List of Books I remember reading and one or more lines about the book :

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Will Read :

The Story of Calculus

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Reading :

Shantaram

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Read :

The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Man and His Symbols by Karl Jung et. AL.

A psychology book, one of the last edited by Karl Jung the famous contemporary of Sigmund Freud. Jung who followed Freud’s ideas on dreams later diversified and believed that dreams should be interpreted in individual context rather than generalized. Jung believed that dreams are full of symbols that have to interpreted to understand what the psyche is trying to communicate to the person.

Jung and few of his followers worked on this book. It has quite a few interesting views on dreams, symbols, God etc. Jung whose ideas, as he claims are misunderstood as spiritual, tries clarify his views. The book tends get a bit drone during the end.

The Story of My Experiments with Truth by M K Gandhi

Gandhi-ji’s biography, is actually a collection of articles written for Navjivan- A Gujarathi Weekly. The biography has been translated to English by Mahadev Desai. This is a candid tale of a man’s life, his view of life and his view of truth and God; a man whom world has come to call ‘Mahatma’ – Great Soul. Indeed must be a great soul who can candidly describe his failures in life and triumphs in the same work.

The candidness is what impressed me, Gandhiji puts down all his short comings and incidences which were and still are considered taboo in this book. The frankness and boldness and sticking to the truth is what impressed me the most. Gandhi to start with was a shy person with a severe case of stage fright, that for a budding barrister was a definite drawback. As Gandhi passes through the phases of life, he metamorphoses into a person to a form that world knows him by. The book also reveals that Gandhi was a stubborn person with his own idiosyncrasies.

The chapters in the book take you through Gandhi’s childhood days, his education in England, coming back to India, his works in South Africa and his return to India and his works in India till the starting of the non-cooperation movement. A good part of Gandhi’s life in South Africa, which included the starting of the Satyagraha movement is missing here and is captured in a separate book called ‘Satyagraha’.

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

If you like poetry and you if you are intrigued by philosophy of life you are bound to be mesmerized by this master piece by Gibran. Though not a full fledged poetry, different aspects of life like love, work, children, house, marriage etc are rendered in a poetic form. Just like music, sometimes even if you do not like the lyrics you would still love the way a piece has been rendered, so is this work.

Here’s a sample of what the author has to say about work : “Your work is the flute through which the whispers of hours are transformed to music”

Parva by S L Byrappa

A cultural shock ! Anyone who knows the story of Mahabharatha from the mythological point of view are in for a shock. But as you go through the novel a realization dawns that this is how, most probably, the series of events that we know as Mahabharatha took place. Parva is a Kannada novel based on the events that led to and the war of Mahabharatha, stripped off its Mythological background and treated as a history or a story for a novel.

Through Parva author S L Byrappa retells the story of Mahabharatha through the characters. In each chapter a character recounts whe events of the past and her/his thoughts reveals many aspects of human nature good, bad and ugly. The whole novel comes out as a big thought buble. An excellent read.

This novel has also been translated to Hindi, Telugu, Marathi apart from English.

Here is a link for the American edition of the Sahitya Bhandaara.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

A self help book on simple techniques that you can use to get a bearing on your cluttered work and/or home environment. The techniques are very practical and all you would need is a pencil and paper at its simplest. However if you are familiar with ‘Emacs’, I would recommend using these techniques with the ‘org’ mode of Emacs. As the author puts it, its all advanced common sense, (as the saying goes … common sense is not so common (:  ). All this book boils down to is a managed todo list.

My manager introduced the org mode to me, thanks Koushik (and the thanks also extends to Ashritha as well ? )

Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

This is the last book in the ‘Trilogy’ of 5 novels that form the ‘The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. This book starts out pretty boring and I thought that Adam’s has run out of steam. Going through the mid and the penultimate sections, I found, I could not have been more wrong. And a poor but apt ending. Thus maintaining the unpredictable writing style that is characteristic of Adams. In this book you will read about parallel universes and a new edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And oh yeah about ‘THE King’.

Young Zaphod Plays it Safe by Douglas Adams

This is a short story nestled in between the 4th and 5th book of the ‘Trilogy’ of Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Galaxy. This is not available as a single book, I read it as a part of  the book ‘The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Five Novels in One Outrageous Volume’. Anyone venturing into the wild universe of Douglas Adams should read this 10 pager first. If you like the style, ‘Don’t Panic’ you will have an exciting ride ahead, if you don’t, stay away from the book. Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy is like a literary equivalent of a roller coaster ride some people like it some don’t.

My favourite line from the book : “They claimed it was for the sake of their grandparent’s and grandchildren, but it was of course for the sake of their grandparent’s grandchildren, and their grandchildren’s grandparents”

So Long, And Thanks for All the Fishes by Douglas Adams

The fourth book in the ‘Trilogy’ of Hitch Hikers Guide to Galaxy, this book is a little mushy and romantic but the author gives full warning, infact two warnings before the mushy part begins so that you can safely skip those parts. If you like Marvin – the depressed robot -  don’t read the final chapter which is the only chapter that has Marvin, which is also about the God’s last message for his creation.

Life, the Universe and Everything

The third book in the Trilogy of Hitch Hikers Guide to Galaxy, this book is about the planet and inhabitants of Krikit and its relation to cricket and saving the universe etc. Andrew meets his ‘Karma’ and the karma character itself meets its karma in a big co-incidence. Liked this book more than the other two. The general advise of not reading this book before going to sleep holds good for this one also like the previous two book.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

Introduces the exciting concept of an restaurant at the end of the universe both in space and time, where the daily evening show is, well, the end of the universe. Also describes a Mega-Humongous-Ultra-Spectacular concert on the scale of a planet. The general advice of not reading this book before going to sleep holds good for this one also like the previous two book.

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Random-original-humourforus-unprecedented-sick-excellent. General recommendation is not to read this book before going to sleep unless you like a buzz in your head and the random images that generally flash before your inner eyes before you fall asleep to be more random and flash faster than usual.