Ranji Lal : 06.Dec.2008

The Word

RANJIT LAL
Author

A book that means a lot to you?
The Compact Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan by Salim Ali and S Dillon Ripley. It’s one of the best combinations of descriptive literature and precise science writing there is, combined with sprinklings of acid humour which make it unbeatable. Another was Susan Sontag’s On Photography.

Your favourite genre?
I don’t really have a favourite genre. What I pick up usually depends on the mood or requirement of the moment. Basically, I read what I feel like; the same title may appeal to me at one point of time, and leave me cold at another.

Your favourite character?
At the moment, Calvin and Hobbes! Can’t really explain why, though — it’s self-explanatory!

How many books do you own?
Haven’t counted, maybe 400-500?

An underrated book? And why?
The Titus Books by Mervyn Peake. They’re works of stupendous imagination, especially the first two of the three, Titus Groan and Gormenghast. Another one I greatly enjoyed was Family Bites by Lisa Williams — a hilarious take on werewolves.

An overrated book? And why?
I find that most self-help books are overrated; but I’m still waiting for ‘Chicken Soup for the Chicken’s Soul’!

The book you bought last?
The King and I by Prerna Singh Bindra.

Last book read?
Chocolat by Joanne Harris.

A book you wish you had written? And why?
Too many for a single lifetime...The Handbook of Birds and Midnight’s Children are two to begin with.

Amazon review of chocolate, is found here.

The Word : Karan Mahajan : 20.Dec.08

KARAN MAHAJAN
Author

A book that means a lot to you?
I loved The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick so much that it became my fate: like Ruth Puttermesser, I too work for the New York City bureaucracy and have lived among other people’s things in borough after borough. All I lack now is a wish-granting golem that’ll make me Mayor of New York, and a prosestyle so brilliant it glistens on the page like hell-frozen fire.

Your favourite genre?
ALL-CAPS EMAILS.

Your favourite character?
Gould, the eponymous character from Stephen Dixon’s Gould, for stupidly explaining himself at great length and speaking in run-on page-size sentences.

How many books do you own?
I’m going to ballpark it at 400+.

An underrated book? And why?
The Suffrage of Elvira by VS Naipaul. Brilliantly titled, written rapidly, and sandwiched chronologically between The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street, this book has been nearly forgotten. But as a racial and political satire it is far riskier and biting than the other comedies; it carries within it a real sourness about the communal infighting that consumed Trinidadian politics.

An overrated book? And why?
Money by Martin Amis. We’re told to read him for the prose, but he seems like a ‘burra sahib’ trying to rap.

The book you bought last?
Remainder by Tom McCarthy.

Last book read?
Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel.

A book you wish you had written?
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, because that would mean I’d have read it and led a largely olfactory life.

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Amazon Edit review on Cynthia Ozick's ' The Puttermessers Papers' is here.

Amazon.com Review
Fans of Cynthia Ozick are likely already familiar with Ruth Puttermesser, whose highly educated, unlucky-in-love but rather mystical existence as a Jewish woman in New York City has been chronicled in previously published stories appearing occasionally through the years. The Puttermesser Papers collects the old stories, along with several new ones, combined to create a funny and surreal picaresque narrative, touching upon Puttermesser's job at a blueblood law firm, her creation and intellectual sparring with the golem she makes out of soil from her flowerpots, her term as mayor of New York, her own death by murder, and beyond. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Veteran novelist and essayist Ozick continues to impress with this episodic, highly imaginative, humorous exploration of the disappointed life of brilliant Jewish lawyer and scholar, Ruth Puttermesser. In her thirties, Ruth found her early success in law school quickly turning to failure as she descended through the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of New York City government. In her forties, she unwittingly creates a golem?an artificial human being derived from Hebrew folklore?who gets Ruth elected mayor of New York but soon destroys the Eden it helped create. In her fifties, Ruth finally finds a soul mate in flamboyant artist Rupert. But as soon as they get married, Rupert leaves. A master stylist with a powerful command of the English language, Ozick has created a revealing portrait of a complex woman, as well as a dark satire of government bureaucracy. Essential for literary collections and highly recommended for general collections.
-?Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L.,Ohio

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Link for readers reviews is here :

http://www.amazon.com/Puttermesser-Papers-Novel-Cynthia-Ozick/dp/0679777393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231608881&sr=1-1

The Word : Karan Mahajan : 20.Dec.08

KARAN MAHAJAN
Author

A book that means a lot to you?
I loved The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick so much that it became my fate: like Ruth Puttermesser, I too work for the New York City bureaucracy and have lived among other people’s things in borough after borough. All I lack now is a wish-granting golem that’ll make me Mayor of New York, and a prosestyle so brilliant it glistens on the page like hell-frozen fire.

Your favourite genre?
ALL-CAPS EMAILS.

Your favourite character?
Gould, the eponymous character from Stephen Dixon’s Gould, for stupidly explaining himself at great length and speaking in run-on page-size sentences.

How many books do you own?
I’m going to ballpark it at 400+.

An underrated book? And why?
The Suffrage of Elvira by VS Naipaul. Brilliantly titled, written rapidly, and sandwiched chronologically between The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street, this book has been nearly forgotten. But as a racial and political satire it is far riskier and biting than the other comedies; it carries within it a real sourness about the communal infighting that consumed Trinidadian politics.

An overrated book? And why?
Money by Martin Amis. We’re told to read him for the prose, but he seems like a ‘burra sahib’ trying to rap.

The book you bought last?
Remainder by Tom McCarthy.

Last book read?
Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel.

A book you wish you had written?
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, because that would mean I’d have read it and led a largely olfactory life.

Adil Jussawala on his fav books

ADIL JUSSAWALLA ON BOOKS

The Boatride and Other Poems is a very important addition to Arun Kolatkar’s work. It’s made up of all his uncollected work in English — the longish ‘Boatride’, translations of his own poems into English, and of the work of other poets who wrote in Marathi, like Tukaram. There’s an excellent introduction by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, who has really worked very hard on the annotations. This is a book for lovers of poetry. Because of the notes and the chronology, it is very valuable for students of Kolatkar’s poetry. I like the book very much and I’m glad it is out. It’s an important book and, as expected of Pras Prakashan, the production values are excellent.

Jussawalla is a poet who lives in Mumbai

Kalpana Swaminathan : 20.Dec.2008

The Word KALPANA SWAMINATHAN Writer A book that means a lot to you? The book I’m writing at the moment is the one that means most to me. It is what consumes me now, others simply cease to exist. Your favourite genre? I do not like the word ‘genre’ and the pigeonholing it entails. Any book that breaks away from term ‘genre’ is worth the paper it’s printed on. The objective of art is to colour outside the line. But, I’m a sucker for humour. A book without wit is wasted on me. Your favourite character? And why? Why, it’s Alice, of course! She’s unshockable. How many books do you own? I haven’t dared to count. An underrated book? Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the ur-chick-lit book that nobody seems to remember. It deserves to be resurrected now that this sort of writing is so revered. Everyone seems to be trying it out for size. An overrated book? Ann Enright’s The Gathering. Yes, yes, it got the Booker last year. It has been done endlessly before, and better. The book you bought last? Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil. Last book read? Steve Toltz’s A Fraction of the Whole. It just bristles with energy even if it does stomp on welltrampled ground. A book you wish you had written? There are so many! But I’d pick an Alice book if I absolutely had to, and Through the Looking Glass, not the first one. It is without brakes. It is invention in free fall. Wonderful! Wonderful! What a breeze! JAI ARJUN SINGH

Kankana Basu's forthcoming blockbustr

KANKANA BASU

‘A first-time author with a punctured ego, I wrote a stinker to the literary critic. The gentleman calmly said that he saw the glimmerings of a promising book in me, but it was definitely not Vinegar Sunday. Almost by autosuggestion, I wrote Cappuccino Dusk’

Kankana Basu’s Cappuccino Dusk, which was long-listed for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize (for unpublished manuscripts), will be published in September. The novel is about four siblings, Basu says, and “their eccentric friends and relatives, and the hopes and ideals of youngsters who live in a metropolis, and about the death of their ideals”. The thrust of the novel is on the shifting mesh of relationships but coffee and conversation play a significant role. Basu says her decision to write this novel was fuelled by the first review her debut book — a short story collection titled Vinegar Sunday — received: it left her shattered.

Menaka Shivdasani's books

MENKA SHIVDASANI ON BOOKS

I have recently read Anita Nair’s new book, Mistress.

It was on the Orange Prize for fiction long list 2008. I think it is a masterful piece of work, richly textured and multilayered, and she unmasks these layers with care. Dance is the central motif in this novel and Nair, who is known for researching her subject in depth, had enrolled in a Kerela Kalamandalam to write this book. The protagonist, Radha, is married to a man she sees as an ambitious and insensitive boor, and finds herself drawn to a cello-playing foreigner who has moved in. By itself, this might have been a slight narrative but Nair successfully weaves in different strands from the past. She takes the ordinary and makes it memorable.

Shivdasani is the author of Stet and Nirvana at Ten Rupees

Anuvab Pal's books

ANUVAB PAL Playwrigh A book that means a lot to you? AS Byatt’s Possession. I love the way it’s written and the idea of a literary detective novel. But it doesn’t mean much personally. A book that does is David Mamet’s Bambi Vs Godzilla. Your favourite character from a book? It has to be a cross between Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes books, and Digital Dutta from Sarnath Banerjee’s new novel. An author or genre you dislike? Definitely dislike books titled Mistress of Spices, Master of Cardamom, First Cousin of Mango or any magical-realist tour guide of a non-existent nation of child widows or levitating transsexuals, or where Indians turn into flowers, exotic meats, gods show up, etcetera. Last book bought? Foreign Correspondent: Fifty Years of Reporting South Asia. Last book read? Either Hamish McDonald’s The Polyester Prince or Sarnath Banerjee’s The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers. A very overrated book or genre? The whole Paulo Coehlo thing. Also Jeffrey Archer. Why is he considered a famous writer in India and nowhere else? A book you wish you’d written? I wish I’d thought of Harry Potter or Tintin. I’d be rich. And I like the stuff those two do. Latent English public school politics, globe-trotting, etcetera. Your favourite writers? Ian McEwan, AS Byatt, Oscar Wilde, Martin Amis, David Sedaris, Woody allen, Haruki Murakami, Julian Barnes, Ramchandra Guha. A book you’ve always wanted to read, but haven’t? I’ve never actually read any PG Wodehouse. People say he’s funny. ANNIE ZAIDI

Mridula Koshy's new stories book

MRIDULA KOSHY

‘These stories are all about ways of seeing, including the whole range of seeing — from objectification to empathy. Looking at people is a national pastime in India. We’re always staring and being stared at. But where is our curiosity? Where is the compassion?

Mridula Koshy’s first collection of short stories," If It Is Sweet," will be launched in September this year. The stories are not directly linked to one another, but the lives of her characters, who might belong to very different social groups, intersect. People in these stories often find themselves pulled together by grief, or loss. Koshy says that the stories make the same point: how do people, who are so divided by class, gender, race and so on, view each other? “People have written a lot about this: the tragedy of the upper middle class not ‘seeing’ other people. But that’s not true. I think we are all very painfully aware of each other.”

INDRAJIT HAZRA ON BOOKS

I’m currently reading two books, both fiction. One is Nathanael West’s 1939 classic, The Day of the Locust’. The protagonist, Tod Hackett, goes into the dark, glitzy world of the Hollywood of the 1930s, as a set designer and enters a nightmare world. What is totally captivating about this slim novel is how it presents the viciousness of the world in a deadpan way. West himself was a Hollywood scriptwriter. But to see the beast with its belly up, and in a style that is almost noir but not quite, is delightful.

The second book, Ami ebong Amra (I and we) is also slim novel written by Humayan Ahmed, the Bangladeshi writer. This novel — from Ahmed’s Mishi Ali series — has Ali, a psychoanalyst who solves crime, trying to stop a man who tells him in the first chapter that he’s killed two people and will be killing another. Ahmed’s language is refreshingly understated. The scene in which Ali is sitting on a park bench, and encounters the killer for the first time, is brilliant. His response to the psychopath bragging about killing is: “You’ve killed two. You’ll kill a third. Go ahead. What do I have to say? It’s not as if you need my permission.” Psychological warfare between individuals doesn’t get better.

Hazra is the author of The Bioscope Man

Deepa Gahlot's bookworld

DEEPA GAHLOT
Writer

A favourite book or one that means a lot to you?
Too many to name, really.

How many books do you own?
Although I am a member of several libraries, I own over 2,000 books.

Last book you bought?
Granta 100, guest edited by William Boyd. It includes pieces by Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Hanif Kureishi

A book you wish you’d written?
Every good book I read; anything by Toni Morrison.

Last book you read?
Salam Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence. I think this one sees him back in top form.

A genre you dislike?
Cheap pulp thrillers and anything that doesn’t grab me in the first 20-25 pages. With so many books to read, why carry on reading something you don’t like? Sometimes I speed read things I don’t find particularly worthy.

A genre you like?
I love reading humour, especially that of Woody Allen, Saki, John Updike and a slightly obscure Hungarian travel writer called George Mikes. He writes travelogues, which are full of wit and satire.

Your favourite film adaptation of a book?
Guide, originally a book by RK Naryanan, was very effectively sexed up by Vijay Anand. The dhoti clad Raju guide morphed into the sauve Dev Anand. One instance when the film is better than the book.

Most overrated book?
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. A one million dollar advance heightened expectations but I found it didn’t quite live up to its hype. Many other books that have gone unnoticed were better.

ANASTASIA GUHA

Sampurna Chattarji on books

SAMPURNA CHATTARJI ON BOOKS

Alasdair Gray’s Lanark is a book I first encountered in 2005, and I return to it every year. I’m at the Lanark-moment in my life again, newly amazed at how absolutely compelling this hard-to-summarise novel is.

Inventively structured, hilariously annotated, it tells the stories of Lanark and his alter-ego, Duncan Thaw, set in surreal Unthank and the all-too real city of Glasgow. Oracles, dragonhide, deterioration wards, doctors in white coats, and incurable patients whose bodies are sources of energy and food, are some of the things that make Unthank not just fantastical but also chillingly apocalyptic. When Lanark wants to know how he got there , the Oracle tells him Duncan Thaw’s story — his early years, his coming of age as an artist and his despair as a man. Beautifully-written, funny, moving, Lanark is big, rich, strange and very, very rewarding.
Sampurna Chattarji is a poet and author of Sight May Strike You Blind

Indra Sinha's Book world : Tehelka : 05.July.2008

THE word INDRA SINHA Writer A favourite book or one that means a lot to you? City of Falling Angels by John Berendt. Every bit as good as his famous Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. John has a happy knack of meeting the right people at the right time. He researches painstakingly before he writes. I suggested to him that he should write a novel, but I think he finds the real world and its people far more beguiling than fiction. Last book you bought? The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, thoroughly enjoyable. His writing is so fecund that you feel each sentence could break open and hatch a new story. Last book you read? The Jesus Papers by Michael Baigent, a fascinating delve into the realms of early Christian literature. Baigent co-wrote the famous The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail which was the basis for Dan Brown’s excruciatingly awful The Da Vinci Code. How many books do you own? Nine or ten thousand. A book you wish you’d written? Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for the sheer beauty of the writing. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov because of its overwhelming power and the brilliance of its double-edged storytelling. Your favourite character in a book? Mowgli in The Jungle Book. The Gospel According to Luke and Acts of the Apostles which are parts 1 and 2 of the same work. Tendentious disinformation from start to finish. The other gospels, i.e. Mark, Matthew (for the sayings), John (for the detail) and Thomas are worth a careful read SANASTASIA GUHA

Ira Pande's Lits

A book that meant a lot to you?
Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals. A favourite since childhood, it has withstood the test of time and cynical middle age. An instant mood enhancer, it never fails to cheer me. Also, I love whacky families because I grew up in one as well.

Your favourite character?
Tom Sharpe’s Wilt, a lovable loser and bumbler, basically intelligent but gets it wrong every time. He suffers from chronic low self-esteem and his changing avatars in successive books are a delight to follow. All of us can see something of ourselves in him.

A genre you hate?
Most forms of chick-lit. It’s clever but vacuous writing packaged to sell well.

Last book bought?
Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Call it a charwoman’s choice, but I love the acid tones in Brown’s writings of upper class life. And it’s a very revealing account of the post- Thatcher years and the brittle new Labour world crafted by Blair.

Last book read?
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruis Zafon

A very overrated book?
Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. I’m a long time admirer of his, hooked since I read The Cement Garden in 1981. But both Saturday and this one are heavy disappointments. I can’t say whether it’s he or I who has changed.

A book you wish you’d written?
David Lodge’s Small World. The last in a trilogy, it’s a scathing satire on academic hypocrisy. I wish I could write a similar one on our own jholawalas.

books : Gita Hariharan

GITHA HARIHARAN
Writer

A favourite book, or one that means a lot to you?
I hate being asked about my favourite book or my favourite author — it makes me think of picking ice cream flavours. There are far too many books that mean a lot to me to single just one out. Perhaps I should just say, books mean a lot to me — since we all read more than we write.

How many books do you own?
My sons have begun taking away some of my books pretending they are theirs, but I still seem to have a good number — more than I can dust anyway.

A genre you hate?
I wouldn’t go so far as hate, but I have never been much of a science fiction reader. Maybe I’ll discover it one of these days. I am also wary of novels where large sections are in italics, or a single sentence takes up five pages.

Last book bought?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.

Last book read?
Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

A book you wish you’d written?
If fantasy were limited to one book, it would be impoverished fantasy. I could probably fill up pages with the names of books I wish I had written. From Jose Saramago’s Blindness to Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi” to JM Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians to Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines.

A book you’ve always wanted to read but haven’t?
Again, a great number — a list that is longer than a lifetime. Making such a list would be a depressing exercise.


LAKSHMI INDRASIMHAN

Sidharth Dhanvant Shangvi

SIDDHARTH DHANVANT SHANGHVI
Writer

A book that means a lot to you?
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. It arrests poetry, sensuality and politics in the cast of its enchanted story. It plays with the idea of time like clay, veering between the past and the present as a hawk in the valley soars and dives with startling elegance.

How many books do you own?
4,000; many of them inherited from my grandfather, who read voraciously and taught us to do the same.

Your favourite character from a book and why?
Sula, from Beloved by Toni Morrison, because she loved her daughter enough to kill her; and Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s short novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s, because she drank too much and lived a lot.

Last book bought?
Andrew O’Hagan’s Be Near Me.

Favourite genre?
Literary-shmiterary
.
Last book read?
A Natural History of Love by Diane Ackerman; Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, which I can’t recommend enough — it’s heady, sexy, conceited and heartbroken. I loved, for
uite different reasons, The Golden Age by Tahmima Anam. Sadly, Anam never made it to the Man Booker list; instead, a slip of a novel, Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach did — more fool me.

A book you wish you’d written?
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt.

A book you’ve always wanted to read but haven’t?
Dog Breeding for Professionals by Dr Herbert Richards.

LAKSHMI INDRASIMHAN

indra sinha's bookworld

INDRA SINHA
Booker nominee

Your favourite book?
Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor, for the sheer beauty of the writing.

How many books do you own?
About 9,000. We’re trying to cut down to essentials. (www.indrasinha. com/library.html)

Your favourite character?
Mowgli, from The Jungle Book. As a child running wild in the western ghats I yearned to be him. Animal in Animal’s People is perhaps a sort of inverse Mowgli.

Last book bought?
An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions by F. Stanley Jones — part of the research for my next novel.

Last book read?
A General History of the Pyrates by Daniel Defoe — more swashbuckle than Johnny Depp. Before that, I read In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh; I came to like him more and more with every page.

Your favourite genre?
The classic novel: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Dickens’ Hard Times, Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie, John Fowles’ Daniel Martin, Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. I also love the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.

Books you wish you had written?
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell; anything by Saadat Hasan Manto.

A book you’ve always wanted to read but haven’t?
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce It’s like a really fine whisky, to be taken in small sips and savoured. I’ve never managed more than a few sips at a time — unlike whisky.

Lavanya Sankaran's books

LAVANYA SANKARAN
Writer

A book that meant a lot to me?
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children. I read it first when I was fourteen, and the way it captured India with a vivid pungent intensity left me breathless.

How many books do you own?
Over 3,000 and growing. Books are an addictive purchase. The collection is extremely eclectic, as one might expect in a family of heavy readers — ranging from literary fiction to mystery and travel; from the serious to the bawdy; from scientific philosophy to spiritualism to children’s lit. In my study, I keep about 500 books of fiction and non-fiction. Some are tattered from frequent re-readings; others are over 200 years old and the result of trawling through antiquarian bookshops. I guard them all quite jealously.

Last book bought?
Chuck Palahnuik’s Haunted.

Last book read?
Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea.

Favourite genre?
Literary fiction, for (usually) being the best of language and literature; and crime fiction —nothing is more relaxing than a well-written murder.

A book you wish you’d written?
Any book written really well in six weeks or under! If there are such things

A book you’ve always wanted to read but haven’t.
Hundreds of them — and that’s the ongoing joy and adventure of my life as a reader.

An author or genre you hate?
Poorly-written pulp fiction maddens me. Every well-written mystery or romance seems to drag, in its wake, a hundred shoddy imitators.

LAKSHMI INDRASIMHAN

smpurna chattarji's books

SAMPURNA CHATTARJI, Poet

Books that mean a lot to you?

John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces for its incredible humour and its hero, Ignatius J. Reilly; Joseph Roth’s The Legend of the Holy Drinker and Rebellion; all of Coetzee for his unflinching examination of human cruelty; Ondaatje’s Coming through Slaughter; Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings; all of Saramago, particularly The History of the Siege of Lisbon…

A favourite character?

Two radically opposite characters — Raimundo Silva, the hero of The History of the Siege of Lisbon, for his awkwardness, reticence, and a small, astonishing act of subversion; and the above mentioned Ignatius J. Reilly!

Last book bought?

Vinod Kumar Shukla’s novel Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi Last book read? (Re-read) Borges’ Doctor Brodie’s Report.

An overrated book?

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. Too cloying by far.

A book you wish you’d written?

Coetzee’s From The Heart of the Country, for the beauty, economy and psychological accuracy with which it deals with sexuality, hysteria and the derangement that
solitude can bring.

A book you’ve wanted to read but haven’t been able to?
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I keep meaning to read it at one go, but that hasn’t happened. Having read the first two volumes with interruptions, I have to either do the same for the next four volumes, or go on a read-Proust vacation.

How many books do you own?
My husband and I have accumulated a collection of 1,326 books.

TUSHA MITTAL

Ramu Ramanathan, Playright, on Books

The book, that means a lot to you and why ?

' The Leopard' by Lampedusa. ' Midnight Children' by Salman Rushdie. ' Me Grandad 'Ad An Elephant' by Vaikom Mohammed Basheer. " In an Antique Land '' Amitav Ghosh. And almost everything by Borges and Marquez and Saramago.

A favourite charactar ?
Godot.

Last Book bought ?
An exquisite edition of ' Man without Qualities' by Robert Musil. I'll read it with hand-gloves.

Anil Dharkar's Fav Books

Books that mean a lot to you ?

A : I've had a lifelong passion for Graham Greene. I've read all his novels, his ' entertainments', but my favourite is " Brighton Rock . I also went through a Nabakov phase reading all his books. I love Lolita but Laughter in the Dark is really wicked, cruel story, beautifully told.

A favourite Character ?

The catcher in the Rye ws a very important book to me as it was to a lot of people I used to go around saying I was Holden Caufield.

Last book bought ?

I try not to buy books anymore as it's got that stage in my flast where either the books stay or I do.

Last book read ?

Mukarami's " Kafka on the Shore" for sometimes. It's a strange , mysterious book addressing spirituality and para normal coincidences which are subjects I'm increasingly interested in these days.

A book you wish you had written ?

Any play by Tom Shoppard. And Graham Greene's May we borrow your husband ? - a collection of short stories . The title story is so long, that it's a novella. It's an absolutely a brilliant sexual comedy.

The book you wanted to read ?

Gita and Bible. It's clear that I'm getting old. LOL !

Tehelka - 28 July 2007

BOOKS :

(1) " Escape 9-5 Live Anywhere " by Timothy Ferris - on best work practices at offices across the globe.

(2) Buffett : The making of an American Capitalist - by Roger Lowenstein on the life of Warren Buffett.

(3) " Street Stencils " Graffiti artist Bansy's whiplash humour, online , @

http://www.banksy.co.uk

(4) " After Dark " Haruki Murakami's bittersweet novella about a night of chance encounters.

Tehelka : 04 Aug 2007 Sat

(1) Noam Chomsky on creation of crises - at

http://monthlyreview.org/0606nc.htm

(2) " Start your own business " by River Lesonsky - to help you minimise mistakes and maximise profits.

(3) " Be the Elephant " by Steve Kaplan - to help you influence your market and avoid the pitfalls of growth.

(4) " Monkey business " by John Rolfe and Peter Troob, on Wall Street's young turks.

Tehelka : 14 July 2007 Sat (azoozal)

(1) A leaf from J.M.Coetzee's Diary of a Bad year, at :

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20390

(2) " The Marketing of Nations " by Phillip Kotler, on shaping strategies for developing countries.

(3) " Growing Great Employees " by Erika Andersen, on how to shape employee at the workplace.

(4) "The book of useless information " by Noel Botham - on things you do not need at both home and office

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tehelka ; 11 aug 07 sat

(1) The seductions of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria , at

http://www.theamericanscholar.org

(2) Aristotle in the cyber age , at

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue61/61madigan.htm

Recommending Richard Dawkins / Hume & Rousseau & Steven Pinker

(1) Blooging a revolution. Find out why the threat of prison has not stopped bloggers from expressing themselves in Ahmadinejad's Iran, at :

http://www.salon.com

(2) Selfish genes can give rise to altruistic humans. Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker , on why Richard Dawkin's ' The Selfish Gene" continutes to matter , 30 years after it was published, at

http://www.timesonline.co.uk

(3) David Hume was all reason, Jean Jacques Rousseau was all feeling. Which is why, they fought over a carriage ride. Read on @

http://www.boston.com

Recommendations 28.Jan.06

1) "The Man from Chinnamasta" by Indira Goswami. The winner of Gnanpith Award releases a fascinating story that explores the fine lines between myth and mystery , metaphors & memory. Set in Assam in the 1920s , in the temple of Kamakhya, the novel delves into the world of secret cults. Gosswami expresses her contempt for rituals throughout the book, writing, " I believe in a Divine Power but wholeheartedly reject rituals and regard them as a disease afflicting our society ". A pillar of Assamese literature.

2) Hillel Halkin goes on a mythical literary journey and discovers that, The Odyssey remains an enduring classic more than any other at

http://www.commentarymagazine.com