Them Tags

And a book tag came along my way. I am so glad I was tagged for this and Ramya , for that I forgive you for misspelling my blogpage in your post.
In Nick Hornby's High Fidelity when Rob is asked to name his top 5 records of all time, he panics. His life revolved around music but when he was asked the question he was caught short, unprepared. That's the problem with things that you really like. Books, music, movies, the good things. All the books you ever read is what you are, your friends and you would hate to number them, prioritize them, let anyone down.
But the good thing about these book tags is that you get to talk about them and classify them into neat sections like the books in a library. Only if libraries had sections like, 'Books that change your life', 'Books that you would read more than once', 'Books that you would want to take to a desert' et al.

I shall start.

1) Books that changed your life :

Great Expectations, Dickens - Read it, re-read it, loved it as a teenager. Quite a book for the impressionable mind. Also, gave me a certain idea of beauty which I have still not felt a need to get over.

The Fountainhead, Rand - Incendiary. Pray tell me who has not been blown away with the ideologies that Rand had to preach. And especially when you are young and the mind is like a nymphet - randy for all things exciting.

2) A book that I have read more than once :

The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger - I think I have read it atleast 4 times. Nice, thin, comforting, extremely readable paperback.

High Fidelity, Nick Hornby - Theres a pattern here, isn't it ?

3) A book that you would take to a desert :

Anything by Wodehouse, or Hornby .
Did I forget Satanic Verses? Satanic Verses, Rushdie it would be!

4) Books that made you laugh

Lolita, Nabokov - That man of wantonly gorgeous prose and achingly beautiful narrative. People, humor is Nabokov. And so is tragedy and love and life. Ok, I am not forgetting Dostoevsky or Gorky and other Russian writers here. Just that the Nabokovian style is too seductive, too beautiful.

5) Books that made you cry

Requiem for a dream, Herbert Shelby Jr. - The movie, then the book. The movie made me sick in the guts. The book? Oh! If theres another book about drugs and shattered dreams, I would love to read it. I don't mind crying.

Love in the time of cholera, Marquez - For Florentino Ariza. How I wished he got Fermina Daza throughout and how I cried when, at last, they went on that voyage in the boat. How I related to all that!

6) A book you wish had been written

If I know of a plot that is never thought of , I'd rather write it than discuss it here!
I will change the rule a little and make it 'A book that you wish you had now'.

It is Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky. I am sure it would be a delight to read the great filmmaker talk about cinema and music and life and all art.

7) Books you wish had never been written

No idea !

8) Books you are currently reading :

The Metamorphosis, Kafka.
Short Stories of Dostoevsky.
Mystic Masseur, Naipaul.

And then how could a book tag ever be complete without a "Books that you started but never finished"?

Mine are :

The story of a life by Konstantin Paustovsky - The size of the book weighs so much on my mind that even with its exquisitely beautiful narrative, I haven't been able to go beyond 80 - 100 pages. I will read it one day. I will !

Moby Dick, Herman Melville - Although I had heard a lot about the book and even found it deep and even funny at times, the language got too hard, too archaic for me to enjoy it without constantly referring to a dictionary. So I rest Moby Dick for the moment and the tag.