Timeless books at home
World Book Day
On World Book Day, I decided to compile a list of timeless books from our collection at home. It was not easy as the books are widely scattered across several bookshelves. Arranging these books has been one of the several home improvement or self improvement projects, which are generally pending and long overdue.
Criterion
These are the books that I keep browsing several times over and get the same feelings back when I read the book for the first time. I have read some of these books while in school, some while in college, many in later years and the collection continues to grow.
There are several books I have enjoyed reading but I have not been included in this list. The reason is that I did not particularly enjoy browsing those books again. Many were read only once and that was the end of that book for me. Most books would fall in that category. The list I prepared today includes books that have enriched me each time I have picked them up, dusted them and browsed through them. Some of these are also now on my kindle but then there is no substitute to the print edition. At home, I read only from the printed book. It is only while traveling, that the kindle gets activated.
List of Books Forever
(all copyrights of the authors, publishers, illustrators and painters acknowledged)
A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton (published by Rider, an Imprint of Ebuty Press, Random House)
A Tree in My Village, written and illustrated by Paritosh Sen (published by Tulika)
Conversations with Nature — The Art of Bireswar Sen (1897–1974) with an essay by B. N. Goswamy (catalogue published in May 2013 by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in collaboration with Bireswar Sen Family Trust)
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (Penguin Modern Classics)
David Gentleman’s India (published by Tara-India Research Press)
Georgia O’Keefe by Lisa Mintz Messinger [published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, London (2001)]
Gitanjali — song offerings by Rabindranath Tagore — A collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali manuscript (published by Visva Bharati and UBS Publishers’ Distributors Pvt. Ltd.)
Gypsy by Mangesh Padgaonkar (published by Mauj Prakashan Gruh, cover by Padma Sahastrabuddhe)
Indian Art by Partha Mitter (published by Oxford University Press)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (first published by Martin Secker & Warburg 1949, published by Penguin Books 1954)
O Jerusalem by Dominique Lapiere and Larry Collins (published by Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Padas by Ram Patwardhan (translation of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)
Cover by Gajanan Bhagwat, inside illustrations by Edward Shenton, published by Mauj Prakashan Gruh (1992)
Points Unknown — A Century of Great Explorations, edited by David Roberts
Book and Jacket design by Chris Welch, Jacket photograph by Cameron Wake, “An Outside Book”
Premchand Ki Mashhoor Kahaniyan (short stories) edited by Dr. Nafees Afridi, cover by Dharmveer (published by Hind Pocket Books)
Rain in the Mountains — notes from The Himalayas by Ruskin Bond (published by Penguin Books India)
Sherlock Holmes — The Complete Illustrated Novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (published by Chancellor Press, London)
Surrender at Dacca — Birth of a Nation by Lt Gen J F R Jacob (jacket design by J.M.S. Rawat, published by Manohar Publishers)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a novel in words and pictures by Brian Selznick (published by Scholastic Press)
The Little Prince, written and drawn by Antione De Saint-Exupery
Translated from the French by Katherine Woods (first published by William Heinemann Ltd., subsequently by Pan Books Ltd.)
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (published by Harper Perennial, an Imprint Harper Collins Publishers)
The Second World War by Antony Beevor (published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The Sound of Music — The Official Companion to the world’s most beloved musical by Lawrence Maslon with foreword by Andrew Llyod Webber (published by Pavilion)
There’s no such place as far away by Richard Bach with paintings by H. Lee Shapiro
Published by Harper Collins Publishers, Paperback Edition 1993
Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome
Illustrated by Elizabeth Odling (published by Indus, an Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers India)
Zumbar by Prakash Narayan Sant — cover and inside illustrations by Vasant Sarwate (published by Mauj Prakashan Gruh)
As of now, these are the timeless books from our collection of books at home. There is a deep emotional bond with these books and that is the reason these are the forever books from our book collection. May be I should write about each of them as each of these timeless books have been so special. While there are many other books as part of our collection of books, they have been read and they do not matter much now except for an occasional reference. Feel happy that I thought of compiling this list on the International Day of the Book, also known as World Book and Copyright Day.
