Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Some more reviews and the spring

Life goes on, like it always does, and leaves sleepyheads snoring behind.
But personally, I cannot think of one reason why one shouldn't spend one's life snoring while the world sprints on.
It steers you clear of a lot of quite unnecessary hassle.You also save up on a lot of energy, which you can use for some more hours of blessed ignorance of the world around you.
If the world wants to go on, let it go on. I do not want to go on, and that is the most important thing.
But I must not get carried away, as I promised to reduce the level of pointlessness that I carry around with me all the time.
So there are some books that I'd like to recommend to anyone who wants to read them:

  • 'The Physics of Impossible' and 'Hyperspace' by Michio Kaku. I came across the former , liked it a lot, and read the latter. It was even better. Kaku is really good at explaining things and has an interesting style.
  • 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin. Based in a fictional world, it has some excellent, multidimensional characters and a gripping plot. It is still incomplete, five books have come out so far.For some people, it may be too long. (I am re-reading it nowadays, and praying that the next book comes soon).
  • Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, a story that depicts a future world. Huxley is a favorite writer, and I wish for some soma  from time to time. Brave New World Revisited is a collection of his essays, equally liked.
  • 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions' by Edwin Abbott Abbott, the satirical  narrative of a 2-dimensional being. (Women were a separate and markedly lower class even there.sigh.)
  • 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' series, consisting of 3 books. Detective fiction at a fast pace, though it gets rather predictable as the series moves along,but I like Lisbeth Salander.
  •  'The Taliban Shuffle' by Kim Barker, an American journalist's account of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Recommended.
  • Brideshead Revisited
  • A Room with a View
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  • Daisy Miller
There is no kindle fire in the near future for me, I am afraid. A sad existence mine is, indeed.
There was a discussion with a friend about showing off, and I argued that one must have something to show off. I don't even have a Sandy Bridge i7 (which I dream about), what can I possibly show off? Or something with Ice Cream Sandwich, which I'd really love to have.
Sad,isn't it?
One day, when I will be rich, may God have mercy on all things beautiful and fast and slim and symmetric and with processors.
Right now, it is difficult to be sad for a long span of time. Yesterday morning, when I stepped out of the house, a gust of cool air greeted me. The sky was a beautiful grey, neither too dark nor too light to be as plain as daylight,but a metallic shade. For a moment, I stood looking at the tree in the yard, which had its leaves waving merrily along with the wind. The sun had not yet climbed high on the sky and was a nice shade of pale yellow.
Somehow, when I boarded the bus to my college, I couldn't find it in my heart to be as gloomy and cynical as usual.Rather, I thought of forests and valleys with streams and waterfalls and tall green firs and dew-covered grass in the morning to walk upon and a clear, star-studded sky at night.