This year has been a slow year compared to last in
terms of count of read books. But it has been an interesting one. I am picking
up nonfiction more often. Mostly essays or collections of longform writing
(Stephen Gould), or engaging autobiographies (Doris Lessing, Simone De Beauvoir
or NF related to reading and books or authors I enjoy (Knausgaard’s or reading
memoirs).
**
Non-fiction
and Instapaper
With non-fiction, the books either need to be something
exceptionally A grade which I am happy to read cover to cover – and if not,
then my attention is much better held by essay collections which require
engagement while on the topic, but you can happily disengage between two
pieces. The effort of the author for each individual piece is normally quite
high and read with concentration, a set of 15-30 pages of well-written essay
can be quite rewarding experience. Also, at times one might not be interested to read books about interests which are yet to be stimulated, but very happy to read well-written 30 pages.They can serve as a
beautiful gateway. And depending upon how interested one is, one can keep digging
deeper.
The other bit is that the quality in Non Fiction is highly variable. NF is very different from fiction. For fiction, I go for the author or a well-acclaimed title, and sometimes impulse, and then there is all these past centuries and several countries to pick a reading experience. There is an unending list. And for me, most fiction is pleasing, time well spent. NF on the other hand, the topic and the author both need to win. Sometimes, even if the topic has not been on agenda, it wins in hands of a masterful author. But the moments of dazzle that I seek are limited, and the probability to find them is higher in shorter than book length (long essays) rather than books.
Apart from books, this year, I rediscovered Instapaper a few months ago. And since
then, my delight has found no bounds. I think I have always wished that there
be an app that would allow seamless offline reading experience; If I knew how to create apps, this was the kind of app I would have liked to create. But Instapaper goes beyond my humble dreams of
one device saving and clean reading later. Some apps are just so good and
simple. If one were using only one device, bookmarks are good. But, with
instapaper, comes the ease of saving and reading later, from whichever device I
happen to be browsing or whichever app/magazine/ newspaper I am in, and then
reading wherever I am offline, and queuing up my reading, again, from any device.
The ease and simplicity with such seamless integration has made me a big fan. A lot of my phone time is on instapaper now. So, at the cost of sounding like an
advert, I recommend Instapaper to anyone interested in reading longform writing
or any writing from different sources and wishing for a method to keep them
organised.
**
Reading
at the moment
I recently finished reading Arthur C. Clarke (3001 –
The Final Odyssey), and my bookmarks are at different places in a few other
books. Some notes and thoughts:
3001:
The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (SF, kindle)
Have been
keen to read this book for a while. Over time, I've read others in the series
(2001, 2010, 2061). And this is the final installment. Not too many pages. Read
it one day last week.
I
generally enjoy good science fiction. However, this book was just alright. No
mind-blowing stuff. I blame this feeling partly on my recent state of bad cold
and low energy. I swapped my essay read for a fast sci-fi nothing else appeals
much. And part may be, may be (and I hope not), that I am growing old?
At what
point does the age shift start to reflect in your reading? Is it when you start
reading too much non-fiction? Is it when you enjoy the sci-fi less? It seems to
enjoy fiction heartily you need to suspend belief and logic and many other
things, and immerse in the world created and unfurled by the printed words, and
go for a jaunt in that world. I hope it is not the age or the feeling of
knowing better. Most of the books I read, I enjoy and am able to take a jaunt
in their world. Just sometimes, the veneer is too thin.
Again, I
blame it on my current temporary state of physical energy for such bleak
thoughts. Hope this will pass soon. I quite look forward to new books, and come
to think of it, the sci-fi stuff has always sort of been slightly depressing –
not because of any specific book but just in the general sense that they create
and raise hopes of possible scenarios and answers and only very, very few of
them can actually see them well to the conclusion. And one can’t blame the
authors. They are dealing with the fundamental questions of existence and
science and knowledge which, as human species, we are still nowhere near the
answer and perhaps, even a few lifetimes are not enough. So,
it can't be a new feeling, this existential and random angst that sci-fi generates.
Maybe it
is this particular book. The premise of all the four books in the Space Odyssey
series was pretty much set up in the first one, 2001: A Space Odyssey. And the first book and the movie by the same
name, both are enjoyable. (Although, I remember dozing off during the movie the
first time I tried to watch it – I was on a plane and the turbulence, the
gentle rocking, and the long stretch of space on screen with nothing happening
for a really long time with some gentle music in my ears was a good way to nod
off.) But like the mystery genre, the joy lies in the first read, and in this case, the
first book. After which once you know what it is, it gets a bit boring. And
this is no literature. And the series from book 2 onward dissolves to a page
turner - just any other novel – with much weaker plot lines and characters.
Nothing much to write home about.
The other
reason is that when your instagram feed shows a close-up or never seen before
shots of Jupiter, any silly, implausible stuff about Jupiter/Lucifer and its
moons as referred in these books, starts sounding too inane. We don't know much
yet, but we know a lot more than when this novel was written. Although Arthur Clarke uncannily has been very close to truth in many cases. And that is
why we continue to read him and be awed by his constructs.
The best
part for me were the final few pages of notes in my version of 3001. There
the author has given more details about the thought process behind some
of the assumptions and how he visualizes the future. And he refers more to the
science, which serves as a good gateway for further google searches.
So my
final take, do read 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first book in the series if you
have never read it. But if you are not in science fiction, the rest three in
the series can be easily skipped.
**
Currently reading: Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
This one
again has been on the kindle for a while. But I recently found a hard copy in a
book sale. And it has moved up on my reading list. However, as soon as I read
the first few pages, it took me back to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children -
the writing style, the punctuation, the by-the-way references continuously
interrupting the linearity of the narrative, the derision and volubility in the
language, the autobiographical nature which is not really the point of the
novel (of both the novels). I read Midnight Children a few years ago (after
repeated attempts previously), and enjoyed it so much that I read more from
Rushdie soon after.
Seems
like I am not alone in thinking that Rushdie was channeling Sterne. There are
many others. A google search will reveal even papers written on this.
Since this one is a book of my own, and not a
borrowed one, it is one of those books that can wait, and keep getting pushed
to the bottom of the pile by new interesting attractions. Hence reading it
between the other few. Still early pages, but quite engaged with the book now. Currently
bookmark is somewhere in book two. More, later.
**
Currently reading: From Silk to Silicon, the
story of globalisation through ten extraordinary lives by Jeffrey E. Garten
Impulse
pick. Fun, page-turning read. Loving it, and recommending it to whoever I am
meeting.
The
author has picked and profiled ten people who have been instrumental in changing
the way the world has been connected before their time. Be it the empire of
Genghis Khan, or the marine travel and African shores before Portuguese entry
under Prince Henry’s influence, or telegraph cables that connected Europe to
America through the efforts of Cyrus Field, or the interconnected financial
world created by Meyer Rothschild, or the Europe of Jean Monnet’s vision. The
stories left me spellbound. I am currently in the last third of the book.
It is another
perspective on world history which always stays an interesting and intriguing topic
for me. The more vantage points or ways you can learn to see, the better you
see, and understand and fathom. And this book helps.
As the author notes too, that they are not all heroes in the virtuous sense. Some
of these people have left a lot of misery on the paths they have trod, but the
impact they had on connecting the globe was phenomenal. I found the tenacity,
the perseverance, the single mindedness and the general level of hardwork in
these people’s lives quite inspiring. I was hooked from the first chapter on Genghis
Khan.
However, the chapter on Robert Clive was difficult to
read. This book is written from Western perspective and mainly Western Sources.
Having grown up in India, and hearing the story from India’s side is a
different experience. Some people’s heroes are other’s villains. And as they
say, it is complicated.
Trying to reduce lives and histories of a period to a
few pages is a difficult task. But overall, I come out richer; so many things I
didn’t know, and these chapters serve as a portal or departure point to so much
further interesting questions and readings and google searches.
One of my favourites in the book so far is Cyrus Field
(he envisioned and executed the laying down of telegraph lines between America
and Ireland and connected the world like never before). His is a story of
tenacity unparalleled.
This book is well written, an enjoyable reading
experience. One of those books where you want other people to read them too, so
that you can share and discuss. In my case, since my child is interested in
history too, he gets prodded to read along, or ends up being the audience to my
enthusiastic recount of these people’s lives and so far, he seems to be
enjoying it.
-
Since I quite enjoyed this way of looking at history –
as a cross section and a different perspective, a lot more specific than
general, and illuminating in its specificity, I am supplementing this book with
a couple of other books. Stefan Zweig’s (translated) Shooting Stars. These are ten historical miniatures - stories
about specific moments, sort of turning points in world history. I have enjoyed his short stories. And these
pieces seem to be written in a similar manner. I have just begun reading the
book - read one about the first sighting of the Pacific Ocean by a European.
Also picked up 1688:
A global history by John Elliott Wills.
Specific to the world during that year, and hence seeing the world from a
year where the author reckons quite a bit happened. Just read the preface and
intro so far - sounds promising.
**
Currently
reading: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (on phone)
While looking for some fiction pages to save on
instapaper, I came across the Gutenberg page on Sinclair Lewis. I have read his
Babbitt. And hence, decided to pick
this one, amongst a few other books and essay collections I have on my
instapaper reading queue. Babbitt was
about a town/city. And about a man, mainly. This one is about a village/small
town. And a woman. A wife who cannot work because she is a wife in early twentieth
century America. And her ideas. I am somewhere midway in the book. Enjoying the
portrayal of a different time and life.
**
Another current read : What the Dog Saw by Malcolm
Gladwell
This is the sort of book I have in mind when I say I
prefer a collection of well written essays on myriad topics over a long book on
one topic. I started reading this last
month, but a holiday trip came in between where I didn’t carry the book, so the
book is still somewhere midway. But the thing about his essays is I know that I
just have to read one page, and I am pulled right in.
The book has long been on our shelf. Guess from the year
it was released. I never came around to it. This
is a selection of author’s writing from New Yorker (?). Each essay is a
delight. The topics range from Enron to periods, homelessness to N N Taleb, and
advertising and demand creation, and most of them are fun reads. This
book too goes in the category of ways of seeing. Refining and continuously refining
the way we perceive the world.
**
And a closing note. 9 years of this blog.
As the year approaches close to its end, and this
book blog enters its tenth year, (On and off updated. But the ‘recent reads’
page stays a good log for me), I am thinking of ways of measuring.
I have at times been tempted to put up a page of current
reads. But as I often dip into books without finishing them, I am not sure
how to measure the interrupted reads. The engagement level with each such dip is quite
different too. Some are gleaned well for the key idea, and some abandoned after a
few chapters.
So, finished books continues to be the easiest, cleanest metric. Still,
once in a while, I’ll try to put up “Currently reading” posts (yes, of all my
past aspirations, writing regularly has been the continuous list topper).
Another housekeeping matter – one thing I’ll perhaps
change is the way I record my recent reads. I’ll shift the order from next year
with the most recent at the top, rather than the incongruous way it is currently
done (sequential in individual year, but going down the years).
**
So long. And now back to the bookmarks.