Who's reading what,when & the experience

so, have many of you read this latest offering from salman rushdie?
if not, then i can heartily recommend it. It is certainly one of his best and indeed my book of the year!
If you want to learn some of the history behind kashmir then this will be an introduction, albeit a rather grim and brutal one. I guess i had never realised quite how bad things have been there.
Brutality aside, rushdie writes in an ingenious yet very moving style, helped i imagine by his own families connection to the region.
Somehow it helps to put one's own life in perspective! K

Hi all,
Let's have a sticky thread on books which one is reading. Here's my contribution. Reading Paulo Coelho's 'The Valkyries' for the umpteenth time. Although I've enjoyed it immensely as well the earlier 'The Alchemist' would describe it to a non-believer as 'soft new age' (similar/dissimilar as 'soft porn' is told ) to somebody already on finding oneself path 'an introduction' of what the adventure lays ahead.

currently reading john irvings 'the fourth hand' because i love his writing and because this one starts in india, with a tv journo having his hand bitten off by a lion in a circus
also reading some rather dull books on business law, architecural research methods and urban theory. you really don't want to know about that!!

it's been a long time since i have read a book cover to cover. most of my reading comes in the form of articles, since i am an avid researcher.

currently, i am researching something that came to me in a nightmarish dream that i had last night - the harvesting of human organs. the dream was horrific; the forced relinquishing of organs to pay our debts, basically. (probably linked to the late night financial reports i've been reading about the current financial state of affairs in the u.s. - with a debt of eight trillion dollars we have to borrow from other countries everyday, predominately, china).

so, i began researching about this and found that the practice of harvesting organs is a big business, and a very nefarious one. and a way to exploit the poor. selling organs is most prevalent in china and india, while rich "white" people are the most common recepients. in china, a person can be executed for a petty crime so that their organs can be harvested and sold, especially their kidneys.

in my research i found this bit on india:


Organs Watch has followed the emergence of new forms of "debt peonage" stimulated by the global economy in which the "commodified kidney" occupies a critical role as collateral.

Here the work of my colleague Lawrence Cohen on the emergence of "kidney belts" in southern India is pivotal. Cohen interviewed half a dozen women in a municipal housing-project in a Chennai (Madras) slum in South India, each of whom had sold a kidney for about $1,000 and undergone her "operation" at the clinic of Dr. K. C. Reddy, India's most outspoken advocate of the individual's "right to sell" a kidney.

The women Cohen interviewed were primarily low-paid domestic workers with husbands in trouble or in debt. Most said that the kidney sale was preceded by a financial crisis - the family had run out of credit and the money lenders were knocking at the door. Friends had passed on the word that there was quick money to be had by selling a kidney.

Cohen asked whether the sale made a difference in their lives, and he was told that it did for a time, but the money was soon swallowed by the interest charged by the money lenders, and the families were in debt once again. Would they do it again? He asked. Yes, the women answered. What other choice did they have with their debts piling up and the children needing food and school supplies? If only there were three kidneys, with two to spare, then things might be better for them.

When townspeople had first heard through newspaper reports of kidney sales occurring in the cities of Bombay and Madras, they responded with alarm. But now, Cohen says, some of these same people speak matter of factly about when it may be necessary to sell a "spare" organ. And today the "spare" kidney represents every poor person’s last resort and his or her ultimate collateral.

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perhaps some lighter reading would be good for the soul. the alchemist is one of my favorites, waiting for it's fourth read.

I am currently reading Naked Spirits: A Journey into Occupied Tibet by Adrian Abbotts. Just finished reading a new book by Vanessa Walker called Mantras & Misdemeanours. Excellent book about her year spent in McLeod Ganj where she met her future Tibetan husband and they now live in NZ with their baby. Very good read. I have a heap of books on my bookshelf (70+) on India/Tibet to choose from next. Most likely will read the following:
The Impressionist - Hari Kunzru
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
The Death of Vishnu - Manil Suri
The House of Blue Mangoes - David Davidar
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
A Goddess in the Stones - Norman Lewis
A House in Pondicherry - Lee Langley
Maximum City - Suketu Mehta
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

lotus hear u, I know of umpteen cases like these, one of the biggest issues is there aren't many women self-help groups (SHG's) which have a small savings scheme. The money-lenders typically ask for interest @2-3% or more p.m. + harrasment/abuse whereas the banks are happy to lend @1% . Also know of quite a few women groups who wanna do this. The issue here being they (banks,financial institution) can't give to women as they don't have anything as collateral. There have been some postive groups where some of these groups are able to sell some handicrafts or something & make some money but many-a-times things are against the tide.

Dear jivan,
Almost 23 years back I had travelled the road described in Paulo Coelho's book called Pilgrimage. I noticed my younger daughter reading this book and looking at a map printed on the page next to the fly leaf. I told her hey I have been there & then took out the photos I that had snapped around Bilbao, Miranda, Rijoa the monestaries the hills & the brooks. It was a very interesting reading.
Right now I am re-reading Oscar Wilde's Importance of being Earnest. Any one read this?

I'm reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austin. I've been reading it for nearly two months.

I'm a bed-time reader: marriage has really upset my reading routine!

Nice post jivan, I have my diary open to note down all those books recommended.
So I'm reading 'The good earth' by Pearl S Buck and 'Tipping point' a soft management book. Varied subjects, but frankly I quite enjoy moving between books- I let my mood decide.
Good earth is a simple straightforward read, but the language a little strange- I believe she's written in spoken chinese style.

Before these two I finshed 'climbing the mango tree' a food journey(part autobiography) in India by Madhur Jaffery, OMG! its amazing, a very light and nostalgic read. But beware! Never read on a hungry stomache.

im reading "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" a philosiphical one bout values, a must read!!

my blog

http://afteruse.blogspot.com

my last book was 'The monk who sold his ferrari' almost magical..

everything by jane austen is worth reading. i could not begin to count how many times i have read through her novels.

o yea The Monk who sold his ferrari is a nice read.. quite a lot of obvious but hard-to-implement things put in there in a story form....does not get boring at anytime when how-to-lead-a-better-live sort of things are being told

hey just bot a copy of "It's not about the bike:My journey back to life", Lance Armstrong. feeling like its going to be a good read.... have been wanting to read about him.. and here it is...an entire book...cool!

and Paulo Coelho also does make me read some.... read Alchemist, Eleven Minutes, now into "The Devil and Miss Prym" tho have not completed it..its a nice story about man's quest for the truth....the inherently bad/good nature of human beings. but one see that PC has been talking the same thing in his stories.. destiny and stuff like that... same is the case with Robin Sharma... seems like stating the same things in differnet books as he did in The monk..ferrari book..

btw nice thread jivan!

happy reading IMers!

I`ve just been parallel reading three books on Tibet, with very different perspectives :

Xin Ran`s Sky Burial
Catriona Bass Inside the Treasure House
Ani Pachen`s Sorrow Mountain

My first reaction is that Xin Ran`s book has gotten a lot more positive feedback in the west than it deserves, esp. without reflecting on the issues involved with Chinese perspectives on Tibet.

Are you boasting again, Nick?