Monday, September 17, 2007
Review of few books from my reading list
Note: I had sent this out to a few friends on March 10th, 2005. Placing on this Blog now (so I can link it from another narrative I'm doing in Sept 2007!).
-Sri
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Dear friends and family,
I am not a voracious reader…like some of you perhaps are.
My daily commute by public transport has gotten me into the nice habit of reading. I’m enjoying this time very much – half hour in the morning and another 30 min in the evening too. I seem to have the time to read the newspaper too, over here. And there definitely is a lot of news
ASIDE: The other day, I saw a lady reading a small, very fat book. This was in the bus while I was returning home from work. I thought it might be Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. And it was! This was a young college girl. I remember to have read that book too during my first years of college. It was quite an exhausting over 1,100 pages. Perhaps IF I re-read it after my sojourn in America now for 1.5 decades, I will conjure up different pictures and perspectives of that book and its philosophy. I noticed a 35th anniversary edition of the book available on amazon.com. It’s been THAT long??!!!! I had heard of “The Fountainhead” and gotten around to reading “We the Living” too, by the Ayn Rand. But, I don’t remember anything about “We the Living”, except that is was so much smaller!
I finished the book “India Unbound” and wrote to you about it – including some snippets from the book in some of my E-mail updates. It educated me on the “reforms” that opened up India for free enterprise, free trade etc. and has allowed the nation to increase the size of its middle class. A sure indicator of national prosperity! There is no going back. PV.Narasimha Rao (passed away late last year - 2004), the then Prime Minister was the phenomenal leader who made this happen (to his own pleasant surprise, I think). On his cabinet was Manmohan Singh as Finance minister. Now, we have Manmohan Singh leading the nation as Prime Minsiter with the able Chidambaram (a Harvard graduate I think), heading Finance. I enjoyed Guru Charan Das’s writing style too. Now, I look for and read his regular column in The Sunday Times.
Last weekend, I bought two books at “Landmark”, the big book store in the Forum Mall in Koramangala. It’s not quite as huge a store, as Barnes and Noble on 185th Ave. in Beaverton, but large enough!
I also bought “Peace Is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End” by Deepak Chopra. It’s a new 2005 year publication. I saw events on the book-reading across Bangalore city a few weeks ago. Wanted to go, but had other engagements, unfortunately. The attendance cost some Rs.1,000 (including book signing by author I suppose), while the paper back copy of the book is less that Rs. 400. I am yet to read the book, just skimmed thru the excellent comments about the book by Nobel peace prize winners and other celebrities.
The other book I bought last week at the mall was “Dollar Bahu” by Sudha Murthy. She is an engineer, with an M.Tech in Computer Science. She had a good career and gave it up to take other responsibilities, when her husband’s new venture took off. Narayana Murthy, her husband, is the founder of the very successful Infosys software giant in India. Sudha is multi-talented. She’s a writer and social worker. Currently she’s the chairperson of the Infosys Charitable Foundation. The book is wonderful and I related to it absolutely. Many of you will too. Get a copy and read it! Original is in Kannada and this is the English translation. It’s a fast read and a nice fiction. The stories described in the book are very real- down to the exact words in the conversations. Sudha must have spent considerable time in America to have captured all the nitty-gritty details of lives of Indians there, inside our homes. It’s too real, to be a second had report/story.
I’m also reading “Manifest Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want” by Wayne W. Dyer. Dr. Dyer says that "Within you is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that you need to desire..." . A friend gave this to me when I left Portland. Said I would really like it and indeed so. I’m enjoying this also very much and reflecting a lot. Have not started meditating yet!
I read a large part of “Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time”
by Paul Rogat Loeb. It’s about social involvement. “…recognition of the economic and political imbalances in the world will likely result in either cynicism or activism. But only activism, or social involvement, is consistent with our democracy and can result in psychological or spiritual growth”. I am yet to complete it, though. This was gifted to me by my dear friends at SAWERA, before I left. There was a book-reading by the author at Powell’s City of Books in Portland last October. Not sure if any of you Portlanders attended.
We bought a very nice children’s book titled “Younguncle come to town”. I read the whole book the day I bought it. My daughter did too. The author Vandana Singh is a good friend of mine. She was a Portland resident and a co-founder of SAWERA too. Some of you know her well. A fascinating story! You must get a copy. See: http://users.rcn.com/singhvan/publications.html for more details about this nice book.
“Little Prince”, the little booklet was a favourite of mine, growing up. I chanced upon a copy while at “Crossroads” the book-store in the Shoppers Stop Mall in front of our apartment complex. I immediately bought a copy and read it quickly. The small book with short chapters, showed me a different world view than I’m sure what I had seen earlier - before my college days and travels overseas to experience other cultures and peoples. You too, (re-) read The Little Prince -- by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Illustrator), Richard Howard (Translator) and see what you think.
My 11 year old daughter, is also reading... I asked her to read “Little Prince” and let me know what she made of it. She promptly refused to read it L even for my sake! The current book she is reading is “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” by Otto M Frank. She bought in school book exhibition; I asked her why she liked sad books and she promptly said this was not a sad story. I have not read this diary and know its about the holocaust period.
[ASIDE: While in Portland, she ardently read Lemony Snicket books on Series of Unfortunate Events]
Instead of placing a bookmark to show her where she stopped, she has put “doggy ears” throughout the book. This marks her reading for each day. She’s already programmed how much to read each day! I am task oriented, but I thought she took this to the next level of “exactly quantifying” the task (of nighttime reading)!
My daughter did a survey as part of the English Language Home Work/Project in her class. She had a questionnaire she distributed on “reading habits” of people. She was able to collect about 20 completed surveys back. She gathered inputs from quite a spread of people – a high school student in her school who is her bus stop friend, us – her parents, her friends/classmates at school, her friends in our flats, parents of her friends, perhaps a teacher or two… I gave a lot of details in her survey; others did too. She was even gathering data on how reading patterns have changed for people (or not). As for me – I’ve moved from fiction/novels to non-fiction/spiritual/activism and such type of books. My husband was amused that I included spiritual among my preferred reading these days J Her teacher told her that her survey data was good!
On her first trip to the Landmark book stores, my daughter bought a copy of Narnia. She read some parts of it but did not complete it. I had taken her to see the play “The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe” at the NW Children’s theater in Portland when she was 5. She bought “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown at the Landmark book store this weekend on our trip to the mall. She’s enthusiastic about reading this fat book, but has not started as she has already scheduled the Anne Frank diaries reading J I noticed that my husband had started to read “The Da Vinci Code”
A friend showed me this small book at work this week. “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” (with a photo of a panda bear ….shooting at a restaurant J ). It’s about punctuation! Very interesting. I’ve added it to my long and growing reading list. “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss "Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't..."
I saw a notice for a “Literary Club" at Mantri Elegance Club house – the flats we live in. I could consider joining the group perhaps if my work-schedule would permit (IF somehow, the late night and evening meetings all days of the week go away, magically!)
Send me your favourite book picks and I will add to my long wish list of books I would like to read, in my lifetime…voraciously when I retire J
-Sri
-Sri
-------
Dear friends and family,
I am not a voracious reader…like some of you perhaps are.
My daily commute by public transport has gotten me into the nice habit of reading. I’m enjoying this time very much – half hour in the morning and another 30 min in the evening too. I seem to have the time to read the newspaper too, over here. And there definitely is a lot of news
ASIDE: The other day, I saw a lady reading a small, very fat book. This was in the bus while I was returning home from work. I thought it might be Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. And it was! This was a young college girl. I remember to have read that book too during my first years of college. It was quite an exhausting over 1,100 pages. Perhaps IF I re-read it after my sojourn in America now for 1.5 decades, I will conjure up different pictures and perspectives of that book and its philosophy. I noticed a 35th anniversary edition of the book available on amazon.com. It’s been THAT long??!!!! I had heard of “The Fountainhead” and gotten around to reading “We the Living” too, by the Ayn Rand. But, I don’t remember anything about “We the Living”, except that is was so much smaller!
I finished the book “India Unbound” and wrote to you about it – including some snippets from the book in some of my E-mail updates. It educated me on the “reforms” that opened up India for free enterprise, free trade etc. and has allowed the nation to increase the size of its middle class. A sure indicator of national prosperity! There is no going back. PV.Narasimha Rao (passed away late last year - 2004), the then Prime Minister was the phenomenal leader who made this happen (to his own pleasant surprise, I think). On his cabinet was Manmohan Singh as Finance minister. Now, we have Manmohan Singh leading the nation as Prime Minsiter with the able Chidambaram (a Harvard graduate I think), heading Finance. I enjoyed Guru Charan Das’s writing style too. Now, I look for and read his regular column in The Sunday Times.
Last weekend, I bought two books at “Landmark”, the big book store in the Forum Mall in Koramangala. It’s not quite as huge a store, as Barnes and Noble on 185th Ave. in Beaverton, but large enough!
I also bought “Peace Is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End” by Deepak Chopra. It’s a new 2005 year publication. I saw events on the book-reading across Bangalore city a few weeks ago. Wanted to go, but had other engagements, unfortunately. The attendance cost some Rs.1,000 (including book signing by author I suppose), while the paper back copy of the book is less that Rs. 400. I am yet to read the book, just skimmed thru the excellent comments about the book by Nobel peace prize winners and other celebrities.
The other book I bought last week at the mall was “Dollar Bahu” by Sudha Murthy. She is an engineer, with an M.Tech in Computer Science. She had a good career and gave it up to take other responsibilities, when her husband’s new venture took off. Narayana Murthy, her husband, is the founder of the very successful Infosys software giant in India. Sudha is multi-talented. She’s a writer and social worker. Currently she’s the chairperson of the Infosys Charitable Foundation. The book is wonderful and I related to it absolutely. Many of you will too. Get a copy and read it! Original is in Kannada and this is the English translation. It’s a fast read and a nice fiction. The stories described in the book are very real- down to the exact words in the conversations. Sudha must have spent considerable time in America to have captured all the nitty-gritty details of lives of Indians there, inside our homes. It’s too real, to be a second had report/story.
I’m also reading “Manifest Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want” by Wayne W. Dyer. Dr. Dyer says that "Within you is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that you need to desire..." . A friend gave this to me when I left Portland. Said I would really like it and indeed so. I’m enjoying this also very much and reflecting a lot. Have not started meditating yet!
I read a large part of “Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time”
by Paul Rogat Loeb. It’s about social involvement. “…recognition of the economic and political imbalances in the world will likely result in either cynicism or activism. But only activism, or social involvement, is consistent with our democracy and can result in psychological or spiritual growth”. I am yet to complete it, though. This was gifted to me by my dear friends at SAWERA, before I left. There was a book-reading by the author at Powell’s City of Books in Portland last October. Not sure if any of you Portlanders attended.
We bought a very nice children’s book titled “Younguncle come to town”. I read the whole book the day I bought it. My daughter did too. The author Vandana Singh is a good friend of mine. She was a Portland resident and a co-founder of SAWERA too. Some of you know her well. A fascinating story! You must get a copy. See: http://users.rcn.com/singhvan/publications.html for more details about this nice book.
“Little Prince”, the little booklet was a favourite of mine, growing up. I chanced upon a copy while at “Crossroads” the book-store in the Shoppers Stop Mall in front of our apartment complex. I immediately bought a copy and read it quickly. The small book with short chapters, showed me a different world view than I’m sure what I had seen earlier - before my college days and travels overseas to experience other cultures and peoples. You too, (re-) read The Little Prince -- by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Illustrator), Richard Howard (Translator) and see what you think.
My 11 year old daughter, is also reading... I asked her to read “Little Prince” and let me know what she made of it. She promptly refused to read it L even for my sake! The current book she is reading is “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” by Otto M Frank. She bought in school book exhibition; I asked her why she liked sad books and she promptly said this was not a sad story. I have not read this diary and know its about the holocaust period.
[ASIDE: While in Portland, she ardently read Lemony Snicket books on Series of Unfortunate Events]
Instead of placing a bookmark to show her where she stopped, she has put “doggy ears” throughout the book. This marks her reading for each day. She’s already programmed how much to read each day! I am task oriented, but I thought she took this to the next level of “exactly quantifying” the task (of nighttime reading)!
My daughter did a survey as part of the English Language Home Work/Project in her class. She had a questionnaire she distributed on “reading habits” of people. She was able to collect about 20 completed surveys back. She gathered inputs from quite a spread of people – a high school student in her school who is her bus stop friend, us – her parents, her friends/classmates at school, her friends in our flats, parents of her friends, perhaps a teacher or two… I gave a lot of details in her survey; others did too. She was even gathering data on how reading patterns have changed for people (or not). As for me – I’ve moved from fiction/novels to non-fiction/spiritual/activism and such type of books. My husband was amused that I included spiritual among my preferred reading these days J Her teacher told her that her survey data was good!
On her first trip to the Landmark book stores, my daughter bought a copy of Narnia. She read some parts of it but did not complete it. I had taken her to see the play “The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe” at the NW Children’s theater in Portland when she was 5. She bought “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown at the Landmark book store this weekend on our trip to the mall. She’s enthusiastic about reading this fat book, but has not started as she has already scheduled the Anne Frank diaries reading J I noticed that my husband had started to read “The Da Vinci Code”
A friend showed me this small book at work this week. “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” (with a photo of a panda bear ….shooting at a restaurant J ). It’s about punctuation! Very interesting. I’ve added it to my long and growing reading list. “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss "Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't..."
I saw a notice for a “Literary Club" at Mantri Elegance Club house – the flats we live in. I could consider joining the group perhaps if my work-schedule would permit (IF somehow, the late night and evening meetings all days of the week go away, magically!)
Send me your favourite book picks and I will add to my long wish list of books I would like to read, in my lifetime…voraciously when I retire J
-Sri
# posted by Sri Renganathan @ 1:38 AM 
