Sunday, August 31, 2014

These are a few of my favourite reads......

There is a song by Cliff Richard called "Wired for Sound"....This is post like that song. I like different books for different reasons. How does one choose ones favourite books? And my liking for a book at a particular time depends entirely on my mood and my need at that given moment.

I like “Little women by Mary Alcot” because I learn to be ‘content’, just reading it, simple lives, simple joys…I love the way the mother of the girls goes from neighbor to neighbor helping everyone and being “like” a working mother and yet doing so much good to society and for that how the girls love and respect her.Yes, it forms a part of my favorites list. 

But, on other days a favourite would be a ‘Rats, sorry King Rat by James Clavell’ when my mood and need would be to feel one with the strife of war and to be grateful for my own secure cocoon.

 Another state of mind necessitates historical, period books such as ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett wherein the slow shift from religion to science and from orthodox thinking to modern thought is brilliantly captured by Follett in the medical and (technological) architectural processes that shaped post medieval Europe and as a Sociologist I much enjoy this kind of reading of society. 

Another favourite and a book I saw being read and reread by my father when I was a little girl (and even today, I do hope to inherit his writing skills, he maintais a diary of notes of and from his favourite reads!!, what a man!!) is ‘The Passions of the Mind” by Irving Stone and also “The Agony and the Ecstacy” and “Lust for Life” by the same author.These are my favourites even though I can recall only some portions of them and I can safely admit that they have not been read by me ‘cover to cover’ but yes, they are part of my favorite list.That makes six.

I often find myself telling anecdotes from another favourite “Maus” which is an interesting graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, this is usually when I am in a ‘teach my kids the value of stuff and the necessity to believe in the worthiness of frugality’ mood.I appreciate how the father of the protagonist uses his teabags more than ten times during the course of the day as this was what they would do during his time at Auschwitz. He would sometimes even use the same teabag the whole month (all from memory so might be wrong about exact anecdote).I now use my tea bags at least four times a day (much to some of my friends chagrin)

 So, you see there are different things one takes back from books that come to make it ones favourite. I like "Nirmala" by Premchand for it laid the foundation for my interest in Sociology and social commentary when I was very very young....and many many many more ……..maybe I should stop





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