Thursday, December 28, 2017

My Bookshelf Challenge





So My favorite comic artist Grant Snider From Incidental Comics uploaded this marvellous work recently. The thing about his comic strips are that they are so detailed and the words have as much power as the images. I thought I'll do my annual book update via this structure. So Here goes..



2017 has been a disappointing year reading wise. I read only 13 books of my target 30. I also read out of my comfort zone. Sci Fi , Tamil fantasy , Rural based books and classics are really not my cup of tea and cold the cup remained till I gulped it like a medicine. 
Don't worry I also hate it when they make the movie poster the book cover
The Sci Fi book was Ender's Game. Not bad actually got sucked into the dystopian alien fighting kids fighting monsters schtick in the end. Apparently it is a whole big franchise. Read it if you are into that kinda thing. 
The two tamil books I tried this year were Ponniyin Selvan and Moondram Ulaga Por. 
Must Read

Ponniyin Selvan was every bit the epic it promised to be and I can't wait to read the next books in the series! Kalki is really an artist of mythical proportions. However , since I was reading Tamil after a very long time it took me time to read this book. 

Moodram Ulaga Por was quite honestly Moondram Ulaga Bore. While Tamil flows like poetry to our author Vairamuthu , the subject matter is handled very didactically. But lots of mann vasanai and muyal kari. I can understand why people would relate to this book. However , I didn't think we needed a literal white savior to fix our agrarian scenario. 


I read Gulliver's Travels finally. While it was fascinating at first , some of the adventures like meeting the floating island people and science hating people got boring real fast. Still a fascinating satire which makes us question the nature of Human Civilisation. 


Moving on to the challenge : - 

1) The Book I couldn't put down - Every Jefferey Archer book. Every Damn one. That man knows how to write a story. If I had to pick one , it will be Kane and Abel probably. 
<3


2) The book I couldn't pick up - My law textbooks are heavy af 

3) The book you gave me / which I haven't read - Oops. Quite a lot unfortunately. First on the line will be Jackdaws by Ken Follett gifted by Naveena which I will read ASAP. 




4) The book I brought to the beach - Who does that to books? :O Although when I was a kid I used to sneak Famous Five books into the bathroom so that I can read in between my bath. Yes , I was that kid. 

5) The book I tried so hard to like - More like the book I am trying so hard to like. War of the Worlds by HG Wells. My my I never knew end of the world can be this boring! Another book that I just couldn't sit through was Shame By Taslima Nasreen. How can someone cut paste stuff from wikipedia and call that a book?


6) Book I have multiple copies of - Only Time will Tell By Jefferey Archer. It came out in 2010 right around my birthday and suddenly everyone was gifting me the same thing! This made me lay down a rule that No more Jefferey Archer books as gifts on my b'day ( my brother was assigned to buy me them every year ^_^ somehow every Clifton Chronicle book released around by Birth date :D ) 



7) The Book that saved my life - Well a lot of books have shaped me as a person. Secret Seven Series by Enid Blyton opened the magical pathways to books for me. This saved me from becoming a Tamil Serial addict at the tender age of 8 :P 


8) The Book I lent you - I have a strict no lending policy and catalogue all my books. They are my treasure , how can I risk losing them? 

9) The book I fall asleep to every night - I never re read , there are too many books to be read out there! 

10) The book I mistook for a hat - Blasphemy!

11) The book I am desperately trying to write - History written as fun short stories for kids. 

12) All the books that changed my life - Oh boy. Five Find outers Series by Enid Blyton , Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling , Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer , Perry Mason Series by Erle Stanley Gardner , Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and Paths of Glory By Jefferey Archer. 

You can also respond to these questions in the comments! Will be fun trust me. 

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  2. Ponniyin Selva is one of the best books to read in Tamil. The characters of Vandiyathevan and Alwarkadiyan is well crafted. The character of Kandamaran as a foolish child trying to protect his family by doing non sensical things is also well written by Kalki and should be studied meticulously and is well known to everyone.

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