GoodReads 2012

Mightily obsessed =]

Everyone is obsessed about something. In my case , it is a pretty Loong list - Kamal Haasan , Surya , movies , cricket and last but not at all the least ...BOOKS. Throw anything at me I read it ^_^ (ie if it has any visual stimuli to apprehend :P ) Also , I am a bit compulsive about recording , organizing and reviewing every book I read. And what better place to do it than http://www.goodreads.com/   where they do all the organizing for you , give a platform to review and discuss the books , interact with authors ( I got a chance to video chat with Jeff Kinney  - of Wimpy kid fame!!) Also at the beginning of every year, you get to make a resolution - of x many books you want to read , and keep track of it!

<3 =') 

Ok that was a totally random advertisement I did . Goodreads doesn't need any advertising -_- Just spreading the awareness to those who have been living under a rock / preparing for their boards :P 

And the thing about this year's reading challenge is that I am almost close to my target!! Not like last year's 52/120 but a more realistic 50/60 which i can maybe even complete :O Who thought peeps preparing for board exams would read anything but textbooks . And i swear , I did not add my text books to the reading list , for if i did , i should have added every book 100 times :/

Inspired by facebook 'trends' - I am coming up with my own list. This one is  about the books i was lucky enough to read this year and NOT some list about best books of this year as such - I don't do shiny new books . 

Here is a bird's view of whatever i read this year - HERE 

It is pretty hard to write about all the 50 books i read. That would need another mega resolution. So its gonna be 7 excerpts as 5 seems too small and 10 too long :P  and also because of my unhealthy obsession towards 7 tables =') ( after all the years of playing snakes in my dad's phone at level 7 :P )

Disclaimer - The numbers are mere numbers. Not some ranking or chronological order. As i am not qualified / bothered enough to do both.

1. 39 clues - Pretty much dominated the latter part of my year. To begin with it is so easy and fun to read! It is like reading an action packed movie . something like a book version of spykids :D Sure to attract young readers , it has found unlikely takers in stressed out older men/ women who don't mind having a breezy and almost a no brainer kind of a  book . The series has a total of ten books and it has another stream of series - Cahills vs vespers to its credit. The story is about adorable orphans Amy and Dan , the good guys who find that their family is the most powerful on earth. And they decide to give up a million dollars to sign up for the most thrilling life risking clue hunt of anybody's life to save the fate of the world. We get to goto places like Vienna , Paris , China , Korea , Australia , Russia , Africa , Caribbean and England and meet evil relatives like the kabras , Holts , Wizards and Hos . An apt book for a train journey ,which you can't really remember after a while - in a good way :) But please don't read it and ask for a logical explanation. Its like  questioning James bond / Rajinikanth.

Really wants to know what goes on in her head xO 

2.Agatha Christie all the way - Although i've been reading her for quite a while now , I was lucky enough to discover some interestingly different book of hers. The Endless Night is one of the few chilling books you will ever read. The books starts on a bright note, with Michael Rogers , an ambitious young man getting to own his dream house and the woman of his dreams - who his also  pretty rich. The land where his house is built is supposed to be cursed by the gypsies and i don't want to reveal much more as I may reveal the spoiler. Even if you do know the twist do read the book ; i read it with perfect knowledge and still was taken aback! A true master piece . I also read seven dials mystery which has a fresh and energetic 'bundle'  as the female lead , very different from the normal miss marple or poirot. Even with Mr.Poirot we find some interesting variances , when in the ABC murders  he is forced to stop a murder from happening rather than find the killer who is responsible. And again a very truly imaginative if not far fetched ending. I strongly recommend you the read all the three gems :)

1. 3.Growing up has never been this poignantly portrayed before . This can be said about to kill a mockingbird  , which is one of the stellar classics of recent times.  Here Scout is a school going girl in the southern suburbs of USA . The tom sawyer like appeal will grown on into you and you will be batting for her , when her brother starts finding her too young to hang out with and the exciting court trials and the mysterious neighbor who is presumed to be a ghost prove to be cherries on a very well made and delicious cake , which is to kill a mocking bird.  Another one of this same genre is the OUTSIDERS  a very realistic book on Teenage Gangster groups in America whose unlikely lead Ponyboy and his buddies/brothers are the proverbial underdogs who we get to know and root for. A Tiny girl's life is captured in A tree grows in Brooklyn  which tells us about hope amidst poverty and difficulties. All the three books are truly great masterpieces whose geniusness I'm in vain failing to capture. Please just go read them and share my excitement! :) 

1. 4.Mrs. Frisby and the rats of the nimh  will be the biggest surprise package if you ever read it! Covered and blurbed like a 7 year old's Aesop Fable , this book is all BUT that . Talk about an head fake! The book is about mrs.Frisby the caring mice and mum , who has to find an antidote to her son's illness before winter ends. She is advised by the wise owl to go and get the rats help. Now the rats are sinister creatures who have an agenda of their own . They want to start their own civilization. How? Why? when? Where? What? READ THE BOOK. 

1. 5.Indian Mythology has never been made cooler. Amish Tripathi , has proved to be one of the best writing talents who has emerged out of India. Immortals of meluha  proves beyond doubt why it is not over rated and why every Indian needs to be proud of it. We have the cool and democratic Shiva who is the head of his tribal clan and smokes chillum whenever he is bored \m/ He is called in to settle in Suryavanshi region , where people believe him to be the descendant of Rudra due to his blue neck ( neelakanta xD ) Will he discover the god in himself and rise to the occasion? Are the enemies truly the enemies? and will the nagas ever be defeated? The book answers all these questions and is a celebration of Indian gods and their stories, if not very accurately so. And sorry for forgetting the romance between Shiva and shakthi =') 

1. 6.Satires both on religion and politics made an imprint in my fantabulous reading year.  When i first took 1984  i thought it was a sci fi kind of novel which I would never enjoy.  I turned out to be grossly incorrect . Lucky moi! The book is situated in a parallel world where WAR IS PEACE.FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. It is what would have happened if communists and nazis formed a dystopian coalition . There is the thought police to monitor your ideas and the sad part is you are forced to believe that you truly believe something you don't actually believe in . A truly great novel which every person must read to value his right to freedom of speech and expression ; and fight for it. On the other hand Kiran Desai's Hullabaloo in Guava orchard is truly hilarious , showing how Indians are ready to believe anybody to be a saint and how religion is one of the most profitable businesses . Pick it up to if you wanna laugh till your stomach hurts xD 

cutest shock faced i could find :P 

1. 7.No list of mine is complete without having a Jeffrey Archer book :O <3 the best author ever and my forever rolemodel!! This is what i wrote on Mrach 27th after reading the book  "This is the BEST book I have read in the 16 years of my life. Sure I am an archer fan , but my expectations weren't really high after the average only time will tell (with a stunning finish though)BUT OH MY GOD. I started reading the book at about 4 thinking I would read some chaps during the two hour power cut. Being lazy nowadays - I had convinced myself I am losing my appetite for books. But Archer just proved that my tummy is destined for unseen obesity levels!  Like another reviewer wrote , the book just sucked me in and didn't let me move an inch till the very last page , cursing the author for not writing more and now here I am waiting for the release of the next book.the sins of father , has everything a Jeffrey Archer book has. right from the prison accounts which are a trademark ever since the author's brief stay in the prison to the war and political aspects which are found in almost all his books. There is also the 'unseen' romance like paths of glory and hell! EVERYTHING that you could ask for.Harry clifton , Giles Barrington and Emma and Maise and surely Sir walter barrington maybe the most regal and awesome characters created EVER. It is sad how all the friends who help these characters die =( but someone has to die in the was right? :P   P.S - Semi is back to the reading business B| "    It sure did bring me back  to the readin busyness :D ^_^ 

Existential Anxiety

Its true.
I have not blogged in a 'while'
and that while has been one big blue whale of a time :P

Its true .
I have exams all the time now.
Yet I spend more time on facebook
than i do to annoy the life outta my brother.

Its true.
This can never qualify to be a poem ,
it has no rhyme scheme
or a complex theme .

Yet its true
that my blog has become a mere vegetable ,
a fruitful retrospection
to be pickled from the upcoming disaster of time.

Disclaimer - Views totally attributed to harmful effects of psychology.

okay :P I went a bit overboard there. Please be a bit kind upon me as I'm a bit scratchy, as its been a while. Yet I'm back, as the itch to write is intolerable. In the past many months , I did try writing. But the problem is/was, I really didn't know what to write about.
Everyone runs out of juice and one simply can't be creative when they are being sapped out regularly of their life through examinations. No , don't worry . I won't crib about exams here too. At least i'l try not to.

So lets move on to something even more depressing. Or at least something which looks superficially so. The end of school life . This is the time of the year, when saying bye bye to school happens. However, it is quite sad when all the crying and emotional catharsis is followed by regular visits to school in the form of exams , special classes and more exams , lol .

Yet is quite a 'life event' in an otherwise drab year. eleventh is any day more fun . why can't twelfth be like eleventh? -_-  okay this topic is so boring i don't even want to continue writing on it. God! Maybe this is how a dying blog feels like. Free association and Freud ftw \m/

Conversations have become so structured that i can even predict it before it begins. unfairness of timetable , teachers , school , education system check. Portions , doubts , bitching about subjects/chapters check. Status quo is such that deep introspection on each others subjects seems almost attractive. I met this old friend after a very long time . And she ended up discussing about the structure of the DNA *facepalm*

However howmuchever cool we act on the outside ( yes it is an ego defence we put up. In fact , according to Freud every way we behave is an ego defence ,everything we think is sexual and ever one of us are disturbed. So you really can't blame me for my disillusionment)  deep down inside we are all kutti paapas (small children) who do not want school to end.

While some of us express it very openly , crying our lungs out , others like to maintain that they are the least bit affected and are eagerly awaiting college. This maybe true , but like everything else in life , only partly. There can be no exceptions to this rule. Homo Sapiens fear change more than anything else. That is why old people don't like us sticking to our gadgets ( again only partly xP) and we don't like leaving a system which has been inbred in us for 14 years of our life. Thinking about it , the next generation will find it harder. They seem to be going to school the moment they've learnt to walk. Poor kids -_-

On top of all this , like an icing on the cake ( subtle reference = I may end this post soon yay!) while trying to  enjoy my over earned sleep. Morbid , intrusive thoughts keep popping up :'(  . Too much existential knowledge is never good - only exceptions is for the religious leaders and thinkers i guess . However i have no plans to become a sankarachariyar anytime soon . SO IT IS VERY ANNOYING. Questions like Why do we exist? what is the purpose of life? What will happen if i fail an exam? What is the point of money , grades , job , family , marriage , retirement etc etc? If  the answer is  'happiness', why shouldn't i take the easier way - that too when i have one , ie, laze around? Why should everyone perform some function in the society? Why can't we just sit at home? And if you're staying at home , why should you be a 'house wife' ? Why is not considered right to do NOTHING? Doing nothing seems very attractive. Why at this rate I can become a sanyasi. Semi baba xD but no I am too self indulging and 'pleasure principle' oriented to be one. But again who said i can't be both? xD and who said such people aren't both? Google 'reaction formation' .

Ishouldgosleep after performing relaxation procedures and cognitive and behavior techniques at least.

Sorry i wrote for myself . lol i sound like Randy pausch . There i go again -.-

THrow your textbooks somewhere faraway ( yet in a searchable distance :P )  after an exam.

Ta Ta Bye Bye