slither slither went the book worm

I am doing a lot of reading these days - the last time I made a mention of a book I read was the biography of Indira gandhi. Terrific read although like every other biography, there were a dozen more pages on facts than you had expected and it leaves you with a feeling of incompleteness - one always starts reading a biography in a hope to look beyond the aura of enigma around someone and to understand the premise based on which they made decisions, momentous in any dimension, and what forced or inspired them to do it. In the end, when presented as facts, the picture doesn't look as interesting it was when things were unclear. yeah, I can hear you say .... Ignorance is bliss :)

Then, I moved on to "A brief history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson. I loved the book. There are those,like my best friend Arjun, who are totally into physics and chemistry and who thrive on intricacies of the subject. But as for me, I was good at it and my interest level can be termed at most as curiosity. And for a novice, this book is a perfect recipe. It starts off with refreshing our physics, chemistry and geography textbooks right from seventh standard and takes us right to the frontiers of each of these areas. Also, interspersed are wonderful character potraits of the scientists, interesting incidents - making science for the first time a personal account. Most importantly, unlike our science text books, this one shows how so many questions remain unsolved in science. I don't know about you but much of my interest in science was lost because they served it to us as a solved puzzle and made it look as if, there was nothing much to unravel. But this book makes you feel, you do stand a chance. Read it if you find it anytime.

for sometime, I was tinkering with James Joyce's ulysses. I have to admit that I still haven't grown enough to appreciate his style of writing and I am not hyprocritical (is there a word like this?) enough to pretend I understood what he was trying to say.

After that, came Shashi Tharoor's Riot - bollywood masala movie. But what makes this book stand apart is an interesting style of narrative and utterly believable characters. Every word, every tumultuous phrase makes you believe he's been through something quite similar. Takes you about 7 hours if you are doing things in between.

And now, it's dark nature by Lyall Watson. I still haven't finished it but I am sure this one is going to be the best book I have read this year. simply amazing! This book deserves a blog for itself. So, shall pen it some other time. My sources are still getting synced - I love our infrastructure!!

Of course, in between I got this cheap three euro fiction that doesn't even merit a mention. Just remembered what I told Sundar yesterday - my reading habits define my preferences for life. I can never imagine spending money for any form of literary sexual gratification - be it a movie or a book or even a magazine coz I know for a fact that I will have enough of it in the first ten minutes. I can never read more than 10 pages of a book of erotic fiction. But at the sametime, I love it when I have a book with a fantastic storyline, some nail gripping action and some spicy, tasteful material in between. makes it a complete package. he was practically ready to pounce on me when he heard the analogy :)

PS: Incidentally, the title is inspired by the lines that won the "bad sex award" for the most insipid, clinical piece of erotic fiction this year. for more details, click here