It's sometime since I last saw any thread realated to literature in sajha. So I decided to start one ,myself. I want to know about the good books that have hit the market recently. Any book you found intresting/ illuminating/avant-grade that would be worth a read. Please feel free to share your knowledge about the classics, as well. I have been out of sync with the literary market lately-- you get the point.

:)

I have just read on book " Dude, Where's my country" written by Michael Moore. So funny and informative, If you get a chance definetly worth to read it.

Trikal...

This extract is taken from "The Prophet", by Kahlil Gibran, published by William Heinemann Ltd: London in 1984 (first published 1926)
*********************
Friendship

"And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay".
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know the flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."


*********************************

Hi Dum dum, been wanting to get back to this thread.... thanks for starting it! :)

LOVE
Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
~~~~~~~~
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest
branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Prophet~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, Lee Kuan Yew- Amazing stuff. If you want to understand the success of Singapore and the East Asian democracy model, this book is a must. In 763 pages of his carefully drafted memoir, lee talks about almost everything- from Singapore's forced independence to Singapore becoming a major economic power in Asia. Democracy, culture, foreign policy, PAP politics, Malay-Chinese clashes in the new city state and much much more. If you are interested in leadership or Eeast-South-East Asian history, you can't miss reading this one.

My Life, Bill Clinton- not entirely 957 pages of lies as some critics tell it to be. If you skip all those "how my dad met my mom" parts and focus on Clinton's election campaigns and his meetings with various world leaders, this book is quite inetresting. the best part was when he regrets about being "unable" to prevent the Rwandan genocide.

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Herbert Bix: So who is to be blamed for the Rape of Nanking and various other Japanese war crimes in Asia during the second world war? Is it the military clique that too over politics or the descendant of Amaterasu Omikami, i.e, the Emperor himself? A fascinating political biography of Hirohito in 688 pages. A Pulitzer Prize winner.

Khrushchev: The Man and Era, William Taubman: So how did Khurschev, a nowhere man from Kalinovka, a small village in the middle of nowhere in the present day Ukraine became the most influential politican of the Great Soviet Empire? The book also explains his attachment with Stalin, and his later denounciation of the Great Leader. If you are interested in learning all about Khurschev, from his feet stumping episode to meeting with Nehru, from the Peaceful Co-existence to skirmishes with China, this is quite an interesting book. Taubman didn't with Pulitzer for nothing.

In Retrospect, Robert McNamara: Was Vietnam war a mistake? Yes. But this coming from the former secretary of defense, is quite shocking indeed. Although McNamara's book dfidn't get good reviews when it came out in 1996, I found it really fascinating when I read it this summer. He admits that he and his collegues made mistakes and those mistakes costed many men their lives. The highlight of this book is his 11 points at the end of the book. Its worth reading, if you are into history.

World on Fire, Amy Chua: Does democracy work everyhwere? This is a very hard question to answer. There's no doubt that democracy is the best system but how do we make it work everywhere as smoothly as it works in America and the western Europe? This is not a very easy question to answer. Before we understand the ways to make democracy work, we have to understand the problems. Amy Chua, a Prof at Yale highlights the problems that many countries in the world face now- poverty, ethnic hatred etc. A very "interesting" book if you are like me who believes that democracy alone cannot solve all problems any given country is facing.




" and I thought school would be interesting!!!!" :-(

shoot.. were we just supposed to talk about literature as in fiction (stories etc.). If yes, I am very sorry for diverting and polluting this thread.

talking abt literature, i just like some poems thats it haha, other wise, i hate LITERARTURE WITH PASSION!!!!:P haha...

ok here is one, by BACA...its called:

WHO UNDERSTANDS ME BUT ME..

Who Understands Me But Me

They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,
they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,
they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,
they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,
they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,
they give me pain, so I live with pain,
they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?

I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble,
I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love, my beauty,
I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
I am stubborn and childish,
in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred,
I practice being myself,
and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me,
they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
when the walls were built higher,
when the water was turned off and the windows painted black.
I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
wHO UNDERSTANDS ME WHEN I SAY THIS IS BEAUTIFUL?

ýDayari ko Athaun Pannaý alias ýthe eighth page of my diaryý

By Parijat
Translated by: Nabin Chhetri
Assisted by Uday Adhikari

Imagine a processionýLet it beýLet us say a caravan moving aimlessly. May be I am strolling in the middle, Like me, many others are. We are silent that we do not know and we do not even know where we are going either. Let it beýthe confabulation has initiated from ýImagineý Pertaining this accord, a person had noted ýYou were not seen in the crowdý.

Anyway, that wasnýt a melancholic remark. A question thus roused, what is the existence of the crowd, and what is it to be like oneself in the crowd? Are we the strong pillar of a crowd or not? Thenceforth I walked a long time isolating myself; nobody recognized me or lets say, nobody saw me. Now I do not have faith in both the conditions. Such feelings which are very abstract in nature, I have noted its impressions in my diary. You might have known my trying to (escort you) reach you towards the apex of abstractness since last ten years. If you see my diary now you will call me mad.

Its hunger, I can reveal it in the form of a circle, Its sex, I can prove it in the form of a square and its sorrow I can reflect it in a triangle (You too can do, anybody to anyone). The construction of forms, a hotchpotch or lets say, Is love and hatred situated here? I donýt know and if I ever donýt believe in anything, its love. A person canýt live without love; its scribed in the books of children. Yes, since the last ten years I have failed to explain love to you.

Who baptized hatred? Who found out this situationsý comprehension? Was it as easy as discovering the Anacin tablet? I mean within probabilities. Let it be, lets not say it by words; lets kill some words first. Does the comprehension also die with words? Please do not hate. Somebody must have said it to you. In that, you were astounded because you couldnýt liberate your hatred that had been adhered to you like a bug. (Itýs your feelings). During the last ten years, you have been incapable of explaining hatred. See the eighth page of my diary, that black page is such comprehension that I can never expatiate with the help of words neither will I try to explain. And after having done so, I felt bitter after having read a tome about benevolence written by an anonymous writer, like having a bread of husk. I do not know what is sympathy? In that case you also acknowledge that the words connected to dictionaries arenýt the only catalyst of our conditions.

Early morning while stretching her arms she says, ýYou rave astonishingly during fever and I well know that you can not have feverý I laugh in my mind how her words were contradicting. Almost; people are like this. Impossible, my reality never coincides with her assumptions. ýDo not grumble like that from this, I care a damn about it.ý How she talks with a lot of contradictions inside, my smile repeats itself and hence I try to convince ýyou are speaking my opposing your own faithý She never understands me and I try to explain myself, within the limits of her understanding, Itýs a firsthand impossibility. Is it illegal to talk alone? Immoral? Me seems, trying to preach so many deliriums of many unsatisfied mind from the foursquare of a road my a mike, may seem like a lunatic asylum? It might not be also. Who knows what will happen?

The bitter present of it not having a scope, it has its only one liberation or lets say alteration; I have thus chosen delirium for my sake. Is there ever a border in being sane and insane? She smiles along looking at the mirror and often scolds the dead things around her, and to one or two, she beats them in the velocity of anger. Meanwhile, after I leave, she turns on the pages of my diary and by seeing the hordes of cheap love songs, she feels disgusted. How will she ever know how I have collected these songs to digest the sad moments of life?

ýI am very passive, please let me live in deliriumý. This statement becomes a bitter satire within oneself. She smirks, by understanding it or without it. Seems, isnýt she playing truant with me! As soon as she finds my absence, she will broach my diary and feel frustrated towards me. She never knows how to hero-worship and to speak the truth, I am not a hero. Her visage reflects some bouts of cruel smiles frequently and times and again I am dismayed. I remember, taking an Anacin at night by taking her permission, just because I had the probabilities of fever (I felt). But I had said to her that I was suffering from fever. By considering the conditions from last night till now instead of the situations being else it was turning comical. From this angle we can ridicule the life we are living. Somewhere in my innards, I feel the unease as if I have blithely taken the bread of husk. Now that she will not judge me from my delirium but from the cheap love songs of my diary. She will assume, Moreover she will be confident that the pages of my diary is my reality and that the delirium is only its wrap.

A question pops ýIs everyone experiencing such? I summon her more closer and say, ýPlease believe me that I had a feverý
ýBelieving is sufficient?ý
The answer makes me more nervous.
ýYou bored me by not feeling meý

Its known, Its just a matter of talk, inside another reality exists around. (If she had felt, it would have been the extremely bore, for which there isnýt a possible point for debate). The daily sentiment is adjusted to such tunes, it seems? Today my body is deadly tired (another excuse), I utter as I turn around. She exits from the room. Immediately, I feel my present sorrow becoming lighter for a moment. A question hangs on the door, Is this sufficient for living?