I have been Book Tagged!

So, even I have been book tagged!!! I thank Ram for doing this??!! Here I go with my statistics. Anyways I am glad to pause and look back!!

Total Number of Books I own:

I have no count of the number of books I bought. I buy them as I wish, mostly second hand ones from the roadside or cheap reprints from Darya Ganj Sunday bazaar. This gives me the liberty to indulge in book buying because I feel like a millionaire after I come back purchasing 20 books for Rs 500 . I am in love with what is said in the book rather than the book itself. I see a book as it is and not as it seems. So I dont get sentimental on new book purchases or them being reprints,as long as they can endure a few good readings by me.

Total number of books lent to others which never came back:

Very few perhaps, but I distinctly remember a book named Defeat into Victory on Burma Campaign by Field Marshal Sir William Slim, which I lent to someone that never came back. I need to buy that book again!

Total number E-Books:

1. LETTERS TO HIS SON by the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD on the Fine Art of becoming a MAN OF THE WORLD and a GENTLEMAN.

2. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I Download these books from Project Guttenberg. This site has thousands of ebooks that one can download for free.

Last Book I bought:

Seven Habits of highly Effective People by Steven Covey. I brought this book for the sixth time because each time I buy, I give away this book to someone who gets inspired by it!!

Last Book I was gifted:

The last significant book I was gifted was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I was blissfully unaware of objectivism until Feb 2004, when my close friend gifted this book to me. I am glad. I took a full year to read and assimilate Ayn Rand's philosophies and am eagerly awaiting to read it again.

Last Book I read:

The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. A book that has had a deep impact in me and it has made me come back to it more than many a times. Everytime I read it, I understand a new face of it, which was hitherto beyond my comprehension. A great book.

I am currently reading:

The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader to ease my brain after overloading with philosophies of Ayn Rand and Pirsig. And I am also reading Crisis in Command . This was a groundbreaking book on America's failure in Vietnam War. I am reading it for the second time, in the wake of America's predicament once again in Iraq War. History repeats itself.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

Reading is not my hobby. Its my habit. I have always realised from my heart, the famous saying of Sir Francis Bacon "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.". There were times when I used to be a reading machine, finishing books after books, mostly novels in no time. But somewhere down the line, I realised that I am falling into the trap of reading the book to make my book statistics look better and just to say that I have read a book, rather than having gained anything from that book at all. So, off late, I am taking my own time to not just read but understand, assimilate and apply my own mind on the author's ideas. Some books that have actually changed the way I think about myself and this world are :-

1. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
2 The Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
3. Johnathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach
4. The Alchemist by Paulo Cehlo
5. Wings of Fire by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

Three books I started reading, but never completed:

Conversations with God, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, Psychology of Military Humour. And there are many many more.

Book that made zero sense to me:

A lot of them never made sense to me. As soon as I realised this isnt going anywhere or I am not mentally prepared to assimilate what is being intended to be said, I just hang up.

My most treasured books:

All the books that have been gifted to me are most treasured by me. Because I feel if someone is interested in our intellectual enlightenment, the least we can reciprocate safeguard their token of interest in us!!

The Books I am planning to Read in the coming days:

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. The Road Less traveled by M. Scott Peck
3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
4. Ignited Minds by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
5. Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

Who am I going to tag:

Ram the Wacko

Unfortunately, I haven't made much friends in the blog world and most of my friends have already been tagged by someone else. So anyone who feels interested after reading this blog, may get tagged by just posting a comment. I shall tag them.