"Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink. His intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts." - [William Shakespeare]
reading |
I started reading books as a hobby when I was around 10 years old with one from the Hardy Boys series. From the very first book I was hooked, both to the series as well as to reading in general. I spent most of my time during that period reading all the books in the popular children's series like Famous Five, Three Investigators, Secret Seven, Nancy Drew and a host of other such books. Some time was also spent in reading abridged versions of classics like Tom Swayer, Robinson Crusoe, Lorna Doone etc. Basically all the books were of the adventure or detective kind.
The second stage came when I had exhausted most of the books in the series mentioned above and started on Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. From these I progressed to a whole gamut of detective/action/adventure novelists like Alistair Maclean, Jeffrey Archer, Desmond Bagley, Arthur Hailey, Harold Robbins etc. Whole summer vacations were spent in gathering books from the library and reading through out the day (and sometimes even the night) with breaks only for food and sleep. In fact even when school started, I used to spend a major part of my time reading fiction. During holidays it was permissible to read for any amount of time, during school days I used to read by hiding the smaller novel in a bigger text book.
The realization that most of the books I had read were good only for mere time pass and that I had gained nothing substantial from many of them was slow to strike me. Better late than never, I now am very choosy about the kind of book that I read. In fact, I have almost stopped reading any type of detective or adventure novels. Fiction itself is restricted to classics and other highly regarded works only. Most of the books that I read currently are on science, philosophy, history or biographies.
my favorites |
| Biography | |
| Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynmann | Richard Feynmann |
| Fiction | |
| 1984 | George Orwell |
| All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria Remarque |
| Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand |
| Catch 22 | Joseph Heller |
| Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Far From the Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy |
| Guns of Navarone | Alistair Maclean |
| Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemmingway |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Ken Kesey |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
| The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho |
| The Bridge Across Forever | Richard Bach |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J D Salinger |
| The Guide | R K Narayan |
| The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka |
| The Name of the Rose | Umberto Eco |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte |
| Finance | |
| Rich Dad Poor Dad | Robert T. Kiyosaki |
| History | |
| The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich | William L. Shirer |
| Science | |
| Broca's Brain | Carl Sagan |
| Cosmos | Carl Sagan |
| Godel, Escher, Bach | Douglas R. Hofstadter |
| The Dancing Wu Li Masters | Gary Zukov |
| The Human Animal | Desmond Morris |
| Science Fiction | |
| 2001-A Space Odyssey | Arthur C Clarke |
| Rendezvous with Rama | Arthur C Clarke |
| Sphere | Michael Crichton |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams |
comics |
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I am a great fan of comics and have read most of my favorite comic books
more than 10 times each! Although I used to read a lot of Phantom, Mandrake,
Superman and the like when I was young, now I find them uninteresting. I mainly
read Calvin & Hobbes and Dilbert and also many of the other comic strips
like Wizard of Id, Foxtrot etc. Although I must have read all of the Tintin and
Asterix comics at least 20 times each, I still enjoy reading them again and
again. Another all time favorite is Archie comics although only 10% of the
comic is truly humorous.
I enjoy Calvin & Hobbes the most with its eloquent drawings, evocative dialogue and subtle humor. Being a cubicle dweller myself, Dilbert and co-workers provide a humorous view of my professional life. Tintin is more of a "pie in the face" kind of comedy while Asterix comics are amazing with its incredible drawings and outrageous puns. It's a pity that kids today are spending more and more time watching television cartoons rather than reading a good comic book. |
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