Thursday, November 21, 2013

The treasure a good book is.

If there is any one habit I am proud of ditching, its watching TV. On adding up the hours spent in front of the tube in a period of one year, I figured that was a lot of precious time spent doing nothing. Whatever was retained from watching shows or news was just not substantial enough to justify spending any more time watching fictional people's lives.
Since 2006, I spent a small fortune on books- enough to fill up a decent sized bookshelf with unread masterpieces. There were bestsellers devoured over the weekend like Freakonomics and Da Vinci code. Visibly, these books made much noise on their launch and were written like movie scripts. What I always stayed away from were the slow, silent kinds.
So after much deliberation I started reading 'Nine Lives'. This one is a keeper and here's why-
If anyone can claim to understand India, it is William Dalrymple. In case you think staying at exotic places during your vacations made up for 'knowing' India, that would be a tiny fraction of what this travel writer has discovered- by living and speaking with simple people. He brings immersive insight to traditional Indian practices despite modern times, weaving ancient history and personal narratives so detailed you can almost see the narrators. Totally recommended.
Separately, I do wonder though how an ebook reader replaces the pleasure of flipping pages, adding pencil notes in the last pages, bookmarking with the book jacket and of course, turning the book towards the light so the sun fills the white of the paper and the letters stand out like little exuberant people with their own messages held up like placards over their heads. What if these books could talk, discuss and analyse their own content with you?
This book also inspires a bit of photography and copywriting. I hope I can sustain this habit.

The treasure a good book is.

If there is any one habit I am proud of ditching, its watching TV. On adding up the hours spent in front of the tube in a period of one year, I figured that was a lot of precious time spent doing nothing. Whatever was retained from watching shows or news was just not substantial enough to justify spending any more time watching fictional people's lives.
Since 2006, I spent a small fortune on books- enough to fill up a decent sized bookshelf with unread masterpieces. There were bestsellers devoured over the weekend like Freakonomics and Da Vinci code. Visibly, these books made much noise on their launch and were written like movie scripts. What I always stayed away from were the slow, silent kinds.
So after much deliberation I started reading 'Nine Lives'. This one is a keeper and here's why-
If anyone can claim to understand India, it is William Dalrymple. In case you think staying at exotic places during your vacations made up for 'knowing' India, that would be a tiny fraction of what this travel writer has discovered- by living and speaking with simple people. He brings immersive insight to traditional Indian practices despite modern times, weaving ancient history and personal narratives so detailed you can almost see the narrators. Totally recommended.
Separately, I do wonder though how an ebook reader replaces the pleasure of flipping pages, adding pencil notes in the last pages, bookmarking with the book jacket and of course, turning the book towards the light so the sun fills the white of the paper and the letters stand out like little exuberant people with their own messages held up like placards over their heads. What if these books could talk, discuss and analyse their own content with you?
This book also inspires a bit of photography and copywriting. I hope I can sustain this habit.

Wordpress it is!

I have moved to Wordpress. After much introspection and discussion on what Blogger and Wordpress are capable of, I figured a one-stop shop...