By Kabir Bhargava
Books to me usually mean a job to finish. Especially the long winding ones which put me to sleep. But there are those that I just can’t stop reading and they are mainly the humorous ones. Some that I recall are The Horrible Histories series, The Captain Underpants series and The Rotten school series. The names themselves suggest how funny the books might be. Don’t they?
I have read mystery books of Famous Five and Secret Seven but found them dull. The books I use the most in my life are my school ones. They are very tough and get tougher each year. There have been only a few that have given me pleasure such as Gerald Durrell’s My Family and other Animals that I read as part of my course last year. It made me want to roam about in the sun like Gerald exploring little creatures.
There was a time I was taken in by Roald Dahl’s style of story-telling and Quentin Blake’s illustrations accompanying the text. So I read a lot of Dahl books I could get hold of – Boy, Matilda, BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, the Enormous Crocodile, Esio Trot, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Magic Finger – impressive, isn’t it – considering that I don’t call myself a book-lover?
I have also read four Harry Potter’s but they were a struggle. The movies are of course more enjoyable.
I read a lot of car magazines — my favourite being Autocar and Top Gear. I have subscribed to the world’s most popular sports magazine called All Sports. Comics are one of the dearest genres of books to me. I have a vast collection and read some of them repeatedly. Especially, Calvin and Hobbes. I have sixteen Calvin and Hobbes books and have read all at least once and a few two or three times. I also have Asterix and Tintin which too give me big laughs. I have some Marvel action comics and a few Archies which are not worth talking about.
Tell me what you think about the ones you have read. Also any tips on how I should make them friends from foes.
Cheers,
Kabir
Hello Kabir,
How are you doing? Its been a long time. How is your studies going on? Hope you are having fun at School with books as well as games.
First thing first. “Books are Not a job to finish”. I used to take that attitude and with discipline used to ‘finish’ a lot of books. But I realized what a wonderful thing I am missing if see them as job than say viewing books in the same way as I view other interesting and engaging things.
Would it be interesting to adopt this way of thinking that, just as you play football, you read the book too. There is as much fun in it. But you got get the correct book.
As we are living in a marketing world, the bookshops and sellers want to sell all sorts of books to us. That would be like playing some boring game forced upon us. One would hate it.
But just try good books and see if they are engaging, they can show a whole new world. The reading list you have mentioned is very good. Those are my favorite too and I just opened the wikipedia page of Gerald Durrell to know more about him.
What I like the most is Issac Asimov’s popular science books.
If you happen to bookshop, “A guide to Earth, Moon and Space” is a good one.
I also like R.K.Narayan’s. All of them are very simple to read.
And nowadays I like almost any book, which is
a) simple
b) easy to understand
c) and the author is honest in his approach. (You might need to get some guidance judging this. Just ask around 🙂 ).
All these points combined make books as enjoyable as watching a good video or playing an absorbing game.
Good Luck and keep sharing your reading list.
—
Senthil