Sepember/October 2008 Books

1) White Tiger - Arvinda Adiga
The 4th debut to win the Man Booker Prize ever. I finished this book yesterday & today it wins the Booker. It was a very interesting book. But I'm very surprised that it was a finalist. Now it has become the winner. We have a new star here. Move over Arundhati.

2) Spike, Mike, Slackers, & Dykes: John Pierson
The Father of Independent cinema of 90s takes us on "A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema".

3) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
All these years of hype kind of spoilt it for me. I got a little bored towards the end.

4) Half A Life - V.S.Naipaul
After reading Magic Seeds I was thinking I wanna know about Chandran's Life before Magic Seeds. And then next week I found out that Magic seeds is a sequel of sorts to Half A Life. Had to read it. Very good. But not among his best.

5) The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
Amitav is Subrat's sentimental favorite author. So I had to read his work. It was a good book, but maybe not his best. Next I'm gonna try Calcutta Chromosome.

6)High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Cultures of Excess - Charles Fleming
Cocaine,80s & Blockbuster movies.

7) Maximum City - Suketu Mehta
Finally read a book I bought 3 years back. Must read if you wanna understand Bombay.

8) Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
Liked the title story. Like her winning debut, I have mixed feelings about this one too.

Reading -
The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood - James Mottram

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

August 2008 Books

I have decided to keep a note of all the books I'm reading. Just to have some kind of list for me. I been reading insanely last few months. Almost 8-10 books a month. So much that i find it hard to remember all the books i read last month. Hence this list.

I'll start with August 2008

1) Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing : David Morrell
Creator of RAMBO, David Morrell gives some really good insights. I would reccomend this book to all.

2) Bend in the River - V S Naipaul
Naipaul at his detached cynical best.

3) Magic Seeds - V S Naipaul
The first bad book from Naipaul. And what makes it worse is that its a sequel to HALF A LIFE which I have not read & didn't know about it till 30 minutes back. But also while reading this book, i kept think about Willie's past life in Africa & that Naipaul should have written more about that. Now i'm glad theres a whole book about that.

4) NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN - Cormac McCarthy
Great book. Its really painfull to read a great book after having seen the film. But i'm doing this as a screenwriting exercise. Read the book -> Read the Script -> Watch the film.
Lets see if its a good exercise.

5) ANIMAL FARM - George Orwell
The best short novel I have read so far. 96 pages that can be finished in one afternoon over 3 cups of tea & lots of tears for 'Boxer'. I think ANIMAL FARM should be made required reading in schools all over the world. The best satire on communism that I have ever read.

6)You'll Never eat Lunch in this Town Again - Jullia Phillips

The producer of Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting tells her story of being the 1st female to win that Oscar to playing with the boys in the 70s. Half the book is about cocaine though. Everything else happens inbetween. Its the seventies. Everyone except Spielberg was high. Good but very long book.