Lalalala.

Having a theme song playing in the background every time you walk into a room makes life indescribably more interesting. If only reality was a hindiphilm.

P.S.What would your theme song be? 

House-love.

When I was a kid, I used to pass these two houses next to one another every day on my way to school, tucked under a bridge, with their faces turned sideways to the thoroughfare. Large, sprawling, yellow bungalows, right out of a Ruskin Bond book, with dense green backyards and pretty gravel driveways and a pair of enchanted swings in the corner of a yellow courtyard. And every day, I looked out for them from my windows and secretly acknowledged their presence with a deep sense of comfort, like nodding at two strangers you see everyday on the bus on your way to work and knowing everything's all right with the world.
I never knew who lived there, but then again, it never really mattered.

Dammit.

It's steaming-momos-and-thukpa-with-Gordon-Lightfoot weather outside.
In the midst of which, I have to read Ulysses, of all things. For the love of all that is humane, spare me the horror.

Day 30 – Your favorite book of all time

At laast. I've never stuck to anything this long.
Will it be cruel if I decide to skip this? Because I'm one of those strange people who doesn't have a favourite book.
And it'll be so aptly anti-climactic and everything.

But no, I promised myself I wouldn't skip anything. So here goes:
(It's not a particularly well thought out choice, but it's just a book I return to so very often, and whose language I aspire towards.)

 

Isla Negra

Pablo Neruda

Day 29 –The book you're currently reading

 

Nine Lives

William Dalrymple

To use a much worn phrase: I'm loving it.

Day 28 –The last book you read.

 

The Magic Toyshop

Angela Carter

WhatcanIsay about Angela Carter except that she's crazy beautiful, and her novel is magical and mundane, terrifying and heartwarming, depressing yet uplifting all at the same time. A magical roller-coaster, this.

Day 27 –A book everyone hated but you liked

 

Absent in the Spring

Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott

An explanation seems mandatory. Very few people like Christie's "Westmacott" novels, because, let'sfaceit, like with her supernatural thrillers, her 'family dramas' tended to go overboard a bit ( I guess when you're stuck writing detective novels for thirty years, any chance you get at writing anything different is equivalent to a six-year-old on a sugar high when his parents are out of town.)

I'm not sure anyone hates this book. But I've never met anyone who obsesses over the book like I do. It's just one of those inexplicable things: I don't know whether the novel's good or bad, but I loved it when I first read it years ago, and I wasn't disappointed when I re-read it much later. 

Day 26 –Favourite Title

This is a weird one. I presume they (such an useful pronoun) mean names of books?
Well, Alexander McCall Smith always has such funny titles, and as you must've noticed, I'm such a stickler for humour.
A selction: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, Morality for Beautiful Girls, The Right Attitude to Rain, The World According to Bertie.

Day 25 –A book that you wish you could live in

 

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

Lewis Carroll

This is a bit "duh!", don't you think?

Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read

I wouldn't dream of presuming to tell people what books they should read.( No, really.)
But then again isn't this what the whole meme is about?
So, instead of choosing one particular book, I'd choose a genre that is not neglected as such, but not, I believe, read as much as the novel: the short story, my first love, because as a kid I never had the attention span to finish a nov...

And because pictures maketh the blog post, allow me put in images of the short story collections I've read recently:
Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood: Deliciously surreal in places and downright creepy in others.

Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino: Beautiful and bizzare rolled into one amazing read.

Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t

There are so many books that I want to read but haven't (because of sheer laziness in some cases or inaccessibility in others) that this post could fill up an entire er, book.
But to name two that I've recently had an incredible urge of reading (meaning can someone please lend?)
           

Day 22 – Favorite book you own

I wanted to skip this because it's stupid.(Ah, if only life was that simple. Don't mind me, I feel particularly philosophical today.) Because of course I own my favourite books. So I can look at them lovingly and stroke their spines and bury my face in them when I'm feeling low, like oldfaithful dogs and warm blankets.
So, yes, I own almost all my favourites (which does not, however, translate into books I own being my favourites. I own a lot of books.)
But I guess if I had to pick one book that's different from the rest I would say my signed copy of Dancing in Cambodia, because it's the only signed book I own.

Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood

The Anne of Green Gables series

by L.M.Montgomery

The thing about Anne is that people either love her or hate her. Her imagination (which runs wild all too often), her need to find poetry in the most mundane of things and her insistence that her name be spelt with an 'e' at the end may not be to everyone's taste, but for me, she was always a 'kindred spirit', with her posse of imaginary friends, her storytelling clubs and fiery repartee with her rival schoolmate (and eventual lover, no surprises there), Gilbert Blythe.

And because no post on childhood (or at least, our childhood, I have no idea what kids these days read *insert disapproving shake of head*) can ever be complete without Enid Blyton:

Even though I've read all the Famous Fives and loved her school series (particularly St.Clares and the twins), the Five Find-Outers and Dog (despite their rather cumbersome name) were my favourite, prolly because they were more of mysteries (which needed figuring out) rather than adventures. Not to mention Fatty's vast collection of disguises which I sincerely envied. 

Incidentally, I never cared for The Secret Seven. Probably because seven is two too many for a detective club.

Day 20 – Favorite romance book

The Historical Romance series

by Georgette Heyer

Undoubtedly the wittiest, funniest, most enjoyable romances I've read, with oldfavourites like The Grand Sophy, Arabella, Frederica and The Nonesuch. The writing is smooth and engaging, often even laugh-out-loud funny, the dialogue is sharper than all the Jane Austens put together and the characters are independent, headstrong and sometimes, whimsical. In other words, it's like hugs-and-icecream after a painfully boring day.

(And oh, the men, the absolutely delicious men, from the Rake to the Libertine, the Corinthian and the Cynic.Sigh.)

Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie

 

I almost always hate movies that are adapted from books, because, let's face it, it's generally a very very shallwesay creative interpretation of what the book is. Fidelity to the book is important for me in a film adaptation, at least as much as is required for the feel of the book to be kept intact. Interestingly, both my choices are animated. Coraline by Neil Gaiman is one of the creepiest children's stories I've read and the film, with its surreal stop-motion 3d animation just takes the creepiness a notch higher. Brilliantly complements the book. As with Persepolis, adapted from Marjane Satrapi's novel of the same name, which sticks as closely as possible to the book's original starkness.

P.S. Another movie I was overall satisfied with after reading the book was Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Like the book, the movie is er... luscious, for want of a better word.