The Reading Wish List

As per BBC most people would have read only 6 out of the list below... I do not believe it. I have read more than that.
Though have read just 43 (Marked in X). I have miles to go. Not even 50% and I call myself Voracious Reader.. Shame on me...

Do tell me your Scores through the Comments.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 1984 - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth X
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie X
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X
76 The Inferno – Dante X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry X
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Notes to Myself

Past few days have seen lot of action besides work in my life. And as every action has its impact on your life, leaves bitter sweet memories and shapes your life.

These events started with my convocation at XIMB (Xavier Institute of Management). Yes I wore the cloak and got my degree in solemn academic ceremony. It was good experience. Wearing the cloak and finally being an MBA. But it left me empty somewhere. I do not know what next? I did an MBA to prove a point. I knew I can always do it and did it. My only criterion was doing an MBA not for the sake of it or garnering high grades. Most important thing was to get learning. Thankfully XIMB with its rigorous schedule and pedagogy did make us learn. I could have put this tag on me much earlier but did not because wanted to learn. However it seems it was a mistake not to complete it from any distance learning and putting a tag on me. World looks at tags not value behind it. And if had tag would have had helped me in something which was really important to me. Actually that not being there changed the course of my life. Had that impact on me, and immensely. So now when it’s done; besides the learning which is with me, it all seems like void as I do not know what next? What’s the benefit of it now? Any way these existential questions are always be hounding me.

Also, past few weeks first time since coming to Bombay I got in the act of reading books and watching movies. Thing which I liked to do. Again it’s not that my convictions have changed, or my life is still not in that stage. The convictions may actually have become stronger. Only thing is that I am resigned to the situation. Earlier I was angry but hopeful (I am still of about what I wanted), was in mood to hurt. Did not do what I wanted to do. That was the only way to punish someone by punishing myself. Taking away what was good in me. But again came back and realized it’s actually punishing me only. It does not bother people associated with that person. Do they give a hoot? So as I am resigned to my fate and know can’t do much and it’s me who has lost. Whatever I do I can’t defeat them. In a nut shell I am defeated, vanquished. So with a bit of my pride left in me I have retreated. Any war is won with allies. I did not have one. So am back to my kingdom, made up my mind no never would seek allies and be what I am.

Coming back to books, I started with Bad Girl by Llosa, reread after ages Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (translation of the original in German “Der Vorleser”), The Bluest of Eyes by Toni Morrison, and also a bit of pulp fiction in terms Jeffrey Archers Sons of Fortune and Book of Lies. I felt elated to read each one of them besides the racy stuff of Pulp Fiction. And it was a great pleasure.

In between I caught on movies too. I saw The Reader (the movie with my favourite actor Ralph Fienes), the Slumdog Millionaire, Dev D, Ghazni and Luck by Chance in the latest ones and on DVD caught up with Dev, A Wednesday, Sajjanpur and Omkara.

Lot, after such a huge lull no. But I fear I do not go back to that punishment. Anyways let’s leave it here only. I would write about these books individually or together in my next blog. As parting word here is how I rate them…

Books:
The Bluest of Eyes: Its sheer poetry. A book which would live with you
Count of Monte Cristo: Excellent book but it meandered in the end
The Reader: Small book with a punch of life time
Bad Girl: Great book but have read better stuff of Llosa

Movies:
Dev D: Edgy, Excellent, you can either love it or hate. Nothing in between. Loved it
Slumdog: Excellent movie but not as amazing as it was made out to be
The Reader: Movie does Justice to book. It’s awesome. Liked Winslet first time
Luck by Chance: Normal Good movie
A Wednesday: Four Stars
Ghazni: Okay but not in League with Aamir’s works
Omkara: Watching second time was again an education in Film Craft hats off to Vishal

Next Plan . Prithvi Theater