Penguin India is running a month-long campaign on Twitter, asking people to name their favourite books in various categories - one for each day.
I got lost in the many responses they got from a large number of readers. So I thought I will indulge myself in a bit of book-thinking here. (A good excuse to revive the blog as well!)
I got lost in the many responses they got from a large number of readers. So I thought I will indulge myself in a bit of book-thinking here. (A good excuse to revive the blog as well!)
Ideal December read: WTF is a December read now? My favourite December reads are the annual round-up issues of magazines.
Most beautiful cover: Pretty much everything by Satyajit Ray. In recent times, I really liked the cover of The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction.
A book you identify with: Eric Segal's The Class. Specifically with Andrew Eliot.
A book character you'd like to meet: Professor Shonku, I guess.
Wisest book you've ever read: Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
A book you keep going back to: Lila Majumdar's Din Dupurey.
First book you remember reading: Satyajit Ray's Shonar Kella (The Golden Fortress). Wrote a post about this.
A book that gives you the chills: Arnab Ray's The Mine.
A book that makes you want to write: Anupama Chopra's Sholay: The Making of a Classic. I realised a book on cinema can be informative as well as enjoyable.
A book character that you want(ed) to marry: Florentyna Kane a.k.a. The Prodigal Daughter (Jeffrey Archer).
A book that you have pretended to read: Most of my textbooks.
Your curl-up read: Can I say Bollybook?
Your favourite book series: Feluda. Feluda. Feluda.
Your favourite Jane Austen character: Have to shamefacedly admit that I haven't read a single Jane Austen novel.
A book that makes you hungry: Pamela Timms' Korma, Kheer and Kismet. One of the better books I have read in 2014.
Favourite autobiography: Ken Jennings' Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs. A brilliant memoir (along with a history of trivia in the USA) of a 75-time Jeopardy winner.
A book to read when homesick: Indrajit Hazra's Grand Delusions. One of two great Calcutta books of 2014, the other being Bishwanath Ghosh's Longing, Belonging.
Favourite fairy tale character: Aladdin. I could do with a lamp like his.
A book to gift around Christmas: Jai Arjun Singh's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro: Seriously Funny Since 1983, a joyous book that would fit snugly in a stocking.
A book that makes you cry: Sanjib Chattopadhyay's Iti Tomar Ma, a not-so-well-known tear-jerker in Bengali.
Best book you ever received as a gift: Ten Bad Dates with De Niro: A Book of Alternative Movie Lists from my childhood friend, Nilendu. The idea of a 'book of lists' came after reading this book.
Favourite family read: When I was a kid, we used to read Sukumar Ray's Pagla Dashu together and laugh our guts out.
Favourite Christmas book: Dr Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas. What else could it be?
A book on your shelf you haven't read yet: Pranab Mukherjee's The Dramatic Decade. Downloaded on Kindle, to be read next.
A book you couldn't put down: Sidney Sheldon's Master of the Game. Actually most of Sheldon's early novels.
An author you discovered this year: Naseeruddin Shah.
Your best read of 2014: Scott Jordan Harris' Rosebud Sleds and Horses' Heads: 50 of Film's Most Evocative Objects - An Illustrated Journey. [This was probably the most agonising question to answer.]
Your favourite Rudyard Kipling character: Know only one, naming that one. Mowgli.
Most awaited book of 2015: A biography of Salim-Javed, to be published by Penguin India and being written by a Delhi-based author.
Done.
Now you do the same list.
Now you do the same list.
Comments
One thing in common: Naseeruddin Shah's book was good!
Wasn't "Iti Polash" a sadder story? I remember "Iti Tomar Ma" came the year after "Polash". Read it in 2 classroom periods sitting in the last bench. Had to bribe - I think Soumya whose parents smuggled in pujasankha to hostel just before vacations - a few bourbons to borrow the precious asset for a few hours!