Tag: books

Musings

Reading….. is such fun….

It is nice to have a book, an interesting book, waiting for you when you have some spare time. I’ve always loved reading. When I was smaller, I used to dream that I could finish reading all the books in the school library or the municipal library and then brag to others that I have read it all….With age came wisdom and a realization that this is impossible.
Reading still remains the first love. In the last couple of months, I read 4 books and enjoyed it all.
Five boys – Mick Jackson.
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Final Diagnosis – Arthur Hailey
Travels with Charley – John Steinbeck

All four are very very different in their styles, story lines and speed. Five boys is about a small unsuspecting countryside to which a war comes quite unexpectedly. Pride and prejudice is the classic featuring love and prejudiced lovers. Final Diagnosis is the fast-paced life in a hospital with tragedies, victories, personal adventures, suspense, drama all packed into one. Travels with Charley is the first travelogue I am reading.
Have not finished reading this, and that is why I said it is nice to have an interesting book waiting for you when you have spare time.

And what joy! I have also got the next book lined up. “Twilight”, one of the four-book series from Stephenie Meyer. This one seems to be quite a rage among youngsters now. And I am yet to test and see whether I would still enjoy those books that youngsters love. Let’s wait and see….

Musings

Why should we read?

I like reading, fiction mostly and sometimes non-fiction books like Tipping Point or Blink. (only if they are really really interesting, and read like fiction). And I think movie-versions of famous books are not nice. Ask me why?

While reading a book, you always create a picture of it in your mind. The house of Atticus in “To kill a mockingbird”, Scout sitting on Atticus’ lap while he reads the newspaper, Jem and Scout finding the chewing gum in a hole in the tree trunk, the house of Gerald Durrell with its collection of multitudinous animals and birds ………………. we have pictures of all this in our minds, when we read those books.

Just think about the Harry Potter series, it gives meat for such vivid imaginations and pictures. You could imagine the Mandrakes with their cries that would knock one out, the phoenix of Dumbledore bursting into flames and a lot more. But the movies came and spoiled it all. Now the picture in our minds is the picture in the mind of the person who selected the locations for the movie, or the director. Too bad, all the pictures and imagination in our minds got over-written.

But movie-versions of books are good for people who don’t like to read. So if you like reading and find that one of your favorite books is coming out as a movie; don’t watch it, even for the sake of curiosity. It would just wipe out the pictures in your mind, and replace them mercilessly.