing. Particularly scathing in its critique of Homeopathy & Chiropractic
42. Niall Ferguson – The Ascent of Money – History of money, and it’s ascendency to its pre-eminent position in the world today; fascinating, full of really great asides & anecdotes, but needed a better editor – I found myself dozing off every few pages.
43. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five – A satirical take on war, laying bare its atrocities & horrors; though not as good as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
44. Roald Dahl – The BFG – Dahl tells a simple story exceedingly well. Laugh-out-loud funny, with jumbled up words, this is one to be read aloud
45. John Medina – Brain Rules – Interesting rules, except when Medina tries to give prescriptions for schooling & business without having tested out the alternatives
46. Joe Hill – 20th Century Ghosts – Spine-chilling stories, although not all of them work equally well; some stories give you a jolt at the end – just the way I like it!
47. Lynne Truss – Going Loco – Had to give up mid-way, since it got to be a drag. Truss might be great when she is ranting about others’ inadequacies at using a language, but she doesn’t know how to tell a story.
48. Brian Fugere – Why Business People Speak Like Idiots – Cuts through the bullshit of today’s management jargon to say it like it is; short, incisive & laden with great examples
49. Brian Tracy – Eat That Frog – “Q: If you have 2 frogs to eat in the morning, which will you eat first. A: The ugliest one!” And that about sums it up. But to say that would be to do this simple (not simplistic) book injustice; it reminds us of some timeless principles of time management & productivity.
50. Stieg Larsson – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Larsson knows how to tell a story; better than Ludlum & Clancy at their peak; a page-turner that leaves you wanting for more.
51. Iravati Karve – Yuganta – Karve gets you hooked from the first page, with her unusual look at the characters & situations in Mahabharata; a must-read for all those who think they know their text.
52. Daniel Gottlieb – Learning from the Heart – Great in parts, preachy in others; I struggled with it.
53. Paul Harding  – Tinkers – Harding should have avoided quoting at length the passages from the Horologist’s book & concentrated on telling the story which was deeply moving by itself. An old man re-looks the world around him with a new eye, as he lies dying; makes you imagine your own death quite vividly
54. Goscinny & Uderzo  – Asterix & the Class Act – Interesting vignettes from the life of a childhood hero; biff tchac paff! A Sunday afternoon well spent.
55. Alfred Hitchcock – Most Wanted: This First Lineup – As the blurb says, these really are very special stories from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, 1980-1985. If you like a good puzzle, a good shivery tale of suspense, a hardhitting crime story, a ghost or two, here they are.
56. Alain de Botton  – The Architecture of Happiness – de Botton turns his critical eye to the the history and psychology of architecture and interior design, looking at buildings across the world. En route he analyses why a certain form appeals to us. Got to be a drag after a while, esp. when he started pontificating.
57. Gillian Tett – Fool’s Gold – Tett tells the story of how the invention of CDO’s, a tool to reduce risk, led to creation of such enormous risk that it brought down the global economy within a decade. Awesome tale, well told.
58. Alfred Hitchcock – Shrouds & Pockets – Mystery stories, with interesting twists & turns; not all of them work, but the ones that do, do oh so well!
59. Martin Rowson – Giving Offence – Rowson engagingly, amusingly tells you how to give offence so that the offended party, should they have a sense of humor, would be left with no choice but to laugh along with you.
60. Ken Robinson – The Element – There’s a reason Robinson is rated the best teacher/thinker in the field of creativity; and this book tells you why. Although the last chapter is his rant against the state of education today, something which could have been done better, or best left out!
61. Tony Hsieh – Delivering Happiness – A gift from dad at a most appropriate time! Hsieh talks about the importance of finding your purpose & aligning it with profits, while narrating his own fascinating personal history of Zappos.
62. Tom Holt – Snow White & the Seven Samurai – Holt is the master of humor fantasy. Period! Absolutely must-read!!!
63. Ben Goldacre – Bad Science – Goldacre’s rant against the charlatans who missell “science” is a must-read for all parents, teachers, students, public health officials, and anybody interested in science. Which should very well include everyone. He turns his critical eye on homeopathy, placebos, pharma industry, media & spares no one.
64. Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio – Stories – All new stories which transcend genres, hand-picked by Gaiman & Sarrantonio, with one brief in mind “and then what happened?” A really good read.
65. Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler – The Art Of Happiness At Work – A rapid read, based on discussions between Cutler & Dalai Lama on how to achieve happiness at work. While repetitive & tedious in parts, it’s still recommended as a lesson in self-discovery. Read on a trip to Mcleodgunj, the seat of Dalai Lama!
66. Tom Peters – The Little Big Things – Peters does it again! And this is probably his best effort at bringing to attention the “little” things that matter in life, and in business. An absolute must read for every executive, every leader!
67. Jeffrey Deaver – Twisted – Really twisted stories; Deaver is the master of thriller fiction. Each story ends with a twist, and even when you know this, it’s usually hard to say where it’s going to come from!
68. Dan Ariely – The Upside of Irrationality – Ariely has made a career out of studying the myriad ways in which real people behave irrationally; however the book left me unmoved. It wasn’t anywhere as well written as I’d expected it to be and most of the better examples were repeats of those read in Ariely’s previous opus. If you’ve read Freakonomics, just stop right there!
69. Rosemary Border – Ghost Stories – 6 ghost stories, selected for eighth-graders; good fun for a rainy night; not as much fun for grown-ups
70. Frederick Forsyth – The Cobra – An intriguing new take on a tricky new subject for the master of espionage thriller; but it doesn’t hold as much delight as the cold war stories Forsyth told. The new trend of realism in thriller fiction leaves you a little disappointed towards the end; and the characters are just not very well drawn
71. Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere – Gaiman writes a fantasy reminiscent of Lewis Carrol & Narnia of a man who falls throught the cracks of a large city & comes to love the “Below” where life has more meaning than his life “Above”. Escape, tragedy, horror or just fantasy, you decide!
72. Daniel H. Pink – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Pink looks to behavioural psychology, including Ariely’s experiments, and applies it to “work”. Human beings need, nay demand, autonomy, pursuit of mastery & connection with a higher purpose, in today’s world! Invaluable!
73. Robert Levine – A Geography of Time – Levine does a thorough job of analysing & reporting how different cultures behave with respect to time, but loses the reader in the second half of the book when he starts showing off his erudition.
74. Christopher Hitchens (Ed.) – The Best American Essays (2010) – Not all of them will work for everyone, but the ones that do will move you, inform you, shed new light & make you see things in ways you didn’t think possible. A no. of them are still available online, but the complete collection is a gem to be treasured.
75. Amish Tripathi – Immortals of Meluha – Amish weaves a captivating tale from fragments of forgotten Indian myths, twisting them & making them far more engrossing than you would expect. I can’t wait for the sequel.
76. Umberto Eco – Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco isn’t an easy read in the best of times; I started this novel in Oct, and read it in parts through till Dec; the humor & the classical alliterations were wonderful.
77. Samit Basu – Turbulence – This was the first book by Basu that I read, and I’m sorry I waited this long. A sci-fi fantasy thriller told with wit, humour & sensitivity, it will leave you thinking for a while.
78. Tom Holt – Flying Dutch – Another masterpiece by Holt; the man is an absolute utter delight & I’m fast turning into his biggest fan alive!
79. Floyd Skloot – In the Shadow of Memory – What happens when you lose your memory; when parts of your brain are corrupted, ravaged by disease, unable to make the connections that make you the unique human being you are. Skloot tells a personal story with vigor, bringing the pain alive with sensitivity & erudition.
80. Tom Holt – Faust Among Equals – Tom Holt takes yet another piece of modern mythology/classical literature & turns it into high comedy. Read it to discover how it’s done!
81. Stan Slap – Bury My Heart At Conference Room B – Every company in the world rates employee engagement as one of its top 10 problems; yet only a handful seem to get it right. Slap shows you why, and what you as a manager can do about it (Hint: it’s about rediscovering & living your deepest, most cherished personal values at work)
82. David Stone – The Echelon Vendetta – David Stone is a find; this is a spy thriller reminiscent of Ludlum, but with much better drawn characters.
83. PG Wodehouse – Right ho, Jeeves – Wodehouse was the master of “comedy of errors”, and this one is a true masterpiece.
84. Dave Barry – Dave Barry is not making this up – Dave Barry writes about a host of issues with candor, wit & truthiness.
85. Steven Pressman – The War of Art – Procrastrination or Resistance, as Pressman calls it, is the biggest enemy of creativity & getting anything done. In this small volume he shows you how to recognise it, and how to beat it! Invaluable advice!!
86. Dave Barry – Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits – These really ARE Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits! And if you have to read one comic book this particular month, read this!
87. Jeffrey Pfeffer – Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t – Do you think Organizational politics are a “dirty game”, and you are not cut out for it? Would you still like to get power, and more importantly, hold on to it? Pfeffer shows you how. The first step is conquering your own fears.
88. Jai Arjun Singh – Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro – The history of the cult comedy hindi movie of all time; Jai’s research is impeccable & his story-telling flawless; he made it really come alive for me
89. John C. Bogle – Enough: True Measures Of Money, Business And Life – Bogle rants against the greed & superficiality of today’s world; didn’t deserve a book, although somebody needed to say what he is saying!
90. Stan Lee – The Mighty Thor – Book 1 – Not too impressed; Thor is a brutish creature with no finesse or brains.

Indiaplaza shopping

I have just noticed this. Whenever I order from a book from Indiaplaza, whose price is more than 20% below that on flipkart (or more than 30-35% discount to retail bookstores), they make me wait weeks before telling me that the book is not available.

I have asked some of my friends, and they say the same thing. While this is a subjective deduction based on a small sample size, it holds for me since I don’t have the time or energy to keep doing this.

Bad customer service Indiaplaza. I am never buying from you again. Ever.