Reading Habit

[I write to music on repeat. This was written to 'O Butterfly' by Ilayaraaja. More about this wonderful piece of music some other time.]

0) I love reading. Call me an avid reader, a book snob, a bibliophile, or what you will. The first thing you will notice about me is that I carry a book in my hands. Almost always.

1) I read when I eat, in the toilet and before sleeping. I read atleast an hour everyday. I am obsessive compulsive about this.

2) I verbally abuse anyone who does not know how to handle books, especially mine. I am a reluctant book lender.

3) People who make dog's ears on pages are lazy and downright disrespectful. There are things called book marks. Or use a byte of the lazy memory to remember the page last read.
4) I judge people by the book they read. Try me.

5) I have read most of the books I have bought.

6) I spend most of my earnings on books. Nothing gives me more pleasure more than a good bookshop. When I enter one, I shiver in a good way. I am not kidding.

7) I can read anywhere. In a crowded bus, while walking or shopping.

8) I carry atleast two books with me wherever I go.

9) I am usually in a quandry as to which books to pack for any trip.

10) I read multiple books simultaneously. After the first few pages, I switch to the book that pulls me in. The book mark stays unmoved in the others until I finish the former.1

11) Complicated high-sounding words in a written piece turn me off. My vocabulary is minimal, or just enough.

12) When I was six, my father got me my first book. Bed Time Stories. I still have the book and in my opinion, it is a brilliant collection of stories with illustrations.

13) The first book I ever bought with my own money was in 1997. Jane Eyre, Puffin Classics. I have read that book atleast twenty times.

14) The first full length novel that I ever read was The Secret Island by Enid Blyton.

15) I have read two Mills' & Boon novels in my entire life. I was 13 and I found both the novels the same except for names and places. I didn't understand why there needed to be so many books with the same story. But now, I have grown more resigned thanks to constant contact with Bollywood.

16) I read my first Wodehouse when I was twelve. But I didn't enjoy his writing until later. Picadilly Jim is my favourite Wodehouse. During my teenage years, I dreamed of meeting a man like Jim and falling in love. Wodehouse is like wine.

17) Nothing turns me off more than an book-ignorant book shop assistant.

18) Crossword Book Store is an insult to the word 'Book Store'.

19) This past weekend, I bought about eight books. Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Of Human Bondage (Somerset Maugham), Seek my face (John Updike), Old path White Clouds (Thich Nhat Hanh), The Lady and the Monk (Pico Iyer), Tintin and the Lake of Sharks, Stories from the Mahabharata (Amar Chitra Katha), Bhagawat (Amar Chitra Katha) and stray Superman comics - the last three for a boy who refuses to grow up.

20) I heart the Bronte Sisters. Wuthering Heights is a brilliant novel.

21) I was greatly influenced by Ayn Rand when I first read her works (I was 17.) I have done a 4 month project on "Objectivism in Ayn Rand's fiction" and was a semifinalist in some global essay competition conducted by http://www.aynrand.org/. Now, I disagree with almost every aspect of her philosophy.

22) Howard Roark is a most wonderful character. However if I were to meet him in real life, I don't know if I would enjoy his company over coffee. How does anything else matter then? :-P

23) I AVOID pulp fiction and best sellers. Da Vinci Code is a load of crap. I like early Jeffrey Archer though.

24) Self help books are uninspiring and amusing simply because they try too hard.

25) Douglas Adams, LOTR, Wodehouse and Asimov - my idea of fun reading. I love Asimov's Robot short stories.

26) Enid Blyton's descriptions of food make my mouth water.

27) J.K.Rowling is rich in imagination but stale in writing. I find Harry Potter tiresome, nevertheless I read it.

28) I used to read Shakespeare for fun. Yes, you read right. For fun.

29) Poetry inspires me.

30) The climax of Grapes Of Wrath is sheer genius. It took me a month to get through the first hundred pages of the book and two days for the rest. When I read the climax, I jumped around for joy. I was so moved that I took a solitary walk with brilliant music for a couple of hours. Spectacular.

31) Grapes of Wrath is not my favourite Steinbeck though. 'A Russian Journal' is. If I can write something like that, I will swoon and die the next minute.

32) I wish I could kiss Marquez's hands for penning 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' I wish I had met Hermann Hesse. I bow to him.

33) Nabakov makes love with words like no other.

34) R.K.Narayan is the best Indian author. Ever. His writing smells of the Indian soil. It is as evocative as that. Vikram Seth is good too. I have been meaning to get hold of The Golden Gate. I cannot relate to Rushdie, somehow.

35) Sartre does nothing to me.

36) I cannot understand or relate to a person who thinks reading books is a waste of time.

37) I cannot read e-books. They are not thumbable.

38) I love philosophy. Oriental/Indian philosophy/Bhagavadhgita is the single greatest achievement of mankind, assuming they are of mortals.

39) I can learn anything that has a good book on it. I prefer reading to being taught. My favourite text books are Calculus & Analytical Geometry by Thomas & Finney and
Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen & Rivest. (Not that I am an expert on both. :-) )

40) Both my parents do not read for pleasure. My mother thinks reading non academic books is a complete waste of time.

41) Most of my friends do not read. I have only one or two who are serious readers.

42) In college, most of my time was spent in the dust covered first storey of the library, the fiction section that no one ever used. Some of the books I read have never left their places in the shelves since 1985.

43) The best gift I can ever receive are books. You give me a book I love and I have been meaning to read for long, and you are the best, ever. I have received only two books as gifts, thus far.

44) I love the smell of old books and the feel of yellowing pages.

45) I envy Pico Iyer for what he does for a living. I wish I could do the same.

46) When I was young, I was forbidden from reading books not related to curriculum. Hence I used to lock myself up in my grandfather's room and pretend to be studying. I would then climb into the loft, open the old trunk full of books (that had both my grandfather's books and those that I got from the library and hid) and read them. When my mother knocked on the door, to check if I was actually studying, I would jump down hurriedly and open the door. Once, I sprained my leg jumping down and was in bed for a week. I had to find another way to sneak-read.

47) Some of the best reading I have done, have been during some exam preparation. When I am keenly focussed on something else, I read faster and more effectively. Made in Japan, The Moon and Six Pence, Harry Potter I-IV, A Beautiful Mind, Ayn Rand, One Hundred Years of Solitude all read during one series of exams or the other.

48) Words, I believe, are the strongest medium of rational and sometimes emotional expression.

49) The books I have read have made me who I am today. Reading has given me some of my truest moments of happiness, of the quiet contented sort.