Much ado about reading
Never had I been interested in reading. The whole concept of having enough patience to go through a reading material seemed a big bore to me. My friend Hasan tried hard to inculcate that interest. He even gifted me a book titled City of Djinns a long time back, but all his efforts proved futile.
A couple of months back, while I was digging through my old books, I came across the same book, with Hasan's 'Hope you like it' written on the first page. I thought about giving it another try. To my surprise, I found the book quite interesting. Okay, it's not about the book, but about yours self-centred truly, so I won't divulge into the details of the book.:) Buy/Borrow it if you're interested in travelogues and history.
It did take a long time to finish though, owing to my slow reading speed. But when it did, I found myself craving for more. Some people () suggested that there's a sale in Crossword book store, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to go for a couple of more, similar books.
People at Crossword are Dacoits! There was no "Sale", it was a discount for 'Crossword Members' plus "an additional discount if you have an HDFC card". I wasn't and hadn't. "Sale" was a farce!
I bought two books that day, one was from the same author (William Dalrymple) In Xanadu, and the other one was titled The Inscrutable Americans. I don't really know why I went for the latter, maybe because I wanted a taste of what fiction is like, and 'TIA' is a book that I thought I'd seen somewhere. (Later on, I realised that Hasan had given it to me once, in one of his inculcate-interest drives :)). Anyway, don't go for it, it's kiddish.
At present, I'm almost through with In Xanadu, and I've been thinking, what to go for in my next visit to the 'dacoits'. Maybe another travelogue. :)