Books I Hate

Yes yes yes one mustn’t hate books but there are some books that I just hate and will never ever pick up them again…I do not know why, but i know why I hate them so. There is always that thin meandering line that exists – between liking a book and not-liking-a-book and its so easy for certain books to stay on the good side and so easy for other books to stray to the bad side. I mean I have also read books that I loved at the start but they lost me somewhere in the middle and I did not know whether or not I should bother but I do not give up on books that easy and I finished them only to realize that they were just terrible reads…Yes yes this is one of other lists…List of books I hate:

1. Anything by Paulo Coelho – Need I say more…Its Coelho after all who just doesn’t stop giving spiritual advice.
2. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts – I finished the book with great disdain and was left to wonder: Why me? Why must I go through such torture and then I came up with an idea: Praise the books and pass it on to poor unsuspecting souls who actually loved it…Damn!!
3. Maximum City by Suketu Mehta: I do not need an outsiders’ view to know my city and certainly not a lop-sided view. Bombay is not all about terrorists or poverty or gangsters or bars. I am sure they all exist in plentiful but there is also the way you write about it. You cannot live it so don’t claim to.
4. The Lord of the Rings: I know there will be Tolkien Fans who will hate me for this but guys this is my choice and this is my list and I tried with Tolkien and the conclusion was: Why bother with a bunch of creatures who aren’t even human? I am sorry but Tolkien just does not do it for me.
5. On Beauty by Zadie Smith: I loved White Teeth. Loved the entire diasporic thingy going on in that book but this one! This is a cheap imitation of Forsters’ “Howard’s End” which is a classic and this one – well….zzzzzzzzzzzzz……..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

5 Seems like a good number to start with…I am sure there will be more that I will add to the kitty…

List 1

There are so many books to read. so many that i havent read. so many that invite me to pick them up and i do at some point, only to realize it is not very interesting and put it back on the shelf. i have such a huge collection of books – close to 7000 and i do not know when will i ever get down to reading every single one of them. i love making book lists. every single day. i write names of books – write names of authors, the dates when i plan to start reading them to approximately how much will it take me to finish reading them. i do not know why i do this but i would like to believe that it is therapeutic. yes it is. for all the booklovers out there, try it and then let me know if it is or isn’t.

I was going through this book the other day called “1001 books to read before you die” and it is a fantastic compilation with excellent illustrations. I picked up the book only for the illustrations. I wonder if I had to make a list like that what books would I include in that list. Not that I am an authoritarian on books, but this is just my personal list.

For starters let it be the top 10 and may be I will continue at some point….

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
5. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald
6. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
7. Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
8. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

So many books…so little time…sigh!!