On Reading

One of my most wonderful memories from childhood is having lunch and dinner with the likes of Ayn Rand, Alistair Mclean, Alfred Hitchcock, etc. ( There are other interesting times I shared with them but not everything is suitable for a bog .. oops! i meant blog.) It was fun living through those stories in my own dream world. I was always hungry for more. Those books started a desire for reading which helped me survive 6 years of college. The tech books got me through exams where I had no clue what the professor had taught because I had been snoozing in most of his classes. Inspritational books got me through tough times when I had suffered defeat. They taught me that one deafeat does not mean failure. The only failure is when you stop trying. One of my favourites has been Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which depicts the indomitable spirit, the desire to grow beyond your circumstances. And I feel that is one quality Indians need to learn for sure. Anyways thats a topic for some other time.
Some of the books that I enjoy are those which contain the knowledge gained by the author through a lifetime of discovery. Wise and Otherwise a book by Sudha Murthy is one such book that I have liked immensly. It is enriching and entertaining at the same time. Another genre of quality books are those with radical ideas or perfect ideals. But then the question arises what do you call radical ? An example of book which presents a contrast between different ideals is Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
I fondly rembember a teacher of mine who used to say "Some books are to be tasted, some are to be digested and some are to be assimilated and ingrained for life".