The books are mocking me..... !!!

Remember this scene from Two and half man where Alan has a breakdown in a bookstore.This is exactly the feeling i undergo every time I visit a book store.The result:Impulsive Buys ending up in One big pending list.
It was in such a set up that I came upon “Bauer, Susan Wise - The Well-Educated Mind, A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had ”  and also The Guardian's '1000 books to read before you die'.

I realized I would never be able to complete the new list without first completing the list I have accumulated on my own discretion just to avoid leaving behind as Alan says "a shelf of unread books" 

And so I set up a online shelf  (and inadvertently ended up spamming everyone I ever sent mail to.Thanks Shelfari !!), and started through the list one after the other.

First book I picked up was Malcolm Gladwell's The Outliers. And it turned out to be good decision. A fast and interesting read ,it set up to 2 more books to be completed within a span of 1 month (The Legends of Khasak and Piccadilly Jim).

One month down I feel the its still going strong and I plan to clear of the rest within the next one year.

Documenting the pending list :

A Potrait of Young Man as an Artist
Dubliners
The so called "ultimate classic" Ulysses
Short story collection -O Henry
Greatest works of Oscar Wilde (of which I plan to read at least Dorian Gray and Importance
of being Earnest)
Code of Woosters
A few books on current affairs from Amratya Sen /Chidambaram/Gurcharan das and Arun Shourie
Helen Keller's Catch 22
George Orwell's 1984
Complete works of Kafka and Shakespeare
+
A an uncountable number of ebooks i have in my computer.

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And then i read =>The legends of Khasak.

The book is the translation of one of the foremost classics of Malayalam language.

A different experience in reading as it was a story of a fictional Keralite village of the 1960s.

Didn’t find the English obstructing  narrative much even though there are many cultural references which would have been much easier in Malayalam.

I didn’t see a plot per se in this novel ,think it has got more to do with the serialised form the novel had initially come out.

There are some real interesting characters like Appu kili ,Sivaraman Nair,Kuppu Acchan.

There is an undertone of satire that comes up from time to time. And some interesting sub plots.

It is said that the book has magical realism like in Gabrial Gracia Mrarques books.But since I don’t understand the term ,I haven’t found any.

update:

The experience of reading this translation has led me to order for couple of more transaltions of Malayalam legends.

I have already purchased "The Writings of M.T.Vasudevan Nair from Orient Black Swan and O.V.Vijayan's Selected Fiction from Penguin publication.

In the wishlist is 2 out of stock books from penquin publiction MTV's Demon Seed and other stories and Mukundan's Gods mischeif.

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