Tall Tales
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I'm crazy about books. I like to read them, I like to own them and I don't like to let other people borrow my books. A little explanation is necessary here. I'm an only child of working parents. Growing up, I spent an awful lot of time by myself at home. I stuck my nose in books (story, comics, novels, etc.) at age 5 and didn't (temporarily) halt till I was 15 years old. My mother put a stop to my reading thinking I'd fail my ICSE exams and of course balooning myopia didn't help my cause any. Along the way, I went through PHASES - anything and everything by Enid Blyton between 5 and 8. The adventures of brave pilot Captain Bigglesworth (in his Sopwith Camel) and TinTin and Asterix. Then Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I was soon ready for more adult fare. My mother realized this and put all her Mills and Boon (Kill and Swoon as my dad called them) romance novels out of reach on top of the fridge. I read a few and decided they were the most stupid books ever written. I soon discovered Alistair McLean, Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner and P.G. Wodehouse. Between 11 and 15, I also sneaked in all my dad's reading material (Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins, Irving Wallace, Wilbur Smith, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, Clive Cussler, Alex Hailey, Leon Uris, etc.) because he would borrow books from the library and never read them. He had to prepare for teaching his classes (- he's a professor of Nuclear Physics). My parents were not too bothered by what I read. The only book my dad hid from me was Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H.Lawrence. I was 13 years old and I turned the house upside down looking for it..but no luck. Anyways, all this reading helped me in Biology class in 9th and 10th grade when the teachers were explaining the human reproductive system ;-). I used to haunt book stores - Book Center, Gupta Brothers Book Store and Vishalandhra Books - all of them in my hometown, Vizag. Vishalandhra is a rather interesting book store because it sells subsidised Russian books. All the books, especially childeren's books, were dirt cheap. I used to get a lot of story books about Baba Yagas and Mischa bears from here. Also English versions of Russian classics by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, etc. The only problem with the children's books from this place was that they all had sad stories with people dying (especially in the 2nd world war), or children being sent off to Sputnik camps, etc. One thing is for sure..the Russians did not believe in creating a La La Land for their kids in fiction as many Western kids books do. Till I was 13, my parents rented a home and the owners were an old Bengali family. Their palatial home was right next to ours. The family had moved from Burma and had an extremely colonial style of living. The lady of the house had a huge library filled with "treasures"....old books. This lady's children lived in Calcutta and she visited them often. Only a maid was left behind. I would happily sneak into their house and spend hours in the library. I read Phantom of the Opera but I balked at T. S. Eliot. I also found several years worth of a British literary magazine called The Argosy. It had writing by some of the best writers of the 50's and 60's as well as science fiction. Raymond Chandler, Jack London, Issac Asimov, etc. The lady found out about my activites and complained to my father. But the next time she went to Calcutta, I was back in the library. Towards the end of my 13th, year I started my Western and War phase. I read every book by Zane Grey, Louis Lamour, J. T. Edson, Max Brand and the SUDDEN series I could lay my hands on. I also read piles of Commando comics. All along, since my 5th year, I read most of the popular Indian children comics and magazines - Indrajal, Amar Chitra Katha, Target, Chandamama, Walt Disney World, and Champak. I still have all these. These were augumented by Laurel & Hardy, Beetle Bailey, Tarzan, Korak (Tarzan's son), Spiderman, Superman, Supergirl, Archie, Dennis the Menace, Richie Rich, and MAD magazine. For non-fiction, I read the National Geographic magazine. When I was 11, an uncle had given me a gift subscription and since then I've always had a subscription to it. A tragically comic thing happened when I was in 8th grade. A classmate of mine had sneaked in several copies of Picture Romance and True Love. We were busily pouring over these, when another classmate ran down the hall yelling that she had gone home for lunch and heard on AIR that Indira Gandhi had been shot. I never took to those magazines. My teenage years began in earnest and I started on sad books..rather books that were rather dark in content. Somerset Maugham, Ayn Rand (who can NOT read this high priestess of pulp psychology?), A. J. Cronin, Pearl S. Buck, Nevil Shute, Daphne Du Maurier (her books are light hearted but rather Gothic), Jane Austen (she is also light hearted and doesn't belong in my "sad" group but I read her during this time), Charles Dickens (I managed only 2 or 3 complete unabridged versions), Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters (my mother thought Wuthering Heights to be in the same league as the Mills and Boon and refused to let me read it..but I managed to convince her that it was a CLASSIC). For a period of about a year when I was about 16, I stopped reading "junk" (as my mother called it). In school, I always made it to the Tug-of-War and throwball teams ;))) Then in 11th grade, I found a new passion for sleeping all afternoon (I always went to 8-1:30 school). That year was a wash out too. The only saving grace was a 2nd prize for essay writing and I rested on these laurels for just a few minutes before I was disabused of all my feelings of triumph. Then I was 17 and my 12th grade CBSE exams were staring me in the face but I decided I'd rather get a degree in English Literature and not Science or Math, as my parents hoped. So..I went back to my (non)textbooks. Its a source of surprise to my parents and me how I managed to come 1st in class. After my 12 grade exams, came my HORROR phase. I discovered Stephen King and Peter Straub. My favourite Stephen King is IT. I had nightmares of clowns after I read it. I also like one of his novelettes called SUN DOG. I like Pet Sematary and Misery too. I saw the T.V. version of "The Shining" after coming here to USA. Its a rather well made 3 part series. "The Stand" was okay too. For some reason, I was never too enthusiastic about Dean Koontz. Getting into Engineering was another of those sleep walking things I did. New people, new (short lived) interests, and the excitement of being in COLLEGE put my reading to a stop. Actually, I had exhausted all the local libraries and even if I wanted to read something new, I couldn't find any. So, for a period of about 7 years (4 years undergrad and 2 years graduate school), I read the odd novel. Then I started working (in USA) and had a DISPOSABLE INCOME. At this time, I also moved to a new apartment complex and the county library was a stone's throw away. I renewed my passion for reading. I started easy with Maeve Binchy's books. I fell in love with the way she describes Irish life. The movie "Circle of Friends" based on her book is not as great as the book. I bought E. M. Forster's "Passage to India" and continued with all his other books from the library. "A Passage to India" deals with the relationship between an Indian man and a British one but David Lean twisted it around by making a woman the focus of his movie. I saw a PBS T.V. mini-series called "The Rector's Wife" and discovered Joanna Trollope. She is the grandaughter of British writer Anthony Trollope. She has written several other popular books, all dealing with a certain type of British woman's life. More naughty than her is Mary Wesley. She's British too and started writing in her 60's. All her books deal with Englishwomen from before the 2nd world war to present times. "A Dubious Legacy" is just one of her books. Someone at work gave me a copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence". But I finished just 3/4ths of it before I gave up. I saw "Interview with the Vampire" and read as many of Anne Rice's books I could find because I felt that the idea of a vampire searching for the meaning of its existance could be extended to human beings too. I think the first (Interview with the Vampire) and second (The Vampire Lestat) of her Vampire Chronicles are the best. I also discovered a small series of detective books by R. D. Wingfield about Inspector Jack Frost (A Touch of Frost, Frost at Christmas, etc.). I also read plenty of Ruth Rendell (Kissing the Gunners Daughter, Crocodile Tears, Inspector Wexford series) and P.D. James (An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, etc.). These are really cool books. I read a very curious book by Pete Hamill called "Snow in August". It deals with a lot of Jewish concepts (ever wondered what the Golem is?). Because of this I found out about Chaim Potok. In fact he lives a few miles down Route 30 from where I live. His "The Chosen" and its successors are best selling works. They also explain Judaism in depth. I picked up Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone" before I heard about the Oprah Winfrey Book Club but since then I've read several more Book Club selections. There is some element of truth when people say that her selections deal with women suffering. Nevertheless, very interesting reads. Of, course I also read the American classic "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D.Salinger. His "Franny and Zooey" is an interesting book too with mention of Hindu religious concepts. I saw the movie, The "Object of My Affection" and read all of Stephen McCauley's books. His decriptions of Boston and the representative characters of a university town are hilarious. One more interesting book I came across is "Playing for Thrills" by Wang Shou. He's a Chinese writer whose works have been banned in China because they are "vulgur". This book is a hilarious account of a 30ish loser who can't remember whether he killed another man 10 years ago or not. There's plenty plenty more and this is a very small selection of what I read/like to read. Because of homesickness, I got interested in any book that had anything at all to do with India - adventure, mystery, travel, religion, etc. That's what I'm most interested in now. I'm listing all the books about India that I read or heard about just so that anyone who is interested can read them too. Books featuring India/Indians(This is NOT an exhaustive list. These are books I've read or am about to read.)
FictionOnline Book Stores
On Line Books
Misc. LinksNot just EnglishIf you are wondering why there are only books in English mentioned here, its because that's the only language I can read, write and speak. There are other languages I can write and read but cannot speak properly (Hindi), languages I can speak but not read and write (Telugu and Kannada). I'm an IBCD (Indian Born Confused Desi :)) For people like me, the internet is a lifesaver..why? Because one HAS to use English alphabet to write Telugu (and Kannada). So, I frequently access the following sites that have writings by mostly Telugus. Hindi was my second language in school for 10 years and I had to read some books in it. I don't remember much of what I read except for a few short stories. A famous one is "Toba Tek Singh" by Sahadat Hassan Manto. I also remember a few "dohas" by Kabir that I like very much. One very interesting writer is Ismat Chugtai. She writes in Urdu and she writes pretty controversial stories. After a long search I got a book of her short stories (The Quilt and Other Stories). Its an extremely intelligent look at the people of mid 20th century Lucknow but quite universal too.Last but not least - PoetryI don't read poetry but because of school or just by chance, I've read a few poems that have stayed in my mind: |
