Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Book mania

One fine day (precisely 4 days before writing this) I got suddenly interested in reading fiction/non-fiction books rather than the usual computer stuff which I am more interested nowadays.
This interest was aroused when going through the books in the office library which although predominantly is stacked up with techno software books also has some management/leadership stuff. I was with a colleague who is exactly opposite and is only interested in general books (more of non-fiction). I am a good reader of books and have read many fiction books in my college days.
To list-Agatha Christie, Sidney Sheldon, Frederick Forsyth,Robert Ludlum,Jeffery Archer, Arthur Hailey etc... This list also included some stray authors of whom I have read only 1/2 books.
This is all total fiction. This was during 1985-91 my college days. Slowly lack of time and also loss of interest took its toll and I did not read much fiction from 92-present. Infact I shunned biographies/autobiographies/management etc. My interest was in software from 99. I have a good collection of some 45-50 books(I havent counted) on software and computers.

These days it is possible to get a book from the local bookseller(raddi) for Rs.150-200/-. This is the deposit and you get back Rs.120-180 on return. The return has no time limit. I have already read "Da Vinci Code", "Are you afraid of the dark", 2 popular novels through the above method. There was some little interest which had already aroused but it was just a spark and 4 days back it turned into fire.
Now the question was which are the really good books which should be read. I vaguely remembered that I had visited a site called pagalguy a premier MBA resource site. I had come across the url in the newspaper when the CAT results were leaked. It was a good site and I found a link on quizzing very interesting. I decided to visit this same site and find whether they have something realted to books. Yes, my hunch was correct I found a long discussion on books recommendations. It runs into 75 pages and I have gone through only 30 of them. I also started making a list of the books recommended even though I had not heard of the title nor the author.
From the 30 pages I read the following can be summarized

Ayn Rand-Fountainhead,Atlas Shrugged------------------Highly recommended read
also rated high by everyone-I had read Ayn Rand in college and everything went above my head as I found it boring. I read Anthem, We the living etc. Should try again especially Fountainhead
John Grisham-Partner,Juror etc--------------------------Highly recommended read
but many people complained about his latest novels being boring.
Akio Morita-Made in Japan-------------------------------Recommended
Paolo Coelho-The Alchemist,Veronika dies...--------------Recommended. I just Alchemist today and found it boring. The initial part was good then it really needed my will to finish the book.
Catch-22-------------------------------------------------Recommended
Sidney Sheldon-------------------------------------------Good read but new titles have lost the old charm

Above mentioned summary is solely of the pagalguy list posters.
I will refine it yet further as i go through other pages.
I read The Alchemist in the last 4 days when the book mania caught me.
Lets see now much I am able to read