The next books update

This time I haven't read as many books as last one. I haven't found time for the promised re-read of The Last Lecture either.

I have read the third and final volume of Dork. A good book for those who are looking for subtle comedy.

I started reading Managing Humans by Lopp but didn't find it interesting to finish. Started reading How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland and the progress has been slow mostly because of the melancholy of subject matter. I'm hoping to finish it soon.

The Summons by John Grisham has been read too. Not as good as his other books but worth a read. I had guessed the 'twist' long before it came and that didn't help.

Currently reading: India Unbound by Gurcharan Das

I and My Books This Year

These are the books I have read this year so far and managed to remember the titles:

• The Last Lecture by Randy Paush
• Dork by Sidin Vadukut
• God save the Dork by Sidin Vadukut
• The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
• A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
• The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey ^[1]
• Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling
• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
• All three The Tales of Dunk and Egg series of novellas by George R R Martin
• The Princess and The Queen novella by GRRM, part of Dangerous Women anthology

I bought The Last Lecture like 10 months ago and managed to read it only now. Got too lazy last year on reading books front. One reason for writing this is to publicly shame myself into reading more. If I don't write about books here going further, assume that I haven't read anything those weeks. One more motivation is that this provides some material for the blog, which I have managed to ignore for so long.

The Last Lecture is as good as it gets. Anyone who has watched Randy Paush's Last Lecture knows what the book is about. If you haven't, it' is about time you did. Go watch it. It's free and worth your time. I shall write a detailed blog sometime later. I intend to reread it.

Sidin's novels are good fun and I liked the subtle humour in the novels set around the lives of modern management consultants.

The Daughter of Time is an excellent novel that's old enough to be in public domain. All her novels are old enough to talk about calling exchange to connect the telephone, but are enjoyable any time.

Tales of Beedle the Bard is a children's book by J K Rowling, an offshoot from Harry Potter universe. As entertaining and stimulating as a children's book can be. ;-)

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a fictional story trying to clarify (or make sense of) another fictional story. ;-) Expertly done if you ask me.

The other four works by GRRM are set in the famous world of A Song of Ice and Fire - more popularly known as Game of Thrones - universe. As excellent as fantasy novels go. P&Q has lots of fantasy elements like dragons fighting etc; Dunk & Egg novellas are pretty thin on fantasy elements but have the same expert story telling and complex characters that GRRM is famous for.

[1] All her works are in public domain & available for free download here.

PS: Hat tip to Yuvi Panda for the idea for this entry.

I'm alive. Sort of.

Wow. It has been two years plus since I wrote a blog post. New one coming soon. :) Should I change the engine to Wordpress? Blogger composer still sucks after all these years. Sigh.