April 2009 - Posts - Bookends

April 2009 - Posts

Thursday afternoon books quiz - 4

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
The books quiz goes up a little early today, since I don't think I'll be near a computer at the usual post-lunch hour. But hey -- this means you get a whole six hours more to get your answers in place! 1. American Teens Against Crime (ATAC) was founded because the FBI came to realise that where adult agents would stand out, a teenager would...

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The unsettling films of J. G. Ballard

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
I've read my fair share of science fiction, but when I read the news that the eminent science fiction writer J. G. Ballard had passed away , I realised that I had encountered his output only through the films made out of his books.But even after being translated into another medium, Ballard's work did not lose the capacity to disturb. Reading...

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Friday evening honour roll - 3

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
The answers to the third of the Thursday afternoon book quizzes: 1. "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad 2. Sabu / Chacha Chaudhary. The Diamond Comics fans among us will note that the dude in the poster even looks like our Chacha's friendly giant from Jupiter. 3. Henri Matisse 4. The Mahabharatha The entrants to this week's honour...

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 3

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Still more Thursday afternoon distraction fun! As always, send in your answers to samanth.s@livemint.com, and compete for a spot on the Friday evening honour roll tomorrow! 1. Complete the quote with a book title: “The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We...

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Should "The Kite-Runner" be banned from libraries?

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
News broke last week that The Kite-Runner , Khaled Hosseini's best-seller about an unorthodox Afghani boyhood, emerged at the top of the list of books most challenged and complained about by parents, according to the the American Library Association. The complaints have arisen, reports say, because of the offensive language and sexual content of...

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Friday evening honour roll - 2

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
The answers to the second of the Thursday afternoon book quizzes: 1. The book on which Seva Sadanam was based, titled Bazar ka Huns , was written by Munshi Premchand. The lady in the left of the still is M. S. Subbulakshmi. 2. Peter Pan , by J. M. Barrie. 3. Mila 18 4. The serial was Malgudi Days , so the fictional town, of course, was Malgudi . The...

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 2

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
More Thursday afternoon distraction fun! Send in your answers to samanth.s@livemint.com , and earn yourself a spot on the Friday evening honour roll tomorrow! 1. This image is from a 1938 movie titled Seva Sadanam. On whose book is it based, and who is the young actress we see to the left of the still? 2. The Great Ormond Street Hospital in London holds...

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How do you remember quotes?

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
I started the day with a great read: An essay by Jim Holt , on how he set about memorising poetry. One passage in particular struck me, and although it's about poetry, it could really be about literature of all sorts: A few lucky types seem to memorize great swaths of poetry without even trying. George Orwell said that when a verse passage “has...

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Friday evening honour roll - 1

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
The answers to the first of the Thursday afternoon book quizzes : 1. Ford Prefect, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . The alien being, after landing in England, simply named himself after the most common name he found -- the many Ford Prefect cars that he found on the roads. 2. P. G. Wodehouse 3. Vaikom Mohammad Basheer 4. Chetan Bhagat The...

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 1

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
So here's how this will work: Every Thursday after lunch, when I'm feeling full and sleepy and lusting after the weekend, I'll post on this blog four or five quiz questions, centered around the world of books and reading. So every Thursday after lunch, when you're feeling full and sleepy and lusting after the weekend, you can divert...

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The poetry of Varun Gandhi

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Varun Gandhi seems to have hidden his poetry well. I visited a couple of bookshops last weekend, looking for his 2000 volume titled The Otherness of Self , but I didn't find it. (Which seems to be a major miscalculation by its publisher, Rupa & Co. In its place, I would have immediately trotted out all the unsold warehouse copies of the book...

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Rejected authors, take heart!

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
Even the manuscript of Animal Farm was rejected -- and by none other than T. S. Eliot! Your pigs, wrote Eliot to George Orwell, "are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm – in fact there couldn’t have been an Animal Farm at all without them: so that what was needed (someone might argue) was...

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Cooking the books

Posted by Samanth Subramanian at 
The International Edible Book Festival is just that -- a festival of book-inspired things to eat. "This festival is a celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book," say the organisers, adding that it is held in honour of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, one of mankind's most literary writers on food. I've...

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