Book-drugged

Late though it is, let me do the part of a taggee.

I am a book freak and apart from reading them I love collecting them as well. So when I enter a bookshop, I go completely berserk. I just don't know what to leave out from my list of buys. The result is every time a poorer me emerges out of the bookshop.

One thing I hate absolutely hate - seeing those slimy silver fishes scurrying about the edges of my precious books. I have never managed to exterminate one till now. They are so incredibly quick.

Now let me stop straying and get to the details.

How many books do I own?
This is really tough. I have a library room back home which is stacked with books and books. Some of it are my parents' collection and it has loads of Bengali classics, of which I have read only two per cent(I have just asked my father to send me a copy of Saratchandra's Parineeta). The rest of the books are my additions over the years of haggling with booksellers on College Street and afternoons of coming out laden with books from Landmark and Oxford Bookstore.

The last book I bought
Quite a few. Yesterday I went and spent a grand on The Motorcycle Diaries of Che Guevara, A Georgette Heyer and a Tintin (sheepish smile). The week before I bought four classics because I loved the binding (of course it was a big bargain): She by Rider Haggard, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, Madame Bovary by Flaubert and The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The last book I read
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. An entertaining read.

Five books that mean a lot to me
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts - To think that a convict could write so well! I was enthralled by Shantaram (Roberts was christened so in a village in India). The way he has documented Bombay, I don't think any other writer has ever managed to do that. Immediately after this I read Suketu Mehta's Maximum City Lost and Found which was again on Bombay. It paled in comparison.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth - From the beginning I have been hooked on to it. And the fact that it has been criticised by the Dragon, has egged me on to prove him wrong. But seriously san any hidden agenda, I am enjoying the book.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee - Yeah yeah I know it is a cliche. But I fell in love with Atticus Finch.

Feluda series by Satyajit Ray - I have guzzled each and every book of Ray in my teen years. I just can't get over Feluda and his adventures. They have this wonderful holiday mood about them...E has brought back a fat collection of his stories from Cal. I am
dying to get my hands on it.

Narnia series by C S Lewis- Indelibly linked with my school days

Now I feel like going on and on and on about more books. I am straining at the leash.

Five more people to tag
Now whom to tag? Hmm...
mintchutney
couchpotato
Ok ok I have run out of names. Cause almost everyone in blogland's been tagged.