How about this for a coincidence?
Long ago, when I had overcome a bout of greediness--OK... let's be a bit positive and call it enthusiasm, or love for books, or... eagerness, for lack of any other word--in buying books that have a good rating... I must talk about my book selection routine a little later; perhaps, that's an entirely different conversation (monologue?) altogether. Too much of meandering... I know. Anyways, the book, 'All the light we cannot see' by Anthony Doerr was one among them. And then, when I start reading it, I enthusiastically pursue the habit of jotting down the stuff that really impresses me, shakes me or whatever kind of emotion it brings out of me. So, of the three pages of ravings about the book, the one praise that I bother to write down is by J. R. Moehringer, author of Sutton and the Tender Bar.
"Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels as a poet. He knows about everything - radios, diamonds, molluscs, birds, flowers, locks, guns, - but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think foerver differenty about the big things - love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart ... Doerr's new novel is that novel, the one you savour, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read - now"
It is indeed an amazing take on the book; no doubt about it. That is the reason why it takes a place in my beloved notebook. Now, the date was 28 Dec 2016. I have entries, more from books that I cared to leave midway, than from those that I bothered to finish. Just a rude reminder to myself that 2017 has been the worst of all the un-self years I have had to deal with so far. Un-self? I mean, not being myself or having very less time for myself.
The last fews book that I read (in 2016) were 'Wonder' by RJ Palacio, 'When breath becomes air', by Paul Kalanithi, 'The One and Only Ivan' by Katherine Applegate, and in 2017, just one book: 'The Gita for Children', by Roopa Pai. And for the books that I deserted too quickly are Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Malala's I am Malala, John Grisham's The Firm, Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss, Jennifer Niven's All the Bright Places, Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun, Harari's Sapiens, Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, and Thich Nhat Hanh's Old Path White clouds. I know... Whatever!
And today, in a history of firsts, I manage to finish a book, and that's 'Open' by Andre Agassi. Rarely have books been able to catch my attention early on (he starts off like a wounded soldier and yet having to face the battle with such hate for the battlefield), and have made me read it till the last word. And this is one among such; I finished reading in one week, given my hectic schedule. In the last two pages of the book... a kind of closing statement from Andre, is the 'acknowledgements' section.
It reads, 'This book would not exist without my friend J. R. Moehringer. It was J.R., before we even met, who first made me think seriously about putting my story on paper. During my final U.S. Open, in 2006, I spent all my free time reading J.R.'s staggering memoir, The Tender Bar.'
And then, it is quite obvious that I would not remember that I had written that name a long ago, that too for some other book. I just happened to notice the name when I was about to jot down the difficult words in Andre's book on my notebook, and happened to peruse through the other entries that I had made.
Coincidence, right? I picked Moehringer's name so randomly, which was part of an praise list of some other book, and it comes back after a year in some other context; he is now the pseudo-author of a book that I manage to complete.
