January Books

Well, January started out like a fair month to read but it did not really feel that way, even though on paper it looks like i did get some reading done, i have this uncomfortable feeling about it, mostly because I started most of these books in December, so i just finished them this month, did not actually read them start to finish per say. :(( too much to do, too much TV my husband keeps recommending, oh you are going to love this, oh you just have to watch this... and the thing is , once i start it i do get hooked and there goes the book :) I am only writing the books that I either finished reading this month or books that i started but figured will never read ever :)

so lets see what we got done
Piligrim's Progress - i started it with a lot of hope but, i could not get through it, so i don't think i will pick it up again in the near future, this is as close to reading it as i am ever going to come. unfortunately. unless of course my sister decides to help me out and explain the book to me, then i might be tempted to try it again.

Bertrand Russell's autobiography - it was interesting, I really wanted to read it, but it was overdue at the library and i was not getting it done so i decided to give it back instead of paying fines. i think i am going to pick it up again soon, just was very heavy - so kinda awkward to hold while lying in bed :(

Scripts people live - Claude Steiner :) I am not writing anything about this one because either i should write a whole post about it or just shut up. So shutting up is the route i am going right now :)

Toxic in-laws - uff! i cried and cried and cried. Seriously, i did :) This was what I got from the book - a) it has happened to other people, i am not alone and b) when you are not sure if what is being done to you is right or not, imagine the same thing being done to someone you love. Would you want them to put up with it? if not, why are you putting up with it? Why should you not stand up for your self?

The Great Gatsby - Gatsby was in the same category as Mockingbird with me - the list of books i somehow do not want to read, the other one in there is Dickens' Great expectations. So its a wonder of sorts that i randomly picked up Gatsby, and then actually read it, because i cannot tell you the number of times i have picked up Mockingbird and then not read it. I have even paid library fines on it. But, boy am i glad i read Gatsby. This book has completely changed my idea of American literature. It really was a wonderful book, very simple sweet and yet very profound, in a folk lore-ish, non - grand-eloquent way. So elegant, succinct, to the point, that that in itself makes it grandiose. I did not really cry or anything when Gatsby died, but the story left me with a bit of bitterness and resentment. There were moments in there that I so completely could relate to, I admire Mr. Fitzgerald's ability to put in words feelings that can be so hard to describe, and like i said above, he does it so simply, so unostentatiously, that I am just... wowed! Like this moment, when Daisy is standing beside Gatsby, and he is happy, but he looks at the blinking light of her home across the river, and that makes him slightly sad, because now he can never look at that light the same way as he did before, when he longed to be with her, the light has now lost its brilliance. I am not doing justice to it in all these sentences, but F just says it in a matter of words, something like, "it was the loss of one more enchanted object" see, that is beautiful.
या रब दुआ-ऐ-वस्ल न हरगिज़ क़ुबूल हों, फिर दिल में क्या रहा जो हरसत ही निकल गयी।
And to me that is the mark of good storytelling। It does not matter what that emotion is - frustration, pain, pleasure, hope, anger - anything, if someone can put a bunch of words on a piece of paper and make you feel something, i think they did a darn good job.

You've got to read this book - umm.... was fine no big deal except the first part, which has made me want to read this other book, A tree grows in Brooklyn, will do

How to win friends and influence people - yeah! well... it was a nice book, it talks about some very basic things people could do in their interactions with other people. Some are intuitive, plain good breeding and some need a bit of a paradigm shift. but i must mention that i have my issues, i don't buy the premise. You see i don't think people should go about making plans to influence other people. It is demeaning, insulting, and very very rude in my opinion. Perhaps I am being juvenile and adamant with the same boorish attitude i had twenty years back, but... well that is who i am. The book like so many people before it, says you can gather more flies with honey that with vinegar, well, am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not a fly - catcher, i don't want anything to do with flies. Now I don't think I am doing justice to this book, so perhaps I should sit down and write a full post about it. Will do that too.