Monday, June 30, 2008

The Six Month's Haul

Today marks the end of the first half of the year and it seems the right time to take a tally of the books I had picked in these six months. I may have ommitted some that I don't remember. So here they are, the books I picked up monthwise:

JANUARY (14)
1. 'Handbook of Short Story Writing Vol-II by Writer’s Digest Books
2. ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. ‘Travel, No. 95, Granta
4. 'Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham (A gift)
5. ‘Good Earth’ by Pearl S. Buck ( A gift)
6. ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gift)
7. ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ (Gift)
8. ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron
9. ‘Your Own Words’ by Barbara Wallraff
10. ‘Tropical Classical’ by Pico Iyer
11. ‘Art of Reading the Novel’ by Philip Freund
12. ‘Getting Even’ by Woody Allen
13. ‘From the Mothership’ by Jacquelyn Mitchard
14. 'Book Ends:Two Women, One Friendship’ by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern


FEBRUARY (8)
15. ‘What I Saw at the Revolution’ by Peggy Noonan
16. ‘The Lovely Sea and the Sky’ by Francis Chichester
17. ‘Winesberg, Ohio,’ Sherwood Anderson
18. ‘Dave Barry’s Guide to Guys’ by Dave Barry
19. ‘Goodbye to Gandhi’ Bernard Imhasly
20.‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen
21. ‘The Writer’s World’ by Linda Woodson
22. ‘Global Souls’ by Pico Iyer

MARCH ( 12)
23.’Radical Forgiveness’ by Colin C. Tipping
24. ‘Growing Up’ by Russell Baker
25. ‘The Running Life’ by Dr. George Sheehan
26. ‘Emperor of Emperors by Ryscard Kapuscinski
27. ‘Great Railway Bazar’ by Paul Theroux
28. ‘A Postillion Struck by Lightning’ by Dirk Bogarde
29 ‘Perils of Pesticides’ by Mukund Joshi
30 ‘Run River’ by Joan Didion
31. ‘Thy Neighbor’s Wife’ by Gay Talese
32. ‘The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test’ by Tom Wolfe
33. ‘Coffee, Tea or Me’ by Trudy Baker
34. ‘The Writerly Life’ by RK Narayan

APRIL (17)
35. ‘Writing Your Novel’ by Lawrence Block
36. ‘Uncivil Liberties’ by Calvin Trillin
37. ‘Dave Barry Turns 40’ by Dave Barry
38. ‘Good English’ by Norman Lewis
39. ‘News of a Kidnapping’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
40. ‘The Old Gringo’ by Carlos Fuentes
41. ‘Liars Club’ by Mary Karr
42. ‘Black Bird House’ by Alice Hoffman
43. ‘Close Range’ by Annie Proulx
44. ‘Writing of One Novel’ by Irving Wallace
45. ‘Paro’ by Namita Gokhale
46. ‘Writing with Style’ by Scholastic Books
47. ‘Out of Sight’ by Elmore Leonard
48. ‘She & Me’ by Sasthi Brata
49. ‘Here Lies Eric Ambler’ by Eric Ambler
50. ‘Understanding Fiction’ by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren

MAY (13)
51. ‘A Choice of Words’
52. ‘A Year in Provence’ by Peter Mayle
53. 'Mudrarakshasa: The Hunted’ by Subhash Chandra
54. ‘Mr. Stone and the Knight’s Companion’ by VS Naipaul
55. ‘Old & New Stories’ by RK Narayan
56. ‘Education of Richard Rodriguez’ by Richard Rodriguez
57. ‘ A Year of Living Dangerously’ by Christopher J Koch
58. ‘Without Feathers’ by Woody Allen
59. ‘The Hunted’ by Elmore Leonard
60. ‘Moonshine Wars’ by Elmore Leonard
61. ‘Poona Company’ by Farrukh Dhondy
62. ‘Middle Passage’ by VS Naipaul
63. ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams

JUNE (17)
64. ‘The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst’ by Nicholas Tomalin
65. Packrat Papers Vol-I
66. ‘Vintage Book of Indian Writing’ ed. Salman Rushdie, Elizabeth West
67. ‘Touch ‘ by Elmore Leonard
68. ‘Return to Paris’ by Colette Rossant
69. ‘ The Impressionist' by Hari Kunzru
70. ‘Keep Off the Grass’ by Karan Bajaj
71. ‘The Tax Inspector’ by Peter Carey
72. ‘Finally…I’m a Doctor’ by Dr. Neil Shulman
73. ‘The Men Within’ by Harimohan Paruvu
74. ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’ by George Orwell
75. ‘Hali and Collected Stories’ by GV Desani
76. ‘Deep Revision’ by Meredith Sue Willis
77. ‘Collected Essays’ by Graham Greene
78. ‘The Great Railway Bazar’ by Paul Theroux
79. ‘The Soul of a Chef’ by Michael Ruhlman

80. 'The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (gift)


Of these eighty books I don’t think I have read more than a ten books so far. I do not know when I will read these books and scores of other books at home that are yet to be read. I guess I should stop buying books for a while and try to catch with my reading. If it is a normal monsoon then there are bound to be Sundays when it rains and no one will sell the books at Abids so there will be some such days when nature will intervene in my book buying spree.

2 comments:

Xanadu said...

Wow!! That's quite a list really. Always knew you had that special eye to spot great books but the list only serves to reinforce the fact.

Keep at it!

-your writer friend (yes, yes, I know you have many of those but there's only one who's always busy on Tuesdays :D)

Vinod Ekbote said...

Thank you Xanadu,

Keep reading the blog for more such finds and lists