Books update...

I knew even before leaving for India that carrying 10 books is a bit too ambitious (that didn't stop me from buying another from planet M!!), so I wasn't really expecting myself to read many of them. That I ended up finishing 4 and am already more than halfway through 5th, is actually surprising, even to myself (specially considering that I was there for my sister's wedding and I am her only brother.... I mean, you can see now how hard I worked for the wedding.. :P )

Anyway, back to books... I finished Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and C S Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The last two are children's books and I didn't really enjoy them a lot. CatCF even less than TLtWatW. Considering that people seem to think that Harry Potters are also children's books, I thought that I'd probably enjoy these other children's books too. I should've known better. After all "all children are young, but some are more young than others" (sorry, just read Animal Farm... so.. :) ). Clearly, these books are meant for a MUCH younger audience than Harry Potter books' target audience. TLtWatW was at least bearable. Khair... at least I now know what the movies are going to have. I don't know if I'll watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory even though it is by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp. I might go and spend 2 bucks to see Chronicles of Narnia though...

Animal Farm was good, though probably not as good as 1984. Or maybe thats because the theme of the two books are very similar and I just happened to read 1984 before Animal Farm. But for some reason Animal Farm seemed a bit too simplistic to me. Again, probably targeted to a younger audience than 1984 is. I was surprised (and frankly, horrified) to know that AF used to be required reading for kids in US schools till at least some time back. I don't know if it is true even today. This is not the least biased book ever written and even though the plot is very children-friendly, the content clearly requires an "R-rating" clearly printed on the book. It doesn't make sense to me to try and restrict children from watching an american cop killing an american criminal in one of those billion-barrel-bloodbath summer movies because they have impressionable minds and yet making them read a book that is clearly written to make an anti-communism impression on the reader's mind. Irrespective of whether one agrees with the ideas in the book or not, to make your kids read books like this sounds a bit too much like the "Party" brainwashing the "comrades" when they are kids as it happens in 1984 and is insinuated in Animal Farm.

Sagan's Demon Haunted World was quite refreshing. I don't think its a famous book. At least I hadn't heard its name before and just bought it on seeing the author's name. But it turned out the best read among these four. Its a book that inspires clarity of thought and advocates skepticism and the scientific method in every field of life - probably the only thing that I myself have ever believed to be true. Welcome every new idea thinking that there might be something wrong about it (even if the idea is your own!), and if, after trying hard for a long time, you still can't find anything wrong about it then the chances of its being correct are much improved than when you first encountered it. Sagan carries this process forward and analyses things like alien-abductions, UFOs, ghosts, angels, and religion itself. A fascinating read, even if a little repetitive after a point.

Also, I bought my first non-H2G2 book by Douglas Adams - The Salmon of Doubt and as I already said, have already read more than half of it. Needless to say, this guy was a genuine genius. And reading his non-fiction articles in this book prove that fact to me much better than the hilarious H2G2 series. I was already a fan of his, now I'm a die-hard fan.. you know, the sort of fan I am of ARR and Sachin. Or maybe I'll feel different after The Rising's music comes out or after Sachin hits that long awaited uncomparable triple hundred (I'd add against australia, but after what happened over this last week, including today, I'd rather not.. ). :)

lets see...