The New Year Haul of Books

I had thought of starting the New Year by beginning a good book to in order to stick to my resolution to read more this year. But instead I began by buying three books at the sale of Best Books Centre that is on at YWCA. The satisfaction is that I found three good books.

The first book was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’, a slim hardcover book of not more than 130 pages. The second find was ‘Writer’s Digest’s Handbook of Short Story Writing Volume-II’. I had got the first volume sometime last year and this was a welcome addition.

The third book I picked up was Issue No. 26 of Granta, titled ‘Travel’. The book had articles by some of my favorite writers:

- Bill Bryson (More Fat Girls in Des Moines),

- Bruce Chatwin (On the Road with Mrs.Gandhi, The Bey, Mrs. Mandelstam, Konstantin Melnikov: The Architect)

- Colin Thubron (The Old Silk Route).

Other writers featured in the issue were Norman Lewis, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Ian Buruma and Amitav Ghosh among others.

In a chapter, ‘Mastering the Short Story’ by Paul Darcy Boles in the WD Handbook of Short Story Writing Vol-II, I read that Stephen Vincent Benet described a short story as ‘Something that can be read in an hour and remembered for a lifetime.’ It was a wonderful description of the short story which is one of the most difficult genres to master.

Another quotation on writing was one by Scott F. Fitzgerald who seems to have said that ‘good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.’ This is another line that has one thinking.

This is one book I am going to learn a lot from and also enjoy a lot. But I’ve already decided the book I would begin the New Year with- ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’ by Marquez, another of my favorite writers.

I am eagerly waiting for it to be Sunday since it would be the fist Sunday of the month (and also of the New Year) and ‘The Hindu’ would be carrying ‘The Literary Review’. I can’t wait for it to be Sunday morning.