Books That Have Impressed Me

The old ones are the Murakamis, and Ogilvy on Advertising, Maverick by Ricardo Semler. Umberto Eco's shorter essays are a new favourite. Comic stuff from Dave Barry or Woody Allen (he wrote too) is always welcome for an ATL (any time laugh).

Selfienomics, and The Art of Social Media (the latter by Guy Kawasaki), The 100-year-old-man who Jumped Out of a Window and Disappeared are some of the recently read books that were impressive. TED Talks by Chris Anderson was good also.

Naseeruddin Shah's autobiography, and Dev Anand's, were well-written. A biography of SD Burman that I got hold of at a concert in his honour was good, like a book about RD Burman I read earlier. I am a big fan of their music, making those reads all the more enjoyable.

This Way is Easier Dad by Harimohan, and Sreeram's Kalyug were ones from known people that I enjoyed reading. Attended the Pune launch of the former at Pagdandi, an offbeat book store.

Old favourites that I can re-read anytime are PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Asterix. Liked the new Sherlock based on the classic. Just started re-reading some A.A. Fair books. I like Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe as a character too, in the mystery genre. Mr. Majestic is a fun detective story about a small-time Bangalore crook that I was gifted by Meghna, and liked.

My favourite Marathi author is the humourist P. L. Deshpande. Another teenage favourite was B.R.Bhagwat, who wrote the Faster Fene books- a movie was recently made with him as a hero.

Osho's books are also highly readable, and so are some of Jaggi Vasudev. J. Krishnamurti is also an old favourite.

Resolving Resolutioning

Ok, this may not exist as a word, but it's obvious by its timing that it's about resolution-making. I have  resolutely been against making any resolution of any kind, because I have no clue at all on how to make them see the light of day. The only one I can probably keep is to read a few more books. If they happen to be of the quality of Zorba the Greek, or any of the creations of Wodehouse, all the better. I have also managed to discover a few other good authors over the last few years, through browsing at bookstores, or through 'friend'ly recommendations.

Some of these are Haruki Murakami, Bill Bryson, Sadat Hasan Manto, Alain de Botton, Umberto Eco, Devapriya Roy (The Vague Woman's Handbook), Saurav Jha (The Upside Down  Book of Nuclear Power), Fritjof Capra (Uncommon Wisdom), Subroto Bagchi, Julian Barnes (his 'Nothing to be Frightened of', an autobiography of a kind), Raju Bharatan and Ashok Ranade (on Hindi films and music). Some autobiographical stuff was also very readable, as in Leela Naidu, Michael Caine, and Kishore Biyani (the story of his starting Big Bazaar). Currently, I am reading the autobiography of Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, the heroine of one of my favourite films- Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. Someone recently recommended Charlie Chaplin's autobiography, and I resolve to read it sometime soon.

Other than these, I have also read some good blogs by Harimohan, Vinod Ekbote, Diamond Head and some others like Parul Kashyap Thakur, Meghna Sinha, Gowri Kishore and a couple of IIM Indore students. Also wrote quite a few blogposts, and was happy to see the readership climb in unexpected corners of the globe.

A Way to Die Happily

Death and taxes, as someone has pointed out, are inevitable. But happiness is not. Particularly when it concerns dying. We are into life-prolonging mechanisms of all sorts, including practicing bizarre medicine, prayers, and the like. Not to mention body-freezing and other 'scientific' methods.

But this is not about prolonging life. It is about being happy while you die. Unfortunately, it is not a theory I developed. I am merely narrating it, in my own words. It is from an essay by Umberto Eco, probably translated from the Italian.

You must think of everyone else in the world as a fool. Except you. But this must not happen too early in life. My view is this is where we go wrong. Anyway, why?

We will never be happy if we think that all that we are going to miss is really good/worthwhile. Then we wouldn't want to go. The people, places, things that we leave behind must seem worthless. That would make us happy. But if that happens too early, then we wouldn't enjoy life. Gradually, over a period, we must therefore develop a 'superiority complex', if I may paraphrase Eco. And feel happy that we are going beyond it all.

For details, refer to his original writing. As a theory, it makes sense, don't you think?

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco's novel by this name is what I am reading- about halfway through it. He has a rather long-winded style of describing places- the action here happens in an abbey in medieval Italy, with a lot of 'orders' of Christianity fighting for upmanship, and intrigue, and murders happening in the abbey. The detective is a guest at the abbey, also a holy master of some 'order'.

A period novel, very nicely built up suspense, though very different from the Sherlock Holmes or Poirot variety. Takes more patience to read, but could be an acquired taste. Since I haven't reached the denoument yet, can't comment on it. But it kept me company through a flight to Indore and back, and helped keep the mind off the insipid food.

One of the interesting exchanges in the abbey described is about whether laughter is good or bad. Arguments of various people, starting from Aristotle, are listed.

Now, that's one thing about which there is no argument about in my mind...laughter is the medicine for all times.