--- Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Heh. Deja Vu all over again [1]. > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/5134
Wow, nostalgic! What's next, a re-run of the inside jokes thread? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/5150 It's interesting, in the six years since that post, there have been several changes in my 'frequently re-read' list. One isn't necessarily conscious of the phenomenon. I hadn't realized, for example, how much non-fiction has come to dominate my real and mental shelfspace. The other interesting thing to me is that the list of 'favourites' is not identical to the list of 're-reads'. There is a significant overlap, but there are two distinct lists. I love Vikram Seth, but hardly ever re-read his books. Ditto for Umberto Eco. The John Donne, too: while it's still the most loved of my poetry shelf, I've read Shakespeare and Martial far more often since 2002. J.T.Edson has practically disappeared from my bookshelf, while Louis L'Amour remains; Robert Ludlum has vanished, while Alistair Maclean continues on, with some competition from Dick Francis. The Cadfael books of Ellis Peters have emerged as surprising leaders in the comfort read category. With some favourite authors, the books re-read have changed, Wodehouse, for example: I've come to favour the Jeeves and Wooster books over everything else, even Emsworth. Aldous Huxley: _Island_ rather than _Brave New World_, Agatha Christie: Marple rather than Poirot. Some books I haven't re-read at all in the last five years: _Catch 22_, _The Golden Bough_, _Slaughterhouse Five_, David Brin's _Uplift_ books, _Sophie's World_. It's odd, with these books in particular, the memory of how much I enjoyed them somehow outweighs the desire to actually read them again. Notable additions to the frequently read list in the last few years: Richard Dawkins: _The Ancestor's Tale_ Jared Diamond: _Guns, Germs and Steel_, _Collapse_ Dan Simmons: _Ilium_ and _Olympos_ Barabara Tuchman: _A Distant Mirror_ Nassim Taleb: _Fooled by Randomness_ Steven Pinker: _How the Mind Works_ Plus, a pile of assorted manga: _Fullmetal Alchemist_, _Bleach_ and _One Piece_, among others. This is possibly some sort of commentary on my juvenile mind - black and white illustrated action-adventure-fantasy, designed to be read from right to left and back to front, created originally for the consumption of Japanese teenagers - that is my favourite escapist reading these days. cheers, Divya
