Poo Chronicles, Contd.

I read best in the loo. It's a childhood thing, in fact when I was 10 it made my mother tear one of my Enid Blyton St. Clares in half, but then the next day I had it taped back and was sticking it in the waistband of my skirt to take to the toilet. She never asked me what that suspicious rectangular shape was, sticking out of my abdomen at an odd angle, but she waited till I thought she was cool with it and the next time I stepped out of the toilet with a book in my hand, BAM! She shredded that book to bits. But I was a stubborn child and well... what I'm trying to say is, habits like this develop over time.
Anyhow, I read good when I poop. It's my little bit of "me-time", when I can pool my pants around my ankles and stretch my legs out and relax. I bust stress that way. (Stink? What stink? My poo smells like roses.) And while I usually spend about a half-hour in the loo each time, it's been down to ten minutes ever since I started that godforsaken book I mentioned in my previous post. I hate the hellish thing to bits, but I've never started a book that I didn't finish, and painful as it is, I'll see this thing to the end. And make sure I read all of it only in the comfort room.


NOTE: Elia Kazan, great man though he is acknowledged to be, ratted on his colleagues for being Commies at a time when Communists used to be hunted down and killed, which makes him a dick, and therefore makes it okay to hate his work.

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Bad Reading Habits

I can't poo unless I don't have a book to read. This is what I'm currently reading (The Arrangement by Elia Kazan), except my copy doesn't have boobs on the cover to distract me from what's written inside, which makes it so much worse. Anyway, I've decided to read all of it - beginning to end - only during poop time. Mostly because it's too horrible to read outside of the toilet, but whatever.

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Die, evil book-hungry vortex

Books that have been sucked into the vortex that is (clearly) operating somewhere in hostel. Near the water cooler, is where I reckon.

Transmission - Hari Kunzru

Procured at a Landmark Table-of-Perennial-Sale in Chennai, circa 2008. Reading this had taken rather longer than usual. But it was an odd sort of story, and I'd enjoyed it. More importantly, the cover art was funky.

Chocolat - Joanne Harris

My. Oh my. I loved this book. Not in a generic sense (which isn't to say I didn't like reading it. Oh well.), but this copy in particular. It had been bought with my aunt in Bangalore when we were out on a used-book-scrounge. The pages were yellowed, the spine was slightly wobbly, and it had belonged to someone called Ida, who had a lovely loopy handwriting. It had a Feel to it. It had Atmosphere. Also, it had Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche on the cover.
Looking HOT.

Mobius Dick - Andrew Crumey

This was a leaving gift from my best friend when we'd just graduated from school and were en route to our respective undergrad colleges. I'm not completely sure if the Dick in the title had anything to do with it. I'd read it thrice - the second time because I wanted to to, and the third time for lack of other reading material. Yes, excluding the blurb at the back of the box of Kellog's. This is a strange, wistful book with schizophrenic characters, parallel universes and time travel thrown in for good measure. Oh, and Schrodinger's cat.

I hate losing books. Even if I'm not overly fond of them. It is worse, even, than ripping your newest jeans at the crotch. And that is saying something.

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