Desert Island Books

One of my favorite podcasts is the BBC’s Desert Island Discs. A celebrity from a wide range of fields is interviewed by the host Kirsty Young and during the course of the interview the celebrity plays DJ and picks out their top 8 tracks that mean the most to them that they would carry it along when castaway to a desert island. 

Although I don’t think I will ever be on a Desert Island (not a real one or on the program) I recently asked myself which books would I carry with me to a desert island. Then I realized that it was so hard to pick just 8 books so i cheated and said i will take the complete works of the following authors. So here is my list, not in any particular order:

1.   P.G.Wodehouse (I will certainly need a laugh) 
2.  Joseph Campbell (will take his lectures as audiobooks as i love his voice)
3. Margaret Atwood (A dose of feminism will be a boost when i am the only person on the island)
4. Jared Diamond (i can contemplate about our civilization as i will now have all the time in the world)
5. Steinbeck (i will get every variety of emotion with his books, and i can fondly think of California my adopted homeland with so much pride)
6. Harper Lee (she wrote just one, but that was enough and it will still teach me some life lessons)
7. Kalki (he made Tamil literature so accessible to me, and his books will keep me connected to my native land)
8. James Joyce (so i can finally claim to have finished Ulysses)

There were a few more in the running - Chinua Achebe, Tagore, Isabel Allende, Barbara Kingsolver were strong contenders. But these were the 8 that bubbled to the top.

Would be great to hear from you about your Desert Island Books!

OBOC - Spain

An object at rest will remain at rest, proclaimed Newton in his famous law of inertia, unless acted on by a force. Unfortunately for me there exists no such external force that can make me write, and no fracking seems to have been able to get to the intrinsic motivation that lies somewhere deep inside me.  I’ve heard many writers claim that the story just wrote itself, and they were just a medium. That (in addition to countless other reasons) explains why I could never be a writer. It has always been too darn difficult for me. Anyway today the resolve to write came to me as I could see the year drawing to a close and I didn’t want to close 2013 without an entry in December.

Shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron was my pick for Spain. I am a fan of most things used/recycled (read, I am cheap). So when I found the Shadow of the wind available at my local library for 25c I decided to ignore the alphabetical order of things and jumped straight to Spain. I am also a fan of most things Gothic. In fact one of my favorite Jane Austen novels is Northanger Abbey (gothic parody at its best) and my love for all things black and all art from Tim Burton is known to friends and family. So it was no wonder that I enjoyed Shadow of the wind. I mean a book that opens with a cemetery of forgotten books was certainly going to have my undivided (well, almost) attention.

The hero Daniel finds himself completely possessed by a book with the eponymous title written by the little known Julian Carax. Having “rescued” this book from the cemetery when he was 10years old, he finds that his whole life is governed by some kind of a gothic quest for Julian and the story behind the book. Interwoven into the story, is the Spanish civil war and the air of unrest, terror and suspicion that hung over Barcelona at that time.  Who is the mystery person buying up all the copies of Julian Carax’s works? What is the connection between the monstrous Fumero, who is now firmly with Franco and Julian? Will Daniel’s life mirror that of Julian’s or will he find a happier ending? The book is a great read, so I suggest you find out yourself.