Once again, someone tagged me on the ‘list of books’ post…and once again, I must put this up as my response:
I have avoided the ‘list of 10’ since it is tough to make without sounding either shallow or pretentious. I have over 800 books in my library, and I enjoy a Goscinny & Uderzo as much as a Puzo or Forsyth and as much as a Russel or Naipaul or as much as a Tolstoy or Shakespeare or as much as a Dawkins or Harris or Adams or Armstrong or Rushdie. And I enjoy a Mason or Le Carre, as much as a Fleming or Bond (yes, I purposely put Fleming and Bond next to each other. Sneaky. And the limits of my wit!), a Dahl or Kipling, or a Haley or even a Ludlum or Archer or Sheldon as much as I enjoy biographies and autobiographies of people who were leaders of bloody revolutions or soldiers in fancy dress or philandering presidents or politicians wanting to be saints or scientists with pretensions of being humorists, or even gang leaders, if only just for a day, as much as I like to read history and religion and philosophy and fiction, as much as I enjoy trash and classics and topical stuff, including old-style magazines printed on paper, whether about the film industry or economics, and new-age online journals and blogs.
I even trawl Twitter and Upworthy for reading material, and frequently get lost in Wikipedia where I come for one thing and find myself reading something totally irrelevant in less than 2 minutes.
I love the newspapers to an extent that if I get food wrapped in one, I’ll even read that. I sit on a train or a bus and read what my co-passenger is reading, upside down!
I read on the pot, and in the car (ok, not exactly…it gives me nausea), I read in bed, and in office, I read sitting, standing, lying down, even while watching TV.
So, honestly, I have no clue how to respond when someone tags me for ‘the list’ because frankly, when I read others’ lists, there are two things that come to my mind:
(1) Wow! This person can choose only 10? How does one do that? I’d die of paralysis of mind if I attempt to choose just 10 before I even get down to the shortlist of the final 100; and
(2) Wow! I don’t seem to be as well-read as this person. I have hardly heard of half the books, leave alone read them!
That being said, I would like to enjoy reading others’ lists and keep refusing requests to make my own, lest I be exposed for the poorly-read, superficial human I am, or be lambasted for being overly pseudo-intellectual and a poser for the pretentious choice. My go-to response to someone asking me for my ‘list’ has always been…run.
For someone who finds it difficult to choose a dish from a menu or a shirt from the wardrobe, a request to list ’10 books’ can take a toll on their (already disintegrating and aging) minds and shake their delicate sensitivities enough for them to unfriend you. So, thanks, but no thanks. I am better off without exposing my chinks!
P.P.S: No one noticed I said ‘Mason’ instead of ‘Gardner’. Sigh! Does no one read trash anymore? Not even in their ‘young and stupid’ days? Was everyone born an adult directly? Or is it just Trotsky and Tolstoy and Hemingway and Steinbeck that gets anyone excited anymore here? I am starting to feel seriously under-read. People putting up Plato and Marx, and the original Shakespeare. People who have actually finished ‘War and Peace’ (I finally did, but it took me 8 years, if I am not mistaken) and understood ‘The Little Prince’, people who read (and comprehend) poetry, and (OMG) compose it, people who have read everything Plath wrote and swear by Dorothy Parker. Every time I read these ‘lists’, I get more and more intimidated. I think I should quit my online life for a while. And read.
