goblins in my bookshelf
Blossom is an awesome bookstore. They have three floors just _packed_ with stuff. Reams of it.
I bought one called ' The Wizards of Odd' - promises to be a good read. It's a collection of humorous fantasy short stories. Still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We'll see.
Short story collections are good for checking out authors too. So now, I will find out what Terry Pratchet writes like . I'd been putting off Terry Pratchet just to annoy a friend and a cousin who've both been bugging/begging me to pick up a book and get with it.
The first Dirk Gently is next on the cards - saw it today but picked the Wizards up instead. Douglas Adams hit it when he put a hard-boiled detective and the gods and Valhalla and the I Ching in one grab bag of weirdness that's Dirk Gently.
Detectives we little boys like. Ditto for guns,ships,planes, any and all complicated machines for that matter, long overcoats ... and also magic & magicians, super-powers, swords , spears,adventure, knights and horses. Not to keen on ponies though.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is then the coolest movie ever made. It's got all the ingredients of play.
Blossom and Premier are such wonderful bookstores compared to the commercial ones. In these, the people working there typically know what book is where, unlike the larger commercial stores where clerks fiddle with computer consoles doing searches which usually turn up negative for slightly older books, or books my not-too-famous authors, or books not on the top-100-lists.
Stories and books were my friends way before kids. Before the usual Tinkle/Phantom/Bahadur/Disney comics, I can remember my dad telling me the William Tell story while feeding me warm-salted-curd-rice.
Story-telling's not easy, children are horrible taskmasters - stories narrated in one particular style have to be narrated the same way till the end of time. Change one line and you're labelled as someone who "doesn't know the story". And of course, the big-person-little-person thing.... for example, in the actual Pancha-Tantra, it was not the monkey's tail that gets caught between the split ends of the log when it sits on the it and pulls out the wedge.....
Good books come unannounced and cheap, change your life quietly and leave.
I pounced on 'The Money Culture' at the local scrap-dealer's coz the orange Penguin spine leapt into my vision as I was passing. Turned out to be a good buy. A great buy, in fact. Liar's Poker, bought at cost later, did it's bit to bring me out to where I am right now. Cryptonomicon turned up next at the same scap-dealer.
The effect of both these books can be described as nothing short of 'breathing life' into me at an excruciatingly draining (and boring) time . I got both the books for ten rupees each - a miracle that has never happened afterwards.
The Wizard of Earthsea wandered into my room when in undergrad hostel. While it almost definitely put me to sleep every time I curled up with it, I still remain an ardent lover of the ways of the mages and wizards, the archipelagoes and the simple fishing villages, dragons, gold and all. Lord of the Rings similiarly crept into my arms via a tattered red-cloth bound book of textbook size in the college library. Who'd have thought ....
After a long stint of buying books I _should_ read , like Penrose and Paul Ekman, and the mind-numbing that follows, I've turned to buying books I _will_ read. Sweetness will follow.
I'll go dig into the wizards now. You go and play for a while.
Or watch the 30-second-Bunnies version of popular films here
I bought one called ' The Wizards of Odd' - promises to be a good read. It's a collection of humorous fantasy short stories. Still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We'll see.
Short story collections are good for checking out authors too. So now, I will find out what Terry Pratchet writes like . I'd been putting off Terry Pratchet just to annoy a friend and a cousin who've both been bugging/begging me to pick up a book and get with it.
The first Dirk Gently is next on the cards - saw it today but picked the Wizards up instead. Douglas Adams hit it when he put a hard-boiled detective and the gods and Valhalla and the I Ching in one grab bag of weirdness that's Dirk Gently.
Detectives we little boys like. Ditto for guns,ships,planes, any and all complicated machines for that matter, long overcoats ... and also magic & magicians, super-powers, swords , spears,adventure, knights and horses. Not to keen on ponies though.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is then the coolest movie ever made. It's got all the ingredients of play.
Blossom and Premier are such wonderful bookstores compared to the commercial ones. In these, the people working there typically know what book is where, unlike the larger commercial stores where clerks fiddle with computer consoles doing searches which usually turn up negative for slightly older books, or books my not-too-famous authors, or books not on the top-100-lists.
Stories and books were my friends way before kids. Before the usual Tinkle/Phantom/Bahadur/Disney comics, I can remember my dad telling me the William Tell story while feeding me warm-salted-curd-rice.
Story-telling's not easy, children are horrible taskmasters - stories narrated in one particular style have to be narrated the same way till the end of time. Change one line and you're labelled as someone who "doesn't know the story". And of course, the big-person-little-person thing.... for example, in the actual Pancha-Tantra, it was not the monkey's tail that gets caught between the split ends of the log when it sits on the it and pulls out the wedge.....
Good books come unannounced and cheap, change your life quietly and leave.
I pounced on 'The Money Culture' at the local scrap-dealer's coz the orange Penguin spine leapt into my vision as I was passing. Turned out to be a good buy. A great buy, in fact. Liar's Poker, bought at cost later, did it's bit to bring me out to where I am right now. Cryptonomicon turned up next at the same scap-dealer.
The effect of both these books can be described as nothing short of 'breathing life' into me at an excruciatingly draining (and boring) time . I got both the books for ten rupees each - a miracle that has never happened afterwards.
The Wizard of Earthsea wandered into my room when in undergrad hostel. While it almost definitely put me to sleep every time I curled up with it, I still remain an ardent lover of the ways of the mages and wizards, the archipelagoes and the simple fishing villages, dragons, gold and all. Lord of the Rings similiarly crept into my arms via a tattered red-cloth bound book of textbook size in the college library. Who'd have thought ....
After a long stint of buying books I _should_ read , like Penrose and Paul Ekman, and the mind-numbing that follows, I've turned to buying books I _will_ read. Sweetness will follow.
I'll go dig into the wizards now. You go and play for a while.
Or watch the 30-second-Bunnies version of popular films here
posted by yesbob at Tuesday, February 13, 2007
10 Comments:
k, whats wid de font size da? its almost impossible to read. i did a smart thing though - hit the comment link and read it from there :)
fantasy certainly wil not be what i will be looking for, but do tel -where are these places - blossom and all?
"Good books come unannounced and cheap, change your life quietly and leave."
well said. some certainly change lives. i read a good once recently. it didn't come unannounced, for it was recommended by a blogger friend, and it certainly wasn't cheap :( btu do try it - its called 'einstein's dreams'.
chilled tayir sadam is preferable. and matrix is the coolest movie ever made.
- fixed the font - had set it to 'small' originally.
- these are shops in bangalore
- Einstein's dreams - later - only after I'm done playing with my wizards and pirates
- thayir sadam is preferrable. period.
- Matrix is also the coolest movie ever made.
and therein lies a paradox which mortals may not solve ...
:)
thanks.
where in bangy?
wait wait don't tell him yet. or let's meet up on sunday, when i'll be back. yes, matrix is the coolest movie!! i will watch raiders though. n' oooh yeah! thayir sadam rocks. used to have that for lunch on a regular basis 'cuz it's the only thing which b'lore darshinis haven't been able to corrupt! :) it's also very cheap n' filling n' taasty!! didn't have too much of it when i was a kid tho'. it's one of the many changes rect brought into my life
Raiderssssss !!!!!!
wizards of odd is lovely. especially the pratchett. as for him, the god of modern writing [yes im a fan how DID you guess? :D] dont put him off and dont expect the world to move. :) just remember what dryden said about satire: good satire will sever a man's head from his neck without him noticing it.
sorry bout lecutre cldnt resist in context, esp since im spouting ths exact same thing to MY cousin right now. you have to admit thats a whole lot of signs.
gPremier? like off MG Road? Brilliant place.
Pliz to try Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy. And pliz never to try Christopher Paolini's Eragon and associated books.
Dirk Gently rules.
Where be Blossom?
a long awaited journey.
some day.
some way.
oh my god, that just reminded me of a terrible MLTR track.
right. now its time to go sit in a corner and scold myself.
monsoonbread : together we will be /baby ?
get out of that corner . NOW
machi sorry to come in late...
Harlen Coben da, you guys dont even try, incase u want to go for "The Innocent"...finished a new one called The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen...these were the "must reads" in my small lending library here :)
Is blossoms the one near Vicky's house?
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