Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Party

Twin Paradox and Lost Umbrellas@ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 4)

Now for some books with strange elements.

Ratnakar brought in an element of science fiction into the BYOB Party with the book Time For the Stars, a book published in 1956 from his Juveniles series, a series with young heroes set in the near future. Heinlein was one of the most important science fiction writers of the time along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. In this book, Heinlein examines the Twin Paradox, a thought experiment that explains how relativity works. The premise is if one out of a pair of identical twins is accelerated away from Earth and the other stays on Earth, more time passes on Earth and so the twin who remains on earth grows older while the space twin will not have aged that much. Twins are also said to have twin telepathy so they can communicate faster than the speed of light. Although the book may seem outdated today, the premise is strong enough to convince the hard-boiled cynic. Some interesting conversation did come up revolving around twins, communication and physics.

Watch this if you want to see what one of the world’s most foremost science fiction writers had to say about Apollo 11 space mission.

Satish got a fantasy read. He’s a big fan of China Miéville and loves his YA books the most. Not many people in the room had heard of China Miéville, a sensational science fiction writer who has won two Arthur C Clarke awards and several other prizes as well.  Un Lun Dun or Un-London is a place below London. The story revolves around the adventures of Zanna and Deeba. They find a door to another London, one filled with old computers and obsolete technology and an army of umbrellas. Miéville’s linguistic prowess- his puns and nomenclatures- and bizarre characters keep the reader riveted. His illustrations add richness to the book. Satish read out a passage of a part where Deeba climbs up a ladder in a library. He saw her act of climbing into books as allegorical in a way and this is typical of many of China’s novels. Another one he mentioned was Railsea, an allegory of Moby Dick, where the search is for a white mole, rather than a white whale. Comparisons were made to another popular British author Neil Gaiman. You might like to listen to this fascinating interview of this writer who has also confessed his attachment to garbage and octopuses and trains.

 

The Many Shades of Roy @ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 3)

When Amrutha showed us the book that she was reading, there was a collective gasp of excitement.

Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Amrutha is very eloquent about her admiration of this writer. For her, The God of Small Things is nothing less than a Bible, compulsory reading on days when the world ceases to make sense. And now after twenty years of monochromatic non-fiction, Roy is back, and this made her pre-order a copy.

The book is now well-known for the number of reviews it has garnered. Amrutha has no complaint about the lyricism of the book. For the first two hundred pages of the book, Anjum the transgender character occupies center stage. At some point in the novel, Amrutha says that so many characters make their presence felt that you feel you are in a train into which a stream of people continuously flows into.

Unlike the India in the books by Khushwant Singh and Salman Rushdie, Roy’s India is easy to relate to, especially to millennials as it is the India of the Maoists, Kejriwal, Kashmir, Ayodhya, corruption, Anna Hazare and this becomes the problem with Anjum’s story for Amruta. She fears that the book ends in propaganda and that Roy’s view is a little too uni-dimensional for a country as vast and complicated as India. “It was when the book stopped being fictional that I felt betrayed that she had masqueraded Anjum’s story as a fiction. If I wanted to read about the problems our country faces, I could read the newspaper!” she said.

So this is what a betrayed fan looks like.

As is the case in many BYOB Parties, readers subconsciously pick books that showcase similar authors. So Sonali got Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar with an introduction written by Roy. Unlike Amruta, Sonali is more taken by Arundhati Roy’s monochromatic non-fiction.

The Annihilation of Caste shows two contrasting leaders- one the saintly Gandhi who removes his upper garment to identify with the masses and the other the maverick Ambedkar who wears a suit to challenge casteism. Both of them believe that they have the answers about how the country is to be led and what values should constitute the Indian rubric.

The premise of the book is a story in itself. A Hindu reformist group invited Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to deliver a lecture but since they knew that the man was audacious they requested for an advanced copy. Their doubts proved true. Ambedkar had planned to use the lecture as an opportunity to denounce Hinduism and its caste system. Since this was unacceptable to them, they de-invited him and true to Ambedkar’s fiery nature, he published the speech instead. He also responded to the Mahatma’s justification of caste.

What Sonali admires about the book is the coherence of the arguments that Ambedkar presents. He provided a scholarly critique of the Shastras and disagrees with Gandhi’s sugar-coated version of casteism. Even today Ambedkar’s views remain controversial and some of his opinions border on scandalous.

Watch this video where Roy debunks what she calls the Gandhi myth.

Idyllic Hawaii and Mars on Antarctica @ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 2)

Guru is a science fiction aficionado but when he stumbled upon a book called Hawaii by James Michener, he was hooked. Michener won a Pulitzer prize for his first book, Tales of the South Pacific. In his book Hawaii, he starts with the geological formation of the islands, how the Polynesian seafarers made their way there and then how American missionaries arrived with organized religion. In Micheneresque style, he tells the story of a region through a generational saga.

Found an interview with James Michener. It’s worth listening to.

Another book about place was a book Madhukara got called Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of the World’s Most Mysterious Continent. In the book, Gabrielle Walker who is armed with a PhD in chemistry writes lyrically and accessibly about the relationship that human beings have with the coldest, most inhospitable alien terrain on earth.  Antarctica’s geological history is unusual. While most of the single continent migrated upward, Antarctica was covered with ice and in some parts even have Dry Valleys, places where there is no ice at all as there has been no precipitation of any kind and for which reason they have been christened as Mars on Earth.

Antarctica has always been a back of the beyond place with an inflow of researchers only from the last century, following the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. She demystifies many pre-conceived notions about the South Pole. There are penguins there, of course, and they are very similar to bipeds in that they even hug! But penguins aside, Antarctica throws up many questions and has many stories to tell. Walker traces the journeys of the explorers who started it all including Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen. Walker talks about researching in the Antartica from a feminist perspective and in terms of male and female ratios, which is interesting.

She mentions a problem that this frozen terrain presents- mental health issues. Madness is extremely common in extremely cold places, a premise that has been used by Stephen King in his horror novel The Shining, so to go to  Antarctica, you need rigorous training. For Madhukara, the book reminded him of the precarious adventures of climbers in Everest. It opened up a whole range of questions from who owns resources in Antarctica (this was swampland and since dinosaurs existed, the chances of fossil fuels existing here are great) to the possibilities of space mining, the movie Elysium and whether you need a visa to go to the coldest place on earth.

The idea of several countries sharing space was reminiscent of The Treaty of Tordesillas signed by Portugal and Spain in 1494. According to this treaty, the lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Spain. The conversation veered to claimants of geographical relics and ancient places. The dubious discovery of Machu Picchu and the bungling of the Archaeological Survey of India when it came to the way Stupas and other reliquaries with Buddha’s remains were lost were discussed, not to forget Elgin Marbles that did not belong to Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, but was heritage belonging to the Acropolis, Athens. Some relics in Pompeii have also been removed from the scene and moved elsewhere. The past has been misappropriated many times in the name of heritage and exploration.

This was an intense session. More in Part 3.

Damascus and Dalrymple @ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 1)

This time Meera Iyer co-hosted the BYOB Party with us. Meera is the Co-convener of INTACH Bangalore and Co-founder of Carnelian, a company that specializes in heritage tours. We traveled to her home in the quaint Uttarahalli, a suburb in Bangalore. True to the spirit of heritage, the BYOB Party kicked off with some history.

Apurba couldn’t resist picking up a book by Dalrymple from Blossom Book House on Church Street (if you live in Bangalore and you love books, this is where you would go). In his book, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey In The Shadow of Byzantium, Dalrymple speaks about countries with glorious histories, now under the siege of war. With a historian’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s wit, Dalrymple takes the reader on a journey through the Byzantine world, following in the footsteps of a monk called John Moschos who had written a book called Spiritual Meadow. Dalrymple has written In Xanadu using a similar premise, following the footsteps of Marco Polo. Moschos’s grand spiritual project involved saving the wisdom of the sages. Islam was making its inroads and Christianity was subtly fleeing the Middle East. It was a revelation to Apurba that Christianity was as eastern a religion as Islam and Judaism.

Dalrymple writes a detailed account of the civil war in Turkey, the ruins of war in Beirut and the tension in the West Bank. He starts in Anatolia in Turkey, travels through Syria and finally arrives at Jerusalem.

“Nobody knows these things,” Apurba said. “Even friends who have visited Turkey do not know about the Armenian Genocide in 1915.” Dalrymple describes how unIslamic architecture has systematically lost out to competition. Anyone interested in the Byzantine Empire, its past and present, will love this book.

You might like this video where Dalrymple talks about his earlier travels through these regions.

Jaya mentioned a book called Three Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr, a fictional saga of the loves and lives of three generations of Palestinian Christian women. The book was eye-opening as it revealed the fact that Arab identity was not necessarily always Islamic.

Damascus and Dalrymple @ BYOB Party in June 2017 (Part 1)

This time Meera Iyer co-hosted the BYOB Party with us. Meera is the Co-convener of INTACH Bangalore and Co-founder of Carnelian, a company that specializes in heritage tours. We traveled to her home in the quaint Uttarahalli, a suburb in Bangalore. True to the spirit of heritage, the BYOB Party kicked off with some history.

Apurba couldn’t resist picking up a book by Dalrymple from Blossom Book House on Church Street (if you live in Bangalore and you love books, this is where you would go). In his book, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey In The Shadow of Byzantium, Dalrymple speaks about countries with glorious histories, now under the siege of war. With a historian’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s wit, Dalrymple takes the reader on a journey through the Byzantine world, following in the footsteps of a monk called John Moschos who had written a book called Spiritual Meadow. Dalrymple has written In Xanadu using a similar premise, following the footsteps of Marco Polo. Moschos’s grand spiritual project involved saving the wisdom of the sages. Islam was making its inroads and Christianity was subtly fleeing the Middle East. It was a revelation to Apurba that Christianity was as eastern a religion as Islam and Judaism.

Dalrymple writes a detailed account of the civil war in Turkey, the ruins of war in Beirut and the tension in the West Bank. He starts in Anatolia in Turkey, travels through Syria and finally arrives at Jerusalem.

“Nobody knows these things,” Apurba said. “Even friends who have visited Turkey do not know about the Armenian Genocide in 1915.” Dalrymple describes how unIslamic architecture has systematically lost out to competition. Anyone interested in the Byzantine Empire, its past and present, will love this book.

You might like this video where Dalrymple talks about his earlier travels through these regions.

Jaya mentioned a book called Three Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr, a fictional saga of the loves and lives of three generations of Palestinian Christian women. The book was eye-opening as it revealed the fact that Arab identity was not necessarily always Islamic.

Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Party on July 15, 2017 (Saturday)

RSVP on Meetup OR RSVP on Explara

RSVP on Meetup OR RSVP on Explara

Have you read a book and are craving to chitchat about it with someone? Have a favorite book that you think everyone would love, if only they knew about it? Want to see what others are reading and have interesting conversations beyond weather, traffic, and real estate?

Then come to the BYOB party and talk away! Try to avoid a bestseller and if you have a copy, bring it along and read us a passage. All languages are welcome.

There will be refreshments and swags courtesy Worth A Read.

Venue: Pothi.com, #634 (Ground Floor), 5th Main, Indiranagar 2nd Stage, Bangalore – 560038

FAQs

So, what really happens at a BYOB Party?

Everyone brings a book and talks about it. Conversations follow and they are good. So are the refreshments!

You can take a look at what happened in some of our earlier parties here:

Do I have to be there for the entire duration of four hours?

We aren’t closing doors or locking you in. But the party is best enjoyed if you are there for the entire duration and listen to people talk about a variety of books. Trust us, you won’t know how time flew.

Do I have to bring anything?

Nothing really. But if you have a copy of the book you want to talk about, you might want to bring it in. Other attendees might want to have a look, or you might want to read a paragraph from it.

I am an author. Can I bring a book written by me?

A good writer should be a voracious reader. It would be preferable if you brought a book you really like written by someone else.

Who are the organizers?

Worth a Read

I have more questions. Who do I contact?

Shoot an e-mail to jayajha@instascribe.com.

Okay! I am ready to come. What do I do?

Join our meetup group, RSVP, and come over!

If you are not on meetup, you can also RSVP on Explara.

Vultures and Feminism @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 8)

Sudharsan spoke about Joby Josephs’ Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India. The writer is an investigative journalist and the book is an expose of the famous business houses of the country, for which the author is facing some legal flak. The story is about how corruption is an integral thread of the economy in India and how fixers make things possible in spite of the red tape. This is a blessing and a curse at the same time. So while big businesses flourish in the nation, something is rotten in the system. The book is an important read for those who want to understand how India works today and how much needs to be changed, going ahead.

Abhaya read Seeing like a Feminist by Nivedita Menon, a professor at JNU. He found this read at Zubaan Books. He believes that book is a more systematic Indian rendition of what feminism really means here and how it changed from being about the victim to being about agents of change. The book talks about a variety of things including the history of feminism in India, surrogacy, LGBT rights, sexual violence and lactating fathers.

Some essential feminist reads were discussed including The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and the Golden Notebook by Dorris Lessing. Mention was made of M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Malayalam novel Nalukettu, a novel that is set within the matrilineal confines of Nair society. The prospect of property being passed on from mother to daughter seemed unusual to the readers at the group. though it was concluded that though the matrilineal system has created a more emancipated concept of womanhood in Kerala, male domination is no alien concept there.

And with that, we come to the end of this session.

Light and Letters @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 7)

Shruti continued with the Jerry Pinto theme, having spoken about  Em and the Big Hoom at one of the previous BYOB Parties. She then found another book on mental health issues compiled by Pinto called A Book of Light: When a Loved One Has a Different Mind. He wrote the foreword for the book as well. What he found difficult about the process was getting the stories right. It’s one thing to tell a story and quite another to put these painful real-life incidents into print. So he kept checking the facts, making sure that the people whose stories were published did not have to compromise with their emotions. So there was a very human side to the making of this book.  Even arriving at the title was extremely difficult. Shruti outlined many painful incidents in the book. Reading the stories of those whose family members faced mental health crises, she was inspired to appreciate her every day as for some people the every day is filled with impossible battles that can not be won, just endured. It is difficult to read this book in a stretch, she says, and also a tad disturbing.

Arup got a book called Letters to a Young Poet by the renown poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. The book comprises ten letters Rilke wrote to Franz Xaver Kappus, a 19-year-old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. The duo corresponded about all matters poetry and it Kappus who eventually compiled and published the letters three years after Rilke died of leukemia.

Here is the content of one letter:

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself.

More letters here and more books in Part 8.

World Order and Reader’s Digest @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 6)

Pratyush talked about controversial politician cum articulate author Henry Kissinger’s World Order. The book charts out in chapters dedicated to different parts of the world how the concept of world order actually evolved by trial and error. While once city states were in perpetual conflict, a time came in the history of each region when order became a necessary evil. Even now there are conflicting ideas of what world order means and maintaining peace among differing ideologies is a balancing act hard to attain. In China, the emperor tied the threads of disparate parts of the nation. In  Rome, the idea of civilization being the factor that controlled what was called barbarism took hold, giving the Senate a higher moral ground and justifying their conquest. Again in the US, the perception is that democracy and free speech have guided its policies.

An interesting discussion ensued about how controlling the port of Antwerp led to the creation of Belgium. Abhaya saw a parallel to this in the dispute between Maharashtra and Gujarat over the cosmopolitan Mumbai. The conversation also went on to how in ancient India, states followed a policy of collaborations based on concentric circles. Who was the closest to the circumference of your state was watched with suspicion and those further away were considered as allies. Kissinger’s interpretation of world order was a fresh breath of air for Pratyush and he recommends the book.

Sunny brought along a light read yet again, this time a collection of stories by Reader’s Digest or what is called the Reader’s Digest Select Edition.  The Reader’s Digest magazine evokes many memories, especially for those who read the editions all through the 70’s and the 80’s. Those who have read it have enjoyed Humor in Unform, All in a Day’s Work, etc. Book excerpts were usually published in the last section. I dug up an interesting history of this once fascinating digest. If you wish to ‘recall the glory days of the Reader’s Digest’, check this link.

This particular edition, an Australian one, of abridged books comprised The King of Torts by John Grisham, A Week in Winter by Marcia Willett, The Last Detective by Robert Crais and Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray.

John Grisham tells the story of a young, ambitious lawyer, Clay Carter, who succumbs to the lure of money and becomes a tort lawyer, highly successful in suing large companies. But his success doesn’t last. Marcia Willet deals with a family tragedy and how the character Maudie Todhunter handles it. Robert Crais tells the story of his protagonist Elvis Cole, featuring his personal and professional relationships in his cinematic fast-paced style. Jeanne Ray talks about the changing dynamics of familial power and how baking turns a failed business into a successful enterprise.

Sunny added a self-help takeaway from this edition. Since the books dealt with professionals like disgruntled lawyers, troubled detectives and failed businessmen, he mentioned how important human interaction and validation of your peers is at the workplace. After all, we are more than professionals and not the algorithms that the readers had discussed. He also talked about karma at the workplace, how you can be the King of Torts but how it will come back to you again as karma is real.

More books in Part 7.

Norse Gods and Assamese Short Stories @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 5)

Akshay got a book called Norse Mythology by the celebrated writer, Neil Gaiman. While in Indian mythology, a great deal of writing and interpretation has been made of mythical characters, not many are familiar with the Norse gods. Whatever we know of Norse mythology is circumscribed by Marvel’s depiction of Loki and Thor. Gaiman goes on an odyssey in the Norse world showing readers how the nine worlds were formed, how Odin got his knowledge and the story of valhalla.  “It’s the kind of book that leaves you wanting more,” Akshay said. It seems to be by far the ‘lightest’ book he has got to the BYOB Party.

Amrita spoke about a book translated from Assamese. A Game of Chess is a collection of short stories compiled by Dhirendra Nath. Amrita enjoyed the substance of the stories and felt that they would be appealing to anyone curious about Northeast India. However, she observed that unlike many translations she had read of writers from other languages, this attempt was closer to a transliteration than a translation.

“It’s strange how foreign writers always have better translators,” she said. A famous translator was mentioned to dispel her disappointment- Arunava Sinha is probably the best translator there is right now in the subcontinent, said another reader.

“But the themes stand out- lonely women, anxious fathers and changing times. As far as translations go, even a writer like Tagore’s work is never justified by a worthy translation. Pick up the book if you are looking for a nice easy read.”

More books coming up.