Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Judging books by their covers

If i had a penny for every visit to Hussain's bookshop, i'd be a crorepati by now ( with the falling rupee and all, even an arabpati) I know more about the books that are in his shop than he does. Generally i browse through my favorite sections and then sit at the counter and count how many people brought a Chetan Bhagat book. But this sunday, when that number became large enough to make me sick, i went around looking at the other sections i do not usually frequent. The self help section, the management book section and the bestseller section.

Now since i had no intention of even reading a blurb on one of these books, i thought i'll try guessing the content of these books by their covers. And here i have invented a whole new form of entertainment.

Honestly, what would you expect in a book called 'Where's my Ketchup?'. Breakfast table conversations? Anyway, what is this whole thing about losing foodstuffs. There's this one called 'Who moved my cheese?'. Duh! just look into your FRIDGE you moron!
And even if your food is lost, you really have to have a lot of free time on your hand to write a whole book about it.

Okay, how about this one ' Who love, die well!'. Well thank you for clearing that up. The rest of the populace devoid of this beautiful emotion turn up on the discovery channel serial killer program as the victims, right?
The honesty is still laudable. The writer does truthfully uses the words love and death in the same sentence. But i'm still not sure as to what the book is really about; those who died well or those who did not love.

This one was a bit more practical, but still bowled me over. 'How to have creative ideas?'. The title was very honestly telling me what was inside the book, but then the thinking part in my head says: ' if there's a process for getting creative ideas; well that defeats the whole concept of "creative ideas", right!!" A highly creative idea, probably an outcome of the processes mentioned therein.

And then there was 'Chicken soup for a shopaholics soul'. Do they also need comforting??That's rich. Never thought how many of them were vegetarian? It'll probably have to be a vegetable soup for the shopaholics soul then.

There are other writers who think they can fool their readers into buying books whose titles sounded famous. I repeat, 'sounded famous' . So there are books like 'in the DARK of the NIGHT', 'the return of THE GODFATHER' and 'The RINGS for the LORDS'. Do they think that people who are going to buy these books cannot read?? ( a bit too presumptuous maybe)

Nonetheless these titles are better than seeing people buy five point someone.

4 comments:

Hussain Haidry said...

It wasn't Five Point Someone this time. It was another one of the chick-lit category: 'Of Course I love you...till I find someone better'.

Khair, naam me kya rakha hain. Sab ek jaisi hi to hoti hain.

P.S. Actually, jab tu dukaan pe hota hain tabhi log ye sab kitaabe zyada khareedte hain. :P

Anonymous said...

five point someone is not that bad!

Aneesh said...

Yes, it IS that bad! :)

MORBIDMONK said...

book reading has turned into a fashion statement in urban india.it is now being equated with status by educated pockets in the nooks of various university circles. but fortunately book reading still pertains to chetan bhagat and khaled husseini..which allows us inconspicuous bookworms to chat about books without having to share our thoughts with most "avid" readers