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While studying for the 12th standard exams at a friends house, i came across a book with a very strange name: So Long, and thanks for all the fish...
of course i had to read it... I think i laughed almost without a break, from the first sentence to the last! Douglas Adams (who wrote it) had become my new hero! :)



He died some years ago... and so, there won't be any books from him anymore, and the planet is a sadder place without him... but if anyone would like to read something uproariously funny, set in a crazy sci-fi universe not too different that our own, well actually it is a bit different, earth gets destroyed in the first few pages... then they should not look any further than the absolutely fantastic Hitch hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in 5 parts!

It starts thus:

In the beginning the universe was created, this was widely regarded as a very bad move!



Here are some more gems:

As he rounded the corner, the first thing that hit his eyes was a coffin. The next four hundred and ninety nine things that hit his eyes were also coffins!

"you are dumb"
"no, i am not!"
"yes you are!"
"am not"
"are"
"well, i will prove to you that you are dumb... think of a number"
"ok, i did..."
"So, tell me..."
"63"
"wrong! see i told you, you were dumb!"

The above is a conversation between a depressed robot and a mattress (don't ask!)

The qui'xbsgzxs from the star qely'ghtus have fifty arms and so are the only race in the entire galaxy who managed to invent the aeresol deodarant before the wheel!

This ship is powered by the improbability drive. You choose a destination and feed it into the ship's computer, since it is extremely improbable that the ship can go there, it will!

There is a page which lists the thoughts of a whale which has suddenly materialized a few kilometers above the earth's surface as it comes crashing down onto the planet which i think was perhaps one of the funniest pages i have had the pleasure to read! :)

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a book compiled for the intrepid galactic adventurer. Description of Earth in the guide: Mostly Harmless

...

There is a lot more, but i will leave that for you to discover. He also wrote the Dirk gently and his holistic detective agency series of books which deal with Dirk Gently the detective and of course his Holistic Detective Agency



Starship Titanic was perhaps the only book that i didn't throughly enjoy...

He also wrote a superb book called last Chance to See. It's a very funny book, dealing with the very serious problem of environment degradation and the extinction of species of flora and fauna on our beautiful planet...

The Last Salmon of Doubt is an incomplete book. He died before he could finish it. For the sake of completeness of your collection, get it :) It has a few superb moments!

Finally, when you read these books you will get to know the answer to the Ultimate question about Life, the Universe and Everything!!  

Sci-Fi

Rajeev Bharadwaj, a friend of mine introduced me to science fiction. It was an arena of books that i had never read before, and very soon i was devouring Sci-fi at an alarming rate :)

Isaac Asmiov's Foundation series is perhaps the best introduction to this genre... The series was writtnenover a span of 40 years by the author! The enigmatic Hari Seldon and the branch of mathematics called psychohistory is the basis of the entire series of books and all that can be asked in great fiction is there... an absolutely believable setting of a galactic empire on the verge of collapse, one man actually fighting to hurry the collapse which he predicts will take 30,000 years into just a 1000 years, and all the mystery and suspense about how the Seldon plan (based on the foundation of psychohistory, which i will leave you to read about) will work.



Asimov has also written the Robot series and is actually credited with coining the word Robot. And the 3 laws of Robotics. Again a series of brilliant books about how robots become more and more human, until there is little to differentiate between man and machine...

He was a prolific writer and write on many, many diverse subjects... from the bible to the big bang theory and lamost everything in between! I especially enjoyed his short stories :)

The other author who i think about in hushed terms is Arthur C. Clarke... his novels are lyrical, with surreal beauty and superb plots. There were two of his books, Childhood's End and the Fountains of Paradise which i absolutely loved... His Rama series which deal with an encounter with a mysterious alien space ship is also nice, though i didn't find the endings of the series satisfying... He does have a habit of killing off his characters at the most inopportune times. His other very famous books are the 2001: Space odyssey series which almost, almost managed to mimic what happened with earth's fledgling space program... you should read the books and then read up on the things that actually happened... i thnk only the monolith on the far side of the moon was not there :)... ofcourse you have no idea what i am talking about... read the books and you will know! :)



Dune is also a fantastic series set on a desert planet. So vividly written, it made me sweat and feel hot just reading it.

The Star Wars original trilogy is perhaps the BEST Sci-fi movies ever made... if you have not watched them, PLEASE do yourself a favour and buy them on DVD and watch them on as big a screen as possible with the volume turned on HIGH!


Before they went onto the gory german nazi movies, steven spielberg and George lucas gave us some really really nice feel good, happy ending sci-fi movies: ET, Star Wars, batteries not included, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones... According to me, all worth owning on high quality DVD and watching once every 2-3 years :), maybe sometime i will write a review for all of them :),

Just for the record, i really didn't like the story of darth vader which was told in episodes I, II and III, which were actually made years after episodes IV, V and VI... its kind of complicated :)

As much as i loved Sci-fi, i love fantasy even more... but that's for another post, some other day...  

Hatching Magic

... is the name of a very nice little book by Ann Downer, which i picked up in the children's section in Crossword recently with its sequel The Dragon of Never-Was. The first one was a really nice fun read, the second dragged a bit in places.

If you have kids, these are perfect read aloud stories... there is a lot of humour and good bits of scary parts and some very nice action as well :)

Somehow i have completely lost the taste for "normal" fiction... who wants to read about people who kidnap and murder and stuff when you can let your mind wander about... hatching magic!

The other book i have almost finished recently is Dark Alchemy, a collection of fantasy stories... Nothing dark about it at all :)... There is a short story in there called "naming day"... do yourselves a favour and read it! :) its superb!!!

A lot of people have started up their blogs... I will publish their links after they get to more than 20 posts... i will leave the quality of the content for you to judge... So all you bloggers out there, get your blog to 20 posts or more and tell me and i will definitely add a link here on this blog...

Also, many many people loved suparna's story, so if any of you have some nice short stories that you have written, that are wise, intelligent or just plain funny, please send them in and i will publish them a few times every month...

Finally, I have learned a lot about blogging from amanda's website www.bloggerbuster.com
If you have questions about stuff related to blogging, please click your way there and read up... i will shortly start up a new series of articles about the basics of blogging... after which i think amanda's blog can take you further... There are many other blogs that i used to create this one, but blogger Buster is the one i still use most extensively...

Guruji lands in Bangalore tomorrow night...

Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa

ps You may wonder how this post appeared if i am in silence... well... i scheduled it! :)  

My first "Fat" Book

When i was in the third standard, i had some disease called rheumatic fever... supposedly very bad and stuff... mainly for me it meant i didnt have to goto school for almost an entire year, i was passed to the next standard by Don Bosco for which i think i will be eternally grateful based on my performance in my first unit test...

So for almost a year, i had to stay home, be with my grandma, and a few friends who would pop by once in a while... dad introduced me to books then. Almost every evening when he would return from work, he would buy me a new Enid Blyton and i would read it up in a day... fortunately for me and dad Ms Blyton had been a prolific writer and so well into the next year i read books by her and kept wanting more...

Dad then got me other authors for kids, i liked the hardy boys and nancy drew series and other stuff that was then available but never really loved them the way i had loved enid blyton...

So, one day when we were at a party at my uncle's home who is also an avid reader, he gave me my first "fat" book: Hotel by Arthur Hailey. I had refused to read anything so fat so far, but i couldnt say no in front of all the adults there, so i took it with a grimace
... vowing not to read such a monster of a book!

Then after reading all the books i had a few more times, i was finally left with Hotel. Dad refused to buy me more books util i at least gave Hotel a try... i settled down with it, and i remember being blown away by it!

i quickly read up everything that Arthur Hailey had written so far and along with that gobbled up some Sidney Sheldon and Jeffery Archer as well... Hotel, Airport, Shall we tell the president?, Not a penny more, not a penny less (that was hilarious and it was not even fat!) were i think my absolute favourites...

By the time i was in college i had read many many fat books :) and loved most of them... As a residue of that illness i was not allowed sports till my 10th standard and so while everyone woudl be outside playing, i would be inside reading... and they would be feeling sorry for me, and i would really feel sorry for them! They had no idea in which worlds i was in when i had my nose in a book...

Hotel is still one of my favourite books... if you have not read it, please do :)

More exotic authors coming right up in a few days time...

Keep Breathing!
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa  

Favourite Authors and Books - 1 (Enid Blyton)

It's nice to start from the beginning :)

Enid Blyton is an author who writes for people between the ages of 6 to 18 or so... I still enjoy her books (guess i have still not grown up)

Her worlds are all sunshine and splendour, animals that talk and fairies and pixies and brownies and elves and witches and wizards and nature and fun and good always triumphing over evil and happy endings!

The best of her fairy stories trace the adventures of 3 children and their cousins in the Enchanted Wood where they climb the Magic Faraway Tree (the tallest, most magical tree in the world) to explore the magical lands that come by weekly at the top of the Tree... Oh what fun to be in the Land of Birthday Parties or the Land of Treats, and deliciously scary to be in the Land of Secrets and saving the Tree from evil trolls... what a romp! I still have these books on my book shelf, and they never fail to bring back very sweet childhood memories of when i was reading them for the first time... everyone should read these :)

Her other Stories for small children include the very funny Brer Rabbit Books, stories of Amelia Jane the very very naughty doll and the adventures of the Wishing Chair (a chair that flies to wherever you wish it to go) and Mr. Pinkwhistle a very good wizard with a naughty sense of humour that he uses to punish bad people :)

The Circus series with the adventures of Lotta, a brave, fierce and mischievous girl who rides her horse Black Beauty in the ring and Jimmy and nice boy and his wonder dog Lucky... When i used to read these books i used to seriously question why i went to school... when i could have joined a roaming circus...

The Adventure Series include the Secret Seven books (didnt like them much, the secret seven are quite snobbish and too goody goody for my taste), the Famous Five (adventures with 4 children and their dog, very grown up, very brave and with nice moments of good hearted fun and frolic)

The "of Adventure" series were even better, with Jack and his talking parrot, gentle Lucy-Ann Jack's sister, Phillip, a boy who could almost charm any animal, bird or insect with his presence and his sister who hates all creepy crawlies... incidental adults try to stop the children from getting into trouble and fail miserably and arrive only in the last chapter of the book by when the children have successfully captured all the baddies :)

My favourites were the Five Find-outers and dog! I have just started to re read these... They are so much fun, 5 children, a dog, all sorts of baddies, an inefficient village policeman (Mr. Goon) and some really nice mysteries make these evergreen for me... They are sometimes laugh out loud funny :)

The School Series: St. Clare's, Mallory Towers and the Naughtiest Girl series made me ache to goto a boarding school :) full of really nice characters, students from different backgrounds and very funny or wise or strict teachers and all the (mis)adventures that can happen in a school, but with no one ever really meaning to hurt anyone else... These too occupy a place on my shelf and i wonder when my sister's twins will start reading them...

There was another book called Those Dreadful Children which was about very prim and proper kids forced to become friends with completely crazy, full of fun very naughty kids (one family moves into the neighborhood and the fathers turn out to be school buddies...). Was a very nice tale about how 2 completely different types of people can learn, accept and become the best of friends...

I could go on... suffice to say that her books are good solid fun for young people, her language is great and her style is absolute innocence... highly highly recommended to anyone who is young or young at heart :)...

Curl up on a rainy day with some hot drink and read these books...

Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa  

Finished the Fulghum...

Well... i couldn't wait... didn't want to go slow anymore... so read in my usual breakneck speed... and it was a superb, satisfying little adventure with a man who loves to tell stories about the ordinary in a special extraordinary way...
Though he got a wrong idea about Sanyas (just a paragraph on it in one essay) and there may be a few things that he wrote which i dont agree with... it was a fun time!
His tales from the island of Crete are wonderful... some of them are laugh out loud funny, and the story the Meaning of Life (which is retold in this book) is as deeply moving and touching as it was the last time i read it... and i am so glad to see more of Dr. Alexandra Papaderos... I will leave you guys to read the book, without giving any of it away...

Thank You Mr. Fulghum... please do write more and more often...

Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa  

Robert Fulghum

I recently picked up a book called "What on Earth did I do?" by Robert Fulghum. I have read all his other books, the most notable being "All i really wanted to know i learned in Kindergarten"
All the books are simply small essays, almost never more than 4 pages long. He has a very wry wit, and a plethora of experiences of people of all sorts and places of all types... and he takes great pleasure in sharing it with us... Some of his stories are very funny, some extremely thought provoking and poignant... almost all without exception very interesting...
Here is an author for people to explore, who dont want to read "fat" books... though the book is fat... every little story in it is very thin, very enjoyable and hugely re readable...
It would be interesting to make Mr. Fulghum do an Art of Living course, take him to bangalore ashram and make him meet Guruji, and see what he writes about it...
Meanwhile, he has written maybe 7-8 books, and every one of them is quite superlative... i am about half way thru this latest one and though none of the essays in this one are laugh out loud funny, i am enjoying them and taking my time over them...
The trouble with books, especially good books, is that they take so long to write and just a few hours to read...
Happy Reading!

 

In Chennai

one word: Hot!! :) its an absolute mystery to me how people can choose to live here... i wouldnt buy a house here... i would expect to be PAID to live here :) But Raji aunty (Harish's and Kavi's mother) makes it all worthwhile by cooking up an avalanche of the most delicious dosas!! i finished reading 2 books today... have been reading one for some time now, its called the Unwaba Revelations by samit basu... its the third part of his gameworld trilogy, and while the other 2 were absolutely fantastic (The simoqin Prophecies and The Manticore's Secret), this one drags along... one big fantasy was after another interspresed with a few extremely funny and ingineous pages! I would keep reading to get to those parts... a very disappointing book, given the author's earlier work... its a good read in the toliet or a long boring journey, but not much else... The other is called Garlic and Saphires bu Ruth Reischl who used to be the New York Times food critic... utterly delicious and almost unputdownable for any person who enjoys food and some great humour... the only big problem i had with this book was that she talks about alsmot only non veggie restaurants and almost all the superb recipes in the book are non veg... will see how to convert some of them to veggie versions and post them here after cooking and tasting them for all of you :)... A throughly enjoyable read, i would recomend it quite wholeheartedly... Cheers to the people who designed and made the Air Conditioner!! Jai Gurudeva! love bawa

 

Curious Lives

Another book i am reading right now... Curious Lives by Richard Bach
quite nice, the second story in it i really liked a lot... though no where near the absolute genius of his other books that i feel everyone must read:

Johnathan Livingston Seagull
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
A Bridge across Forever
One

His writing is surreal, vivid, joyful, funny, poignant... makes you feel fresh
The other books that he has written, somehow i have not enjoyed so much...
Happy Reading!
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa  

An Uncommon Reader

picked this little gem of a book from Crossword the other day and finished it in 2 days... really nice read... its too short to even write a review about :)
Its about the Queen, reading, books, a Kiwi Private secretary jealous of books... all put together very engagingly and simply and delightfully :)
do read!
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa

ps also picked up another book called Measuring the World... nice but not as great as others make it out to be... read if bored :) (i read it on my flight from nagpur to poona to bangalore)  

Asterix

Oooo yes, i am quite a fan of asterix and obelix... though i think the characters that are the most endearing to me are Chief Vitalstatistix and the Druid Getafix :)
So, yes if anyone has that CD with that entire collection on it, i would love to have it! :)
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa