Continuing on the theme of books (I know, when it rains, it pours in this blog) – here is something on books on books and reading. This is a special category of books, where the writers’ love for books shines through the pages and makes us feel blessed for this habit. There are various subjects that are covered in this genre – books on say, bookshops, book clubs, the reading habit, book collections and so on. Here are a few of my favourites:
The Groaning Shelf: (and other instances of Pradeep Sebastian’s book love) – All this blogging about books on books here started with this, my latest read. Apart from the usual essays about the reading habit and the collecting habit, there are a lot of quirky ones too that make this collection sparkle – like the pieces on book thieves and their methods (including that of compulsive book borrowers), friendly bookshops, early editions and book covers. The book has an inscription from Borges – “I don’t know why I believe that a book brings us the possibility of happiness, but I am truly grateful for that modest miracle.” I am too – grateful. And mortified – from the hundreds of books Sebastian refers to in his book – by how under-read I am.
Bookless in Baghdad: As I put away The Groaning Shelf, I picked up this book again today after years. Shashi Tharoor writes with fondness a bunch of personal essays on books and reading and writes for the casual as well as serious reader. Imagine references as varied as Tintin, Biggles, P.G.Wodehouse, Pablo Neruda, Le Carre and Salman Rushdie. My own favourite is the one on P.G.Wodehouse and an analysis of why Indians reading in English love and venerate the master. One of those books to dip into from time to time and savour with pleasure.
Time was soft there: This is Jeremy Mercer’s memoir and tribute to the Paris landmark, Shakespeare & Co. and the ‘soft time’ that he spent there – as a (purported) struggling writer. And here is why soft time – “Hard time goes slowly and painfully and leaves a man bitter…. Time at Shakespeare and Company was as soft as anything I’d ever felt.” The shop, even as it struggles to stay solvent, takes in and in its own gruff way, nurtures serious writers looking for a place to write and sleep in. The book is enough to make me go back to my teenage (and wishful adult) dream of owning a bookshop.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A book by Azar Nafisi – about a secret book-club in Tehran set in a society of oppression and aggression. It somewhat takes you into the life of secret book-clubs – fascinating especially when the club functions as a refuge from the war / atrocities of the world outside – as also in the case of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society that I’d recently written about. Along with that, it takes you into the lives of those living in this time and place and the kind of atrocities they bravely face and fight against every single day.
And finally, a light, unconventional addition to the list…
Book Lover – Chick-lit of a different kind, Book Lover by two authors Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack is where a lonely, broken heart finds solace in the books around her. Anyone who has been on book-binges, cutting herself away from the real world will enjoy Dora’s adventures. An interesting fact about the book I learnt from Amazon is its American title – Literacy and Longing in L.A. Heh!