Ola..reviving what seems like a dead thread.

I have been reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" for the last three months. Looks like it may end up taking me a hundred years.

The best work I read was "For Whom the Bell Tolls" Ernest Hemingway. yeah, yeah he was this big masochistic, misogynist bully but I still love it and his short story " The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and " The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber(sp?)"

Winesburg, Ohio- Sherwood Anderson.

Dubliners- James Joyce but never even touched "Finnegans Wake."

Collected Stories of Frank O'Connor.

etc etc etc

I think my all time fav. book will be "Gone with the Wind" second is "Pride & Prejudice"

Finished reading Guru of Lop.

Am going to read, "God of Small Things".

i did not like Guru of Love that much- it all seemed made up and if i looked thru it again i am sure i will find lots of instances where it all seemed totally unreal.

mG.

Rosie...

havent read the book but HAAAD to see the movie...SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO longggggggggggg.....:( hehe

anwaz its a goooooooooooooooood story..

and yah my fav bok..

hmm..i dont read that much of books ...tara once that i read ...are the once taht ppl TEEL me to read :)

SO THE GREATEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ TILL NOW IS ...
is...
issssssssssssssss... THE CAYYYY..

what a boooooooooooooook...and this quote has always stuck on my head...

I stayed there beside him for a long time, very tired, thinking that he should have taken me with him wherever he had gone. I did not cry then. There are times when you are beyond tears....

Confused, the only way to get rid of your confusion about the undisputed greatness of "Gone with the Wind," is to actually read the book. I saw the movie too, which does an average job of capturing the story but doesn't actually lead the viewer under the skin of the characters. The book does this. You cannot really understand this book, unless you know the charcters so well that you know exactly why they do the things they do. The movie has been scaled down and edited down out of practical necessity. However, seeing the movie does not really mean that you have read the book or even gotten remotely close to it.

MG, yea I am a big fan of Ernest Hemingway myself. His books about the first world war are just awesome. Speaking of books about the first world war, I have to mention "All quiet in the western front." The book was originally written in German. But I read the translated version, and still it just ripped my heart to read the angst of the combatants in the war. And hey, I remember those stories of Fannie O'Connor and Francis McComber. We actually had to do those for our freshmen writing class. Wow, freshmen year seems like my past life or something.

I haven't gotten the chance to read "The Guru of Love," yet but I read Samrat Upadhyay's "Arresting god in Kathmandu," and I wasn't too impressed. The only good thing about his stories was the fact that they were all set in Nepal. But I didn't really think that any of his stories were original. Also, what's up with the title - "Arresting god in kathmandu" ? How does that relate to all the stories in the collection? My favorite collection of stories is definitely RK Narayan's "Malgudi days."

Anyway, if someone was to ask me my favorite book, I would be completely at a loss, because I have loved each and every book I have read so far. The book that I am reading right now is "A suitable boy" by vikram Seth.

I picked up A suitable Boy once but could not read after the family chart that runs on for 5 pages. how long is that anyway?

mG.

Rosie I do like Flannery O' Connor too. Her characters are these quirky, strange people that remain in the memory long after the story is read. "The Misfit" is one. And i do not remeber his name or the title of the story- the one who came to a house selling bibles and in the end he does something so unexpected.

Talking about Hemingway, his memoir from his Paris days before the first world war, " A Moveable Feast" is one of the best reads ever.

I also enjoyed Amy Tan's "The Joy-Luck Club"- hehehe my freshman composition honors class! As you say it does seem like past life.

mG.

MG, you're right. It is "Flannery" O'Connor. For some reason, I kept thinking it was "Fannie" O'Connor. And, I totally remember the Misfit. The story is called "A good man is hard to find." Misfit...lol...the name sticks in your memory, doesn't it? Yea, he ends up killing the whole family at the end.

Oh yea, "The suitable boy" is a pretty long book. I haven't really had the chance to engross myself in long reading sessions these days. Who knows how long it will take for me to finish the book...

My favorite books:

Illusions -- Richard Bach
War of the Worlds -- H.G. Wells
Invisible Man -- H.G. Wells
2001 Space Odyssey -- Arthur Clarke (?)
I, robot -- Isaac Asimov
Silas Marner -- George Elliot (Mary Anne Evans)
Frankestein -- Mary Shelly
Don Quixotý -- Miguel Cervantes
A Tale of Two Cities -- Charles Dickens
Idylls of the King -- Alfred Lord Tennyson
For Whom the Bell Tolls -- Ernest Hemingway
Jonathan Livingston Seagull -- Richard Bach
The Joy Luck Club -- Amy Tan
Satanic Voices -- Salman Rushdie
Muna Madan -- Laxmiprashad Devkota
The Road Ahead -- William Henry Gates III (Bill Gates)
Seto Bagh -- Daimond Shamsher Rana
Patal Pravas -- Taranath Sharma
The Chinese Oxymoron -- Veronica Pierce
etc.

Currently reading:
The Scarlet Letter -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Bridge Across Forever -- Richard Bach
The Universe and Dr. Einstein -- Lincoln Barnett

Planning to Read:

Harry Potter Series -- J.K. Rowling
Lord of the Rings Series -- J.R.R. Tolkien
Dune Series -- Herbert ... (?)

etc.

I would love to read more, but what can I do? I hate reading.

Doctor Bee

Nepali:
"Ghaam Kaa Paailaaharu" - Dha. Cha. Gotame
"Naaso" - Guru Mainali

Pulp fiction (English):
"Kane and Abel" - Good ol' Jeffrey Archer

Classic (English):
"The Mayor of Castorbridge" - Thomas Hardy

World History:
"The Rise and Fall of Great Powers" - Paul Kennedy

Biography:
"Catherine the Great" - Henri Troyat

My fav ones:
Msg In bottle (just finihsed reading it)
Homecoming
Bridge across forever
God of small things (seems to be everyone's fav here)

***looking fwd to read Notebook by Nickolas Sparks(heard it was good).. thats if i get to my SUMMER READING..

:)

How about some good nepali read? I am sure there are many here who have read some good ones.. would appreciate if someone could share with us here..

sapphire, My favourite Nepali writer is B.P. Koirala and that may be because I have not read much of the others. I loved "Narendradai." It was so beautiful. His memoir "Affnu Katha" and "Sumnima" were also great.

I remember dropping an unconscious tear when I finished reading "Basai."

Devkota's "Lakshmi Nibanda Sanghra" is another book that I loved. I especially remember one line which as paraphrased and translated said something like- I would not be afraid of a tiger if I knew it would not eat me.

Bhawani Bhichu's "Pipe number 2" and Parijat's "Sirish Ko Phool"

I used to read and enjoy greatly "Coffee Guff" by Narayan Puri that used to be published in Kantipur on Saturdays.

There are lots and lots of Nepali works of literature that I need to read. And I will one day...

mG.

mindgames, thank you ! do you think I can get these books over the net?

you might... search for pligrim book house... and just do random google you might come up with something. i read all of those when I was in nepal so don't have real idea.

here is a link where they have a translated version of B.P. story collection:

- http://www.pilgrimsbooks.com/fiction.html

mG.

thanks !

sapphire, one more thing. if you are interested in a collected introduction to nepali literature written by British nepali-scholar buy ; Himalayan Voices by Michael Hutt. his long book has representative stories, poems and other form of literature in a fine translation. it is really good. anytime!