The Reading Project

If you know me, you know I love books.

If you know me well…you know I’m obsessive about them!!

The two premier loves of my Life…Writing & Books 🙂

Everything about books is close to my heart – the feel of a new book – crisp & clean in my hands; the inky fragrance of untouched pages and the familiar mustiness of an old favourite; the promise of an exciting journey ahead; the pleasure of discovering a great new author and the joys of re-reading old favourites!

I treasure the ones I have; hate to lend them out;  want to own ever book I read – a source of constant aggravation to my poor husband; am loath to get rid of even those books that I’m not too fond of; am a fiction person, non-fiction bores me no matter how interesting :P; am a big re-reader of my favourites – they’re my friends, my counselors and in their pages I find what I’m looking for and what I need in the moment – friendship, rage, vengeance, love, respect, comfort, peace and solace 🙂

LOVE Christie’s Hercule Poirot (have her entire collection and know most of them by heart) , and Mr. Darcy (and Colin Firth ;)) unconditionally and forever; am not big on Chick-lit, actually the very term is mildly nauseating, but I do read a few, when recommended by fellow book-crazy friends; am not a big fan of books being turned into movies, except for rare exceptions – LOTR (the extended version), Chocolat, The Namesake, Bridget Jones Diary, The BBC version of Pride & Prejudice and my all time favorite book – To Kill a Mockingbird; ADORE Enid Blyton to this day and always will; don’t necessarily follow trends and an overly hyped book often puts me off, sometimes to my loss, but most times – Not!

When I’m not reading, it shows! I get crabby and short with the people around and am generally not a happy camper! Books always manage to calm me down – perhaps it has to do with escapism. A good book is like a dream journey – a promising beginning to another world; a rollicking ride through the story – its characters, their emotions, actions and reactions , their lives so different from mine and yet strangely familiar; a good end – not necessarily neat and happy! Here though, I must confess, in my younger days, I was quite boring, in that I always wanted a happy ending! I wanted every character to get their heart’s desire and be with the ones they loved and be ‘Happy’. Yeah, yeah I know – C’est impossible! For a long time I actually allowed myself to stop at ‘Happily Ever After’ and not think about later…the morning after (I was young…very young ;-)). As I both read better & read better books, I began to realize how inhibited I was in my reading. I had to learn to let go, let go of my expectations and inhabit the characters that came alive on the pages. Only then, was I able to enjoy the book and its story, get its message, if there was one, and get rid of a sense of disappointment when things didn’t turn out the way I expected or wanted them too! This also allowed me to expand my reading list and pick up books that I never would have before! Book clubs and discussions with fellow enthusiasts with different takes on the same books also helped change the way I read and the kind of books I picked.

One of my life’s missions is to read as many books as I possibly can! I am using 1001 Books to Read before you Die as a basis, while also attempting to re-read the Classics, well at least a few, the easier ones ;-). I have always  shied away from them, except for severely abridged and simplified versions read mostly in childhood and college, ‘coz reading some of the lengthier ones seems daunting and indeed herculean! Think War & Peace, Anna Karenina…, but lately I’ve been thinking, if I must revisit them – I might as well do so now – I’m not getting any younger and Lord knows some of them will take forever 😛  Dickens…yes! Dickens will be a good, relatively easy beginning methinks…A Tale of Two Cities perhaps…quite liked that one…and then move on to the heavyweights, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky..no offence meant…

I will however continue reading my beloved literary fiction to preserve my sanity and hope to record my progress on this blog!

Wish Me Luck!

Here’s to the magical power of Books 🙂

3 Cheers – Hip Hip Hurrah!!