reading habit

What is your most powerful childhood memory of a book? 

Longish story—when I was 6, I was in the library (at an army base), and was reading through some Tinkles and Amar Chitra Kathas. I was a big fan of the Laurel and Hardy comedy series that was sometimes shown on Doordarshan- and I suddenly saw this “book without pictures” called Hardy Boys. I assumed it had something to do with Laurel and Hardy—and borrowed it. While I was soon corrected of that notion, I found that I loved the book. This was the first “grown up” book that I ever read. It was called The Roaring River Mystery, and this is how my lifelong love affair with thriller novels started 😊

 

What line of literature or poetry do you quote ad nauseam? 

I’m going with Ozymandias by Shelley. The line “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair” is a very versatile one, and you can throw it in anywhere, from cricket to the stock market!

 

Another great line to throw around is the final sentence from Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose. The line is “Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus”, which translates as "The rose of old remains only in its name; We possess naked names". No one quite knows what it means, you can use it anywhere, and it sounds suitably profound, especially when you want to quickly add a fake air of authority 😊 

 

What book do you regret re-reading? 

Nothing! I’m very picky about which books I read again—mostly my beloved Alistair MacLeans and Frederick Forsyths, which I re-read each year.

 

An author you adored as a child and have not thought about in years?

There was an author called Willard Price, who wrote some excellent adventure stories- Volcano Adventure, South Sea Adventure, Gorilla Adventure, and so on. I used to devour the books, but haven’t even seen one in years.

 

What book would you gift to your worst enemy?  

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I tried reading it several times, and felt like throwing the book at something each time. Another painful read was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, which is a surprise considering how much I liked her The Secret History.

 

I would love to see a movie/series adaptation of ___________ starring ____ as _____  

Going to cheat here. I would love to see Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld movies turned into a book series written by James Rollins, the techno-thriller writer. 

 

A book review that was better than the book?

I came across this extraordinary book review in the London Review of Books by Amia Srinivasan, a Professor of Philosophy at Oxford. She’s reviewing two books on Octopuses—and manages to write one of the best standalone articles I’ve read, on a subject that I have almost no knowledge of. It goes into Japanese erotic art, philosophy, consciousness, and even aliens—while talking about octopuses all the while. 

 

What book do you pretend to have read?

War and Peace, but read on. This is a delicate balancing act—I don’t actually pretend I’ve read the book, I just casually reference it in conversations with some authority. “Napoleon’s failed conquest of Russia is a big event in their history—I mean, just see how much of Tolstoy’s War and Peace is in French”. 

 

What is the first “forbidden” book you read in secret? 

Probably Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence? I found a copy in a government library, no less, even though the book was banned in India!

 

What book/author still counts as guilty pleasure? 

There’s an Australian author called Matthew Reilly, who writes these implausible, high-octane thrillers. For instance, one of his novels has genetically engineered dragons who have taught themselves Chinese, and decide to break out of their Jurassic Park-style amusement resort. They coordinate an attack on a nuclear bunker, by throwing a petrol tanker at it, so that the resulting explosion blows apart the doors.  Another of his books has a 13-year-old Queen Elizabeth I solving a murder mystery in 16th Century Istanbul.

 

Send us a photo of your tsundoku pile

 

Nope, we’re not going to be our usual snarky self with one of our founding members— who always rate 200/100 on our scale!