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Bibliophile!

Bibliophile!

'Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog,it's too dark to read.' - Groucho Marx

I get the same pleasure from used bookstores that an alcoholic finds in bars. Both places, though public, make room for feverish solitude and both allow unhealthy cravings to be filled to excess - Art Spiegelman in his introduction to Joseph... more »
  • Cochin, India
  • member since December 21 2007

Public Notes

 
Displaying 1-20 of 324 notes
  • Subhasree

    Subhasree says

    sorry for this late reply .......... the quote was really nice ......... I think you can start Roald Dahl with Tales of the Unexpected ........ you won't be disappointed, I assure you ........ though I started with Best of Roald Dahl and the next one was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ........... it's such a wonderful fairytale written with chocolate!!!

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • zawan u

    zawan u says

    I just finished The Pursuit of Signs and now I'm read Color: Essays on Race, Family, History. It won't take me much to finish that, it's a slim volume. Perhaps I'll continue reading Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction after that.

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • James

    James says

    Ah yes! Reading Ulysses (or at least attempting it) is a must! You'll love it or hate it, give it a try and see...I just thought it was amazing, the reader's guide of Ulysses that you have recently added to your shelf, good for post-Ulysses reading. It is hard in places, but not as hard as I have been told, the changing styles make it an easy read than books just as long that I written in a normal, "boring" style. Give it a go!

    Oh, and Beckett? Just as amazing as Joyce, whilst being very different, Molloy (for Prose) and Waiting for Godot (for Plays) are my faves so far!

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • Joe M

    Joe M says

    Ashok, my friend,
    it is I who should apologize, I liked your last Spiegelman quote very much, but didn't yet respond as I have been meaning to. Yes, I have been reading a lot of neat things lately...I really liked Martin Buber's "I and Thou", which posits life as a function of relationships as the basic unit of being, as opposed to one individual. These are the I-You relationship and the I-It relationship. His writing is very dense with thought, and begs to be re-read to fully grasp it, but he is truly a great writer and thinker. I also really liked "Cloud of Unknowing", which is a medieval treatise written by an anonymous monk from that era, which actually has a lot of common ground with principles of Buddhism...that 'God' is not knowable from human faculty, so in order to experience God we must renounce all thought. What are you reading lately? :) Joe

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • zawan u

    zawan u says

    Yes, I've read One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Living to Tell the Tale, his memoir. The only major books by him that I haven't read are The General in his Labyrinth and the Autumn of the Patriarch. I've tried to read the latter several times but it was too difficult. I should try again sometime!

    Yes, I'll defintely read Borges. I've seen House of Leaves on your shelf. I read an article about it, and I found it interesting that the book is influenced by Borges's theory of the maze, which I don't know much about.

    The Marquez biography is very long. I haven't read any other Latin American work, except for a bit of Neruda. But this Marquez biography has done a good job in terms of giving one an idea of the major Latin American writers and the "Boom." The downside of the book is that there are times when the biographer completely goes off of Marquez as a writer figure, especially when he talks about his political side.

    Pamuk's Istanbul is on my wishlist. Have you read My Name is Red?

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • zawan u

    zawan u says

    Hi,
    I found you on tapbird's profile (you posted a comment). We have many books in common, and I was especially interested that you've read Marquez, my favorite writer (or at least one of my favorite writers) and Coetzee, whom I'm really interested in.

    Yes, I am thirteen. I do have an interest in literature and literary theory. It is rare, but I'm an exception.

    I'm looking forward to your friendship, though.

    About Pamuk, I got into him because my father bought his book for me because he was a Nobel Prize Winner, even though he didn't know him (then I got hooked into his work). Regarding Marquez, I also got introduced to him at an early age, then he became my favorite writer.

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • pramod kumar

    pramod kumar says

    another Portuguese....
    Eça de Queíroz 'The City and the Mountains'

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • tapbirds

    tapbirds says

    Fun quote, thanks. Hope all is well with you!

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Subhasree

    Subhasree says

    oops it would be The Sound of the Mountain .... sorry for the typo

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Subhasree

    Subhasree says

    I wasn't aware of the movie version of it ...... I would love to watch it and compare ...... I quite liked the movie version of Atonement ..... did you? ..... I hear that Time Traveller's Wife has also been made into a movie ...... I haven't read the book yet ......

    I am currently into a anthology of short stories by Roald Dahl called Tales of the Unexpected ...... it's amazing ...... the way he twists the end is totally mindblowing ....... other than that I too went book shopping recently and got Kawabata's The SOund of the Muntain, Amin Maalouf's The Garden's of Light and Allende's of Love and Shadows ..... so you can see that my 'unread-shelf' is quite full too ;)

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Subhasree

    Subhasree says

    Hi,

    it's been a long time ..... I just felt that I had to let you know ...... I took the advice you gave me almost a year back and finished Abe's Woman in the Dunes ....... it was wonderful ........ the whole plot was so fascinating ...... worked almost as an eye opener for me ...... I keep thinking about all the wrong decisions that we take and how it changes our life trapping us in some way or other ....... and I might be a bit over interpreting, it seems so true for the political situation in our state ....... it seemed as if we ourselves have walked into a rat trap and just by force they have kept us in it for such a long time that it has become a habit for us ........

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • K. Congrains

    K. Congrains says

    nah, my version doesn't have the Calvino intro, if you find it, please share it :P
    i'm gonna check out the History of Reading, is originaly written in Spanish, which is my native language so i think i won't have any trouble finding that one in any liobrary :P

    posted 7 months ago. ( send a note )
  • K. Congrains

    K. Congrains says

    Hey! well, you can't read Codex Serafinianus since is written in an invented laguage, but has awesome ilustrations, a have a link for a pdf version if you want to :)

    posted 7 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Wayne E

    Wayne E says

    Hey man, cool shelf. Mind if I add you as a friend?

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Rise

    Rise says

    Hi, Bibliophile! Bolaño is a dangerous writer. He writes for good readers and bad devils both. Hehe. I will have some more Bolaño fix with his early novellas. Do let me know what you think of his books.

    I like your shelf. You have Thomas Bernhards. Why do these writers die so early?!

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Joe Girard

    Joe Girard says

    Awesome, well, for someone who's interested in getting more into graphic novels (GNs, I usually write) you couldn't meet someone more knowledgeable than me. Or, rather, you couldn't meet someone as likely to have read by next week what you're interested in today. I read about two to six books a day. Usually GNs or poetry. My Shelfari wasn't working for the longest time, but you lured me back here with your comment and now my shelf is exploding.

    If you have any questions about GNs I'd be happy to recommend some. If you like Alan Moore's style you could do well to seek out his other stuff. I don't know where you live, but here in Ottawa the library has a surprisingly good selection. I'm going to rate all the books on my shelf at some point, and five stars means that I recommend it as a read. If you don't want guidance but are interested in what I like, that'll come in handy.

    Good to meet you.

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • anamika292000

    anamika292000 says

    Remains of the day - one of those rare cases were both the film and the book were superb.The simplicity of the tale belies a complex web of human emotions.Nothing like a cup of chai and a kerala monsoon to make this english tale by a japanese author memorable!!

    Loved cochin when I visited it last...the place has a certain charm and characters right out of an ov vijaya,basheer and chaucer!!
    and where pray are the diversions one might take to find pre-loved book shops and a mean meen curry!

    cheers
    a

    posted 8 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Lady Anne

    Lady Anne says

    Nice picture! I just saw trailers for the Watchmen movie, so I guess disputes about rights are settled. I see it will be released in IMAX as well, and we have an IMAX theater here at one of our museums, so that's my choice.

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Omid G

    Omid G says

    My recommendation this week: Italo Svevo!

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jason R.

    Jason R. says

    Speaking of the internet, in fact my friend, I spend more time writing about reading than actually reading itself! Being immersed in mainstream American culture (especially TV) can do that to you! Jason

    posted 10 months ago. ( send a note )
Displaying 1-20 of 324 notes