what have you read - a revisit

This blog has been in a dormant state for a long time now. Between my last post and this one, I had changed jobs, wrote two posts which are still in draft, traveled less and read more, put on few kilos(Thanks to my wife's cooking) and got bored to death. It was during one such boredom that  I started reading my own old posts for some self motivation. I came across this blog which was a tag, and thought about re-posting it, with updates.

It is a book list and we have to say what we have read out of it. I have done this in August 2nd 2009 and thought about re-doing it just to see how many more books I have read from that list. I have also added a mark IS in addition to the X mark, which indicates that the book is In Store but I have not read.

So here is the Tag:

So how many books on this list have you read?

The BBC says most people will only read 6 of these 100 Books.Instructions:Cut and Copy the list into your notes... then...
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read. (remove other persons X's)
2) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - IS

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X

6 Any religious book

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell – IS

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - X

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - IS

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - X

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - X

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - X

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - X

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - X

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - X

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - X

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville – IS

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - IS

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - (Read a few of them)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - X

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - IS


That's a total of 18 read and 6 in store books. Last time it was 12 & 5. I would consider it a disappointment since the In Store books remained in store, and I could get hold of only 6 more books in this list in 2 and a half years. Sure this list is not the epitome of best books and for sure I have read many more good books during this period, which unfortunately doesn't fall in this list. But still, given a chance I would love to read them all. Considering that, it is a disappointment :)

Anybody up for this tag ?

what have you read?

I got this tag from my friend Shalini's blog, which I came across very recently. This was a cool tag and it was long time back I did some serious tags in my blog.

I never found the list so exciting, since there were lot of good books I read and are not in the list, for e.g The Brother's Karamazov, The Silence of the Lambs, The Day of the Jackal, The Stranger etc to name a few. But still its interesting to count how many I have read.

I have also added a mark IS in addition to the X mark, which indicates that the book is In Store but I have not read.

So how many books on this list have you read?

The BBC says most people will only read 6 of these 100 Books.Instructions:Cut and Copy the list into your notes... then...
1) Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read. (remove other persons X's)
2) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X

6 Any religious book

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell – IS

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - IS

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - X

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - X

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - X

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - X

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - X

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville – IS

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - IS

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - (Read a few of them)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - IS

That's a total of 12 read and 5 in store books. Not bad, considering the list even had some names I never heard. And it turned out to be good for me for my next Bangalore Book Festival shopping :)

Adios.

my own self..

I picked up this tag from Mathew. Writing this was exciting as I dug deep into myself and came up with these facts :). So here I go.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER:

Everyone’s favourite – Taare Zameen Par

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Simply Awesome. Grab a copy today if you love reading magical realism.

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?

Loved playing Ludo. Now nothing much. Cards of flavors Rummy, Paral (Theen Paththi) are the present favorites, if they count to be a board game.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?

Sportstar, Mathrubhumi (Even though now a days the standard of Mathrubhumi is coming down), All the Onapathippu's of main Malayalam magazines, Bhashaposhini.

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Smell of earth after a rainy day
Smell of Fish Fry especially if the fish is Ayala or Maththi
Smell of good Malabar Chicken Biriyani.

6. FAVORITE SOUND? Of MUSIC?

Sound – Of my Bird after she is revamped by Gopettan. Tuff, tuff, tuff… , of torrential rains..

Sound of Music – mmm let me think. A. R. Rahman’s usage of flute in Tanha Tanha in rangeela, and also in lot of other songs.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?

When I am alone, I think about the various incidents my life which I could have averted if I could have behaved in a much better way, and at that point.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE

Where is My Specs?

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?

When I was staying Koramangala, it used to be the Modern Bakery near our house. Now nothing much. Bhagini Paradise satisfies my hunger for Biriyani’s .

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?

I do not know about future child’s name, but I do like the name Appu a lot. I guess that’s the most used name for kids in Kerala. M.T's protagonist in Naalukettu is called Appunni. May be I am influenced by that

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...?
Our Economics Sir taught us, money is what money does. Frankly I do not know; may be I will venture for a world tour on my Red.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?

Yes I do. But that doesn’t mean I drive rash. I do drive fast when I have the mileage to drive fast. Like on way back home to Vadakara, I touch 90-95-100kmph on Mysore Road, while I reduce to 80 after Mysore.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?

No. My sister does.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?
Love Storms. Perfect would be watching them approaching you from a paddy field

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?

First Car is yet to come. First Bike I owned is Bajaj Pulsar. And First Car I drove would be Hindustan Motors’ Ambassador Mark IV.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?

Tea Any Time. Soda Sherbeth, Sharjah Shake and Panchasaara Vellam.(This you will find only in Vadakara where you call it Panchara Vellam. You add sugar onto water then add a few small onion pieces and take it. Awesome it is)
Hard Drinks : Bacardi White Rum, Bacardi Reserva Rum, Antiquity Blue Whiskey. Off late my favourites are Mansion House Brandy and Old Monk Rum. So cheap you know :) .

King Fisher Strong is Welcome anytime.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD .....

.. have finished reading all the books present in my bookshelf before I buy anything more.

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?

Sorry – Hard Core Non Vegetarian. I am allergic to Ghass Poos.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?

How about Pista Green?.

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.

Calicut, Zella (in Libya), Palai, Vadakara, Tripunithura, Trichur, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore in that order from birth to till date.

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?

Cricket any time. Football on World Cup and Tennis on Grandslams.

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.

I took it up from Mathew. I know he is quite a jovial guy, but when I look at his profile pic and see that big mush I get scared :).

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?

I am a Tharra fellow :). My bed is on the floor, on it sides I keep the book I am reading currently, my mobile and my spectacles. Under the bed, there would be the tons and tons of dust if our maid servant hasn’t cleaned that day. (That means I was still sleeping while she was cleaning the floor around my bed).

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?

No. I don’t. There are a lot of bad things in me which many of the people around me don’t like.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?

Both. I can sit late and watch any movie and read any book, and I can wake up early to go anywhere in the morning.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?

What does this mean? From a few blogs I came to know its about Eggs. Bulls-eye !! I like it Over Easy then.

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?

Home Sweet Home.
Ride On Bike, if that can be considered as a place.

28. FAVORITE PIE?
I don’t like Pie.

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?

Vanilla with Hot Chocolate.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?

I don’t know. (Well Seema has just done it)
And this tag goes to..
This tag is already quite popular, but however I feel these people will try to do it.

Abhi - Whenever he is free from his WBL.
Seema - Whenever she takes a break from her awesome poetry.
Joju - Whenever he is done with his Malayalam Dictionary.
TP - Whenever he breaks his Infinite Loop.
Tanuja - Whenever she gets time.

the sunshine memoirs

The summer has set in. And so has Silverine’s Tag – The Sunshine Tag - in my mind. And Here I Go!!

There is always a joy associated with the summer, even though it sweats you a lot. The main memories you take out from a summer would be the time out you get from the studies, the eagerness to hear the last bell of the last exam of the year, the graduates moving out of college with the pain departure. Autographs, love confessions, Farewell parties.

I don’t have a number to revive the sweet old memories; I will just put it down. Up from childhood days to the mid twenties.

The earliest memory would be the wait for my uncles to take me to my Achan’s house. I had my initial schooling in Pala and my vacations were always spent at Achan’s house in Vadakara. The Day Express journey from Kottayam to Vadakara was tiring; but I was always excited. I may have got a window seat and I would be looking outside; the cool breeze will set in to the thickly populated compartments. Periyar will pass, Nila will pass and across the Moorad river will be Vadakara. My home!!

There always used to be the Swing on the Ottu Maavu which my grandmother would have set up for me, with the help of our servant Gopalan. That swing used to be fun; and I was the only kid used to be there to swing on it. My cousins were still not born or very young. My youngest uncle and I used to do doubles on the swing, with he standing on the swing and I sitting. And on one event full day, we both fell from it and it happened such a way that I fell on top of him. He fell on his back and got it injured. I was on top of him.

Finally as Mummy and Achan returned we settled in Vadakara and I enrolled into the SNHS. Still the summers were same; going to Achan’s or Mummy's place. Then there were the vacation trips we took in our Ambassador car to the Oottees, Kanyakumarees, and Bangalores. They were fun, with atleast two families pushed into one big car. And Achan and another uncle (The Naathan of the other family with us) driving with mummy pinching in during the easiest of the routes. In one such journey, I remember mummy going to the sides out of the road and Achan in front suddenly crushing her feet with his shoes. He was just applying the brakes :-)

The cricket I played with my friends in the neighbourhood is one thing I still miss today. Though those by lanes (Eda in Vadera Bhasha) has turned into the tarred roads, even today when I walk through I can hear the fresh voices of appeals and caught behinds.

Going to Calicut with family. We always used to go to Calicut; it is just like my home town. But summers will be fun with mummy making a big list to shop including school uniforms and other house hold items. I always waited for the lunch and the visit to Calicut Beach. The Biriyani from Sagar or Paragon or Topform made my day and the long wait at umpteen shops have been fruitful. Calicut Beach in summer is a really great place to be in the evenings, with lots of people coming to enjoy their vacation. Calicut indeed is the best place to live in; I believe.

Kunnath is my Valyamma's (Achan’s Elder Sister) House. Visiting them and staying there was one of the top priorities during any vacation time. I preferred staying there than at my Achan’s ancestral house because there were cousins of my age at Kunnath. We used to go to the nearby paddy field play cricket or jump into the pond in the courtyard or fish the guppies with the towel. I will only jump; but not swim. Valyachchan’s attempt to make me float on the Thenga Thondu wasn’t a success as a big Mr Dhanush Gopinath will cry after going further deep into the pond. After a week I should report at Thacharkandiyil, my Achan’s house, were I spent time swinging and reading books and teasing my sister.

Summer’s never used to be the same after college started. Our exams always came in June and the summer at home or hostel was hotter. At home mummy’s care was there with me putting up weight only to lose it after going to hostel. Summers at hostel were fun if people were there. With exam dates nearing, the grand C Hostellites will start playing Volleyball in front of the C Hostel. It was a kind of break away from the studies; then a bath with loud shouts of Therri Vilees. Then a stroll to Pallimoola or Viyyur to get some dinner (Mess’ aren’t open in vacation) and back to studies. Across my table sat a slim anon; who would be busy turning the pages of an Operating Systems or Systems Programming book as though he is readying a Frederick Forsyth thriller. The marks he bought in were a bit huge though. :-)

Then at the end of one summer I joined the IT world and became a tagged engineer. And then onwards there was No Summer. All the summers got evaporated in the air conditioned cabins of multinational companies. Instead there were the seasons of design, coding, testing and release. Period.