10 books that left an impression on me

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books, just me, reading

This is going around as a tag in FB and atleast two people have tagged me on this. And I can avoid any tags but I usually don’t avoid the book tags 🙂 But when I sat down to type this in my FB status, I felt that it probably I want to store this information somewhere. Somewhere I can go back to it later. Thought of a FB note but then it stuck me my why not the blog

So here it is 10 books that left an impression on me

1. Little Women by Lousia May Alcott : Jo March I love her she is passionate, she is outspoken what is about her that one doesn’t love. I first read this book when I was in college and I think I have read it 10 times after that. Its one of the books I hate to part with even if someone wants to borrow it for a couple of days
2. Pallace of illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni : The fact that the story of the great mahabharta has been told from the point of view of the most important woman of that tale, And I feel the book is deep and moving. There are many layers and a lot of grasp in the book. Also it really was the starting of,my love affair with Hindu mythology reading
3. The Room by Emma Donoghue : It made me sleepless for days, Jack lingered in my mind for months and I think it told me a lot about being a mom. Read my review here
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak : I cried, I laughed and the book made me think. It made me think and it stayed with me for long after
5. We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver : I still shudder when I think of this book. If you haven’t read it, do it now
6. Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie : Its one of my favorite books of all time. My quest to know more about partition, more about my folks who have suffered through it
7. Hitchhickers Guide to Galaxy by Douglas Adams : The answer to life’s most important question and a towel 
8. One Cuckoo flew over the nest by Ken Kesey : Read it first way back in school, I don’t think I understood much of it but it still left an impact. I have read it many times post that and I think have learnt many a life lessons from it 
9. Any Rand (Atlas Shrugged, FountainHead) : I was in college, I worshipped those books at that time
10. Swami and his friends by R.K. Narayan : There is certain warmth and happiness around those books.

There are many many more books which have left an impression on me but here I chose the first 10 that came to my mind

So I tag anyone and everyone who reads this post and reads books 😉

Do a blog post or leave in comments what are the books that left an impression on you

 

 

Raising a Reader : Some Parenting Thoughts

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books, how to get kids to read, Ojas, parenting, parenting thoughts, raising a reader, reading

There are some sights that warm your heart like when you finish a call and see your child buried in a book you know you have done something right 🙂 Fortunately for me its a sight that I get to witness very often, Aren’t pictures like this very heartwarming. They give me hope that reading is not going to die a slow death to ipads and the likes. They give me hope that books are going to be alive and the kids of the next generation will still know the pleasures like smell of a book

People often look at O and tell me you must be lucky, he loves books so much, these days kids hardly read all they want is an iPad. Though I agree that touchwood I have been lucky but this luck has come its share of hardwork.

Reading is a habit I wasn’t introduced to as a child. I mean neither my mom or dad are into reading big time and while growing up reading meant course books. However that changed somewhere when one of my uncles introduced me to Famous Five and there hasn’t been any looking back ever since. So whenever I used to think about my child there was one thing clear in my head, love of reading is something I want to pass down to child… Love of reading is something I want to introduce to him as early as possible and something I was keen to cultivate in him. So here are just a few things I did and think should generally to encourage reading in your child

Give him a headstart : The first thing I ever bought for him was a book, yeah might sound funny but its true. We started reading to him as soon as we could settle down with the initial euphoria and madness of becoming parents. Did he understand, most likely not but kids have memory and that made him comfortable with books. Fabric books, books with textures and board books are perfect for kids.. By the time he was 5 months, he would often lie like this and play with his favorite fabric book

Take time to read to him : As they grow older, take time to read to him EVERYDAY… Make a schedule, a time of the day which is dedicated to reading.. May be bed time? In our house time before bed time is reading time. We started with reading one book to him when he was small, slowly the number of books increased (he asked for it) and we would read four books to him. Now we read two books to him, he reads two himself and then sleeps

Let them choose the books : From as early as one year, O had preference on what books he likes, encourage them to select what books they want to read to. Read those books everytime they want. It might get boring to you as they will want the same book over and over again but trust me they will eventually get done with it and move on to another. The thing is the they can only assimilate little and also familiarity is a big thing at that age and hence they want to read it over and over again

Nothing like a good library : Reading can be an expensive habit (ask me ask me) also there is nothing like a charm of a library. Introduce your child to a library early in life. There are kids libraries in town like Hippocampus, as well as bigger libraries like Easy Lib have kids section. Take him, let me explore, let him spend time in the company of books. Let him learn to relish them

Make it a part of the family time : At our house, you can often find all three of us immersed in our respective books sitting next to each other. Make it a habit to read together, when the child is younger give them picture books and let me just browse through it. Start with smaller time durations even 5 minutes is good and slowly increase as the concentration span of your kids increases and he goes from seeing pictures to reading himself. Switch off that TV and open books for the family time and you can thank me later 😉

and last but not the least – the biggest way kids learn is by example, so pick up that book yourself too 🙂

Book Review | Live From London by Parinda Joshi

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book, book review, chiclit, fiction, indian author, indian fiction, reading, review

  

I love reading chicklits, and the first look of this book promised to be everything that a chicklit is supposed to be – a smart but slightly confused girl, a good looking hunk who might be her saviour, good friends, steamy romance, mushy feelings and to add to it London. I knew its a book that has to be read.

Live from London is primarily a story of Nishi Gupta, who came to live in London with her parents after her father got transferred, loves playing guitar and her bunch of friends Riya, Sarah and Zac. After finishing her education at a respectable college in London, she decides to play a risk with her career by wanting to join the music industry to prove the world that she has got it, to recover from the terrible hurt and embarrassment on her disastrous appearance in “Britain’s Got Talent”.

Against her Indian and conservative parents she sets out her struggle to make it somewhere with a cold and calculative boss but things turn around with the entry of America’s new pop star, Nick which predictably results in a steamy affair. Along with the love life, Nishi’s career begins to look good too with a song deal coming her way till the world decides to do a u-turn on her.

The book is a fast and easy read, written in a casual conversational language. I finished it in a single sitting during my Bangalore-Delhi flight. What I liked about the book was that it makes you realise that Parinda Joshi has promise for a better future, the characters were well formed and thought about. The book has it humor moments too, doesn’t drag around the story. Sticks to it and says is decently well

However inspite of all this, the book didn’t leave me fully satisfied. Why you ask? Couple of reasons and the top most being, like all Rupa books its not been copy read properly. It has grammatical errors and quite a few of them at that. And I have said that before, I can’t stand when that happens. For God’s sake there is some responsibility a publishing house has to take too.

The second reason that it left me wanting for more. I mean the book at times seemed hurried through, as if someone was under pressure to finish it for a deadline or as if short story has been forcibly converted to a novel.

But the book is surely a good addition to the fast emerging Indian Chicklits, books like this make me feel yes there is hope that may be just may be someday we will have an India Sophie Kinsella too?

Final Word : A fast and easy Indian chicklit with well defined characters. I would a good flight companion for people who like reading this genre.

Book : Live from London

Author : Parinda Joshi

Publisher : Rupa

Rating : 3/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

My Kind of Challenge

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2011, reading, resolutions, resolutions 2011, south asian book challenge

A challenge on books 🙂 I was totally kicked about it when I read it at Smitha’s and decided to sign up on the earliest but some friends were quicker 😉 Yeah I think by now you all now that I am talking about South Asian Challenge 😀

I have read about 50 books I think this year and atleast 30% of them would be South Asian authors so I dont think its a very difficult challenge for me to meet but lets see what 2011 has in store for me 😀

So do u love reading, what are u waiting for, go sign up here

Time for a quick poll

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books, poll, reading

So do you read? If yes even if not than please help me by taking this poll…

It will be open for a week and do spread the word around and have more people take the poll

And stayed tuned for more excitment on books coming your way 🙂

So whats ur native language?

Tags

books, english, hindi, kannada, kids, language, marriage, multicultural, parenting, reading, tamil, telegu, tullika publishers

How are u?

Kaise hain aap?

Tussi kidda?

Etla undao?

Apdi Erke?

Neenu Hehiddhiya?

Ideally I would want to be able to speak all of the above comfortably and so would I want Ojas to but unfortunately its not to be… and BTW if u are still wondering whats that its How are u in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Telegu, Tamil and Kannada and I so hope I have got it right

Ever since Ojas has been born I have been thinking how to make him pick up his native languages… And then utbt did this series of posts on languages which made so much sense to me and at the same time came Tullika’s blogathon about the same. So I am going to take this up for clarity of my mind and  sharing some thoughts.

How different are the written and spoken forms of your first language?

Well my confusion starts at the very fact that what is my first language.. so to speak I am a punjabi a proud one at that 🙂 but my pride just melts away when someone asks me if I know punjabi… I was born and brought up in Delhi the number of visits to Punjab being easily countable on fingers. So does this make Hindi  – the most common language in Delhi my first language? or Punjabi still remains my first language? or is the language that the child picks up first really called the first language? What do you guys think about this?

Anyways coming back to the question that Tullika raised. I really can’t answer it for Punjabi as I can just about understand it and barely manage to speak, reading and writing is a far of thing.. if any of u can throw light on it. I will be delighted. Roop? Mampi?

Coming to Hindi, spoken Hindi and written hindi are almost the same. Just as spoken and written English is almost the same. There are differences but minor and subtle. So if u know the script of the language and can speak decently well I guess u will manage to write it as well.

As far as it comes to Hindi I can fairly say I am confident in the language (but I still prefer if u don’t me my marks in Hindi in school I choose not to disclose that 😉 )… I can speak, read and write… though its been ages I have written anything in Hindi. I am going to pick up a notebook and write something anything post I finish this post

If you want children to become familiar with their first language, which form would you look for in children’s books – formal or informal? Why?

Aah here comes the biggest confusion of life… I am confused on what my first language is – Punjabi or Hindi? And the hubby his dad was from Tamil whereas the mom from Telegu (he know to speak and understand both but can’t read or write anyone of that) so as a result we are going to pass on four native languages to Ojas… Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu and by the sheer fact that he is actually born in Karnataka I would say that Kannada becomes his native too but even if we leave that aside… its a huge challenge for us to decide what to teach him and what not.

I ideally want him to pick all 5 languages but when I was discussing this with my sil the other day she mentioned that why burden the child so much? Are all these languages actually needed? And she does have a point. Picking up a language is not easy (atleast for me, I know there are some people who have such a good knack of it) but even if its not very difficult, I am sure learning five languages is surely confusing for a small child.

On the other I strongly believe that if we don’t pass our languages to our children they will slowly die to think of which is truly heartbreaking. The number of kids who understand their native languages is already on the decline. (Did I tell you that I curse my mom so much for the fact that she didn’t teach us Punjabi) And when I think of I realize the precisely what we face. Multicultural marriages.

Quite a lot of the couples around us have multicultural marriages and most of the kids from those speak primarily English but yes I have seen the kids of the same cultural marriages pick up their native language so beautifully.

At home, because everyone understands English and Hindi the conversation is by default in Hinglish. And that is what Ojas is picking up, that is what he speaks.

Coming back to the question that Tullika raised. If I want him to understand and learn the native language would I prefer a formal or an informal method?

Here my personal choice would be informal. I understand that what we can learn this way may not be grammatically correct but frankly does it really matter? If they do get interested in language slowly they can always pick up the grammar. Plus I strongly believe that kids learn the best in a informal way. So I would love Ojas to pick up the rest of the languages in just the way he is picking up English and Hindi. By talking and us reading books to him.

Currently we have both Hindi and English books for him and some bilingual ones by Tullika. I even had a Kannada bilingual which my maid used to read to him.

However there is a problem here.. that can’t be done for all the languages as its only Hindi and English we can read as a couple. So may be for the rest of them we’ll do a formal way for him and we too learn along 😉

Do share your thoughts on this? What does ur child speak more so if u have a multicultural marriage?