Bring home the bookworm

Total Number of Books I Own:

Am not planning to go down to the garage, open the dusty trunk, and take a manual count of my collection. All I have to offer is a calculated guess. Must be ranging from 300-400. This of course includes all the tinkle digests and Amar Chitra Kathas
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Last Book I Bought:

Dad buys most of the time. Last book I bought was “Kane and Abel” as a B-day gift for S.

Last Book I Read:

“Sex, Scotch and Scholarship” by Khushwant Singh. A collection of some of his best writings. He is one of my all- time favorite writers. Love his “With malice towards one and all” columns.

Currently reading:

“The Great Indian Novel” by Shashi Tharoor. A spoof of Mahabharata set in the late 1800’s and 1900’s, a marriage of Indian mythology and the Independence movement. Quite funny. A definite must-read.

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. First time I read it, I didn’t quite understand parts of it. The second time I read it, I fell in love with it. The third time I read it, I swore I would one day create a time-machine, and go back in time just to meet Howard Roark.

Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. One book that has changed my life for the better.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (mainly the last two and the first four)

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer. An epic novel about the lives of two great men. Superb narrative. Love the sequels to this book as well.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M.Montgomery. Got this one as a prize for standing third in an essay writing competition at school. Grew to admire this little, talkative orphan. Read the book a dozen times. Lent it to someone who failed to return it. Cursed that person to damnation. Please take heart and buy me this book, will ya.


Other books, of course:

A Time to Kill and The Chambers by Grisham,
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Archer
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Truth, Love and a little malice by Khushwant Singh
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Roald Dahl’s short stories
Amar Chitra Katha series
Five find outers series of Enid Blyton
Mallory Towers series of Blyton again
A Tiger for Malgudi by R.K.Narayanan
Animal Farm by Gerald Darrell
The Wodehouse collections esp. Jeeves
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
Most of Erich Segal’s books except for Oliver’s story.
Angels and Demons & The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

My All Time Favorite Characters:

Howard Roark: Of “The Fountainhead” fame. Hasn’t everyone who has read the book fallen in love with him. The ideal man.

Larry Darrell: The protagonist of “Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham. A man on a journey of self-discovery. Can relate to him very easily.

Swami: From Malgudi days. If I have a son, I would want one like him. He’s adorable. The actor in the TV series adaptation does full justice.

The Weasley twins: Fred and George are my favourites in the HP series. Wish it featured more of their adventures and less of the trio’s.

Hercule Poirot: The egg-headed Belgian might not be easy on the eye but he makes one helluva interesting read.

Rhett Butler: The only man who could put Ms. O’Hara in the right place. You can’t help but like his spunk.


A Book that Didn't Mean Squat to Me:

“God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy. I was all excited to finally lay my hands on the much-acclaimed novel, but it proved to be a damp squib. Definitely, the most over-rated book ever. Ms. Roy should instead have considered manufacturing Banana chips. God alone knows why she got the Booker.


I tag S , G , N