Ok, I’m Book tagged!

I‘ve been book-Tagged by Sunil Laxman of balancing life. Although I’ve been occupied by my inexorable software woes plus deadlines, I’ve been morbidly (Garcia says you shouldn’t use the “ly??? adjective often) observing this book-tagging frenzy. It seemed the more popular you are, the more people tag you. I was on the verge of vociferating: Oh, I’m so lonely, nobody tags me! when Sunil appeared from the pastures of salvation and tagged me :-). I’ve already been writing about my meagre bibliophilism, but for the sake of the fraternity, here it goes:

The number of books I have

Personally? Not more than ten. In the cabinet adjacent to the chair from where I work, there are roughly 100 odd books, but they have been brought/bought by either my wife or my sister. We got the cabinet for the big encyclopaedia and the monthly edition of National Geographic. When we saw lots of space still unoccupied, we put our books there.

On some literary blogs I read people have more than 4000 books, or they have had to shift to bigger houses to accommodate their mounting collections. How much money they must have! I mean, buying or renting bigger houses to place books is beyond my current need and capability. I don’t think I’ll ever have that many books with me even if I can afford them.

The book I’m currently reading

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Although I’d like to write in my own way, but if I ever decide to emulate an author, by all means it’ll be Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This book is hard to read, at least for me, with it’s interminable religious discourses. I never skip a page, I even read the prefaces and the introductions when I start reading the book. So reading all those pages talking about religious morality is a bit tedious. I’m reading those pages just because they’ve been written by Dostoyevsky.

Last book I bought

Milan Kundera’s The Joke. It’s one of the most impressive and literary books I’ve ever read (not that I’ve read many books). I wish I had read it a long time back. I plan to read it again some day.

Last book I read

Living To Tell The Tale by Gabriel García Márquez. I wrote it’s review here.

Five books that have meant a lot to me

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I know, this is everybody’s favorite, but then, there’s no escaping from it. I have read it four times: once as a reader, and thrice as a learning writer.
2. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. One of the saddest books I’ve read by my all time favorite author. It tells you how your only mental fragilities can utterly destroy your aspirations. A beautifully written book.
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Again, I first read this book as a reader and then as a learning writer. An exceptional book that takes you to the crux of Dostoyevsky’s genius.
4. Bahut Din Huye a collection of short stories in Hindi. It’s one of the first books that I read and all its stories clung to my reminiscences for a long, long time. I must find it, if it is still in our house.
5. The Castle by Franz Kafka. This is an exceptional book in the sense that I never completed reading it. I have always wanted to read it because of its epic depiction of ordinary helplessness. If you want to get the true essence of Kafkaesque writing, you must read this book (apart from reading The Metamorphosis).

Actually I have many more books to add to this list, for instance, To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe, and Nemesis by Agatha Christie, but since they say it only has to be five book, so be it.

Oh, now the tagging part: not many people are left, but I can include the following if they haven’t already been tagged:

• The Mumpsimus
• Alka Dwivedi
• This Girl’s Life
• Bites of India

Ok, ok, I know there are only 4, but most I’d like to include have already been tagged.