Book Tagged!

Was mildly surprised when Kaps said 'You have been book-tagged'...i was like 'eh?'. A lil' R&D revealed that this is quite a wave across blogdoms...so here is my addition to the same.

I've been reading books since i started spelling the words right...ya maybe it was a Noddy that started it all. Since then, though I have yearned to get attached to a good library I've always ended up buying books. One at the airport for every trip has become a ritual nowadays!

Total books I own:
I honestly don't know...cause i had hundreds back in Calcutta where I was growing up. Then my family shifted to Ahmedabad and everything got packed and I kept adding to it, by finishing a book and passing it to my mom. And now that they have shifted again, the books again lie packed. In Bangalore, there should be around 20-30 books right now with me.

Last few books I bought:
1. Lonely Planet - Toronto: Since my family shifted there and I would be going there for a trip in July.
2. Hari Kunzru - Transmission: Cybergeeks always interest me...lol..nah..just heard its a good read so picked it up
3. Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman - No one here gets out alive (The Jim Morrison biography): Anda and Vinay had been talking abt this book a while back
4. Vir Sanghvi - Rude food: One of the airport experiments where this caught my eye...is a very interesting read (writings do get repeated at a few places as this was a column initially spread over the years...but is for you if you ever wondered where the chicken manchurian came from...hint:its nowhere close to the orient!

Last book(s) that I was gifted:
No one gifts you books anymore do they? Doesn't happen to me atleast! The one gifted to me by Sunil back in Nov 2003 was-
Michael Lewis - Liar's Poker

Last book(s) I read:
1. Lance Armstrong - Its not about the bike: One of the most brilliant books I've ever read...this guy is an inspiration to anyone...after i read this did i even come close to figuring what dbo had gone through (he was a stage one fortunately)...don't think i'm ever gonna take off my yellow band...here's to you Lance!
2. Che Guevara - The motorcyle diaries: Had been looking for it for quite sometime and Landmark relented ultimately. This book borders less on the politics and more on Che's own life and its discovery...it was where his ideals/throughts were getting formed which at the end made him a great revolutionary. You can read more about it in the May archives which talks about the movie and the awesome soundtrack.

Currently reading (and in the queue):
1. Lance Armstrong - Every second counts: Got it from Sunil today...bus ride to office won't be boring tomorrow.
2. Hari Kunzru - Transmission

Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. Richard Branson - Losing my virginity: Its a book written for anyone who has ever dreamt of doing something on their own. The style is very informal and you would wonder was it so easy and who this person really is? Who in their right mind wants to go on a hot air balloon in the face of strong currents?
2. Lance Armstrong - Its not about the bike
3. Nick Hornby - Fever pitch: I love Nick Hornby for two reasons. Firstly he ties up stuff like music and soccer which i love with his books. Secondly when you read his books, you end up relating to most of it (ok maybe not being at the Arsenal ground...). This one's for the football (or is it soccer now?) mad fans...the one's who go with the ups and downs of a club...not the one's who just fancy a player or a season...i loved every page of this.
4. Nick Hornby - High Fidelity: This one is about songs and relationships...catch the movie if you don't like reading too much. Has John Cusack in it.
5. Ayn Rand - The fountainhead: Read this when i was in school...didn't understand much of it back then...got pretty confused actually, but if you can keep a fifteen-sixteen year old interested in philosophy and that also for 1000 odd pages...you got yourself a damn good book...the characters are brilliant and remain etched in your mind...how many other characters do we even remember from other books?
Had to add one more-
6. Anurag Mathur - The inscrutable Americans:Maybe not a masterpiece but was one of the funniest I've ever read on a satire of the 'Amreekan' way of life!

Books that I plan to read soon:
1. Thomas L. Friedman - The world is flat
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the time of cholera
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One hundred years of solitude
4. Shaun Mehta - Divya's Dharma: and i get my autographed copy too..eh Shaun?

Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs:
1. Satish
2. Progga
3. Saint
4. Anurag
5. Udit
Handa & Aloke (they don't have a blog but can leave the same on the comments section here).

Kaps says:
"Amit Varma of India Uncut is collecting all the book tags in one post. So if you have completed the book tag please pass on the Permalink to him so that he can compile the same."

This was my first ever tag...i hope a did a decent job at it!

:)