And just in time for Harry’s Birthday (today) too!

SPOILER WARNING! Do NOT click this link if you haven’t finished Book 7!

Revealo T-Shirto!

Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows

Also looking forward to film version of the 5th book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which is to be released on July 13th, 2007 (perfect timing to build publicity for the 7th book). Hope it’s better than the 4th movie which was a little disappointing.

2007 promises to be one magical year.

harry potter, harrypotter, harry potter and the deathly hallows, deathlyhallows

The first stage of that pattern is denial. The problem isn’t that bad, the thinking usually goes, it can’t be, because bad things don’t happen here, to us.
The second is containment. This is the stage where people, including perfectly capable leaders, try to make the problem disappear by giving it to someone else to solve.
The third stage is shame-mongering, in which all parties with a stake in the problem enter into a frantic dance of self-defense, assigning blame and claiming credit.
Fourth comes blood on the floor. In just about every crisis, a high profile person pays with his job, and sometimes he takes a crowd with him.
In the fifth and final stage, the crisis gets fixed and, despite prophesies of permanent doom, life goes on, usually for the better.

ok, so karthik book-tagged me, which is not so bad considering i was waiting to be tagged and if it didn’t happen soon, i would have done it myself. (this reminds me of the people who think they sing well: once they are in a party and the small talk is over, they get a kind of glazed look in their eyes and they will refuse to say anything unless someone requests them to sing that “titanic paattu(song)”. of course even if no one requests them , they will route the topic around until it settles on songs and somehow that titanic movie - “so nice movie, no?” anyway it’s bound to happen: for the next 5 minutes you will be treated a very indian-accented rendition of a very dion-y song. of course, everyone should clap in the end … good heavens!)

anyway, where was i?
oh yes, let’s begin with …

How many books do I own?
this is difficult to answer, the bulk of my favorites are back home in india, because of luggage weight restrictions and because somehow a tilting wet grinder that weighs a gazillion tonnes is more important than my hardbound copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. i am still waiting for the idlis …
i guess i have about 400 in total of which i was permitted to bring (and then bought some here) about 150.

Last books bought
Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. When I first heard the basic premise of the novels, I refused to buy them for many years because I found it hard to believe that someone could make such a bold statement on what is usually a very personal decision of the mind. Finally after much coaxing from my brother-in-law, I decided to buy them just to prove him, Rand and all you fans wrong. I am still reading the first, so judgement is reserved! But I will accept this much: the writing is sharp and I find that a rarity these days.

Last books read
As is obvious from my blog, I have last read Illusions (i read this book off and on - actually you can do it in one sitting - a philosophical treatise on the adventures of a reluctant messaih who influences the author during their flying exploits over the midwestern crop-fields. I like Richard Bach and was a fan ever since I read his Seagull book) , Who Let the Blogs Out (when I started off with this whole blogging thing and wanted to know what else I could do with blogging; turns out not much else …..) and before that: Eats, Shoots and Leaves (a comical adventure on the misuse of pronunciation - the title is a take on the following joke: a panda walks into a cafe and orders a sandwich. After eating, he fires a gun in the air and walks towards the door. When the waiter asks in confusion what he thinks he’s doing, the panda throws him a badly punctuated book on wildlife: “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leavesâ€?.)

Five Books that mean a lot to me
Although many books have meant a lot to me, including my LAMP book, no not that lamp!)
1. The Little Prince: An amazing story of the journey of a stranded airplane pilot from planet to planet where he meets different people each lonely in his own way.
2. Who moved my cheese? (I also read bigger books, but for now, just hear me out …): The story is deceptively simple: Two rats are stuck in a dark maze and have all the cheese they want nearby when one fine day they wake up to find that the cheese is gone. One rat wants to just stay there hoping someone will put the cheese back, while the other simply starts out looking for more. You will not believe me if I tell you the amazing influence this story had on me when I read it about 2 years back. It made me get off my lazy backside and find a new job in a new city. I have never regretted that and still keep reading this novelette now and then.
3. Illusions Most times you will just walk through the aisles of a library, pick a book at random, read it at home and return it. And then you will repeat the process ad infinitum. But othertimes, you will come across a book that so changes the way you think, that you will buy it and then read it once every other 3-4 books. This is one such. There isn’t much I can tell you about it except to look out for the parallels with advaita - the philosophy I most closely associate my innermost thinking with.
4. A Tale of Two Cities Maybe it was because I read this at the very impressionable age of 14 or maybe because I am just a sucker for a martyr story, but this book still ranks very high up for me simply because of the powerful narrative and the way Dickens is able to bring togther such a diverse set of characters into a specific period and bring out the best and worst in each of them. Oooooh, I have spent countless nights just imagining Madame DeFarge knitting the names of the doomed into her weave!
5. Moby Dick From “Call me Ishmael.” to “…;then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.”, a whale of a read (ouch!) - every single word of it … (Oh yes Karthik, indeed classics can be fun reads)

Now for the tags - since I am relatively new to the blogosphere, let me just say that if you are reading this and haven’t done this yet, please consider yourself tagged (and since it’s likely I don’t know you, drop me a line and let me know).

over the long weekend, i was just reading dave barry in cyberspace (go ahead - judge me!), when, on page 7, i came across this surprising piece of clairvoyance:
[talking about alarm clocks and the possible future]:

to think this was written almost 10 years before the “invention” of the clocky about which i wrote earlier.
and of course, in his inimitable style, he proceeds to write:

man, i just love that dave barry.
go ahead - judge me!