Reading... How wonderful a habit! :)

I am an avid reader.. will keep reading anything that I can lay my hands on... I will not bother abt the genre or the type or the number of pages or the content in the books. I read:

1. Ayn Rand
2. Ravi Belegare
3. RK Narayan
4. Harold Robbins
5. Irving Wallace
6. Ian Fleming
7. John Grisham
8. Alfred Hitchcock
9. Arthur Hailey
10. Sydney Sheldon
11. JK Rowling
12. Auto-biographies (From Christopher Reeve to Musharraf and Adolph Hitler)
13. Sigmund Freud
14. Mark Twain
15. Kuldip Nayar
16. Kushwant Singh
17. Dan Brown
18. Mario Puzo
19. Enid Blyton
20. Theological stuff (like Swami Sukhabodhananda, Osho, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Normal Vincent Peale etc.)
21. Essays (of Amartya Sen, APJ Abdul Kalam etc.)
22. Innumerable Kannada Novels including SL Bhairappa, BV Anantharam, Yendamoori Veerendranath, UR Ananthamoorthy, Girish Karnad, Beechi etc (Thanks Ananth for pointing this out!)
    
23. Any eBook that I can lay my eyes on :)
24. ....
25. ....
26. ....

The list is never ending..

I started reading these kind of books from my school days where I used to rush into the library for almost 4 times a day to read a book inside the library and borrow a book every day. Read it overnight and return the book the next day to borrow another one.

I have read Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Archies, Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha, Jataka Tales, Panchatantra, Famous Five, Secret Seven etc.

Though I started this habit coz this was one which was as per my interests and I cultivated my interests in this coz I was unable to do anything else; This is one habit which has continued till date and hopefully, will continue with me to the grave!

Initially, I did not buy books coz of financial problems that we were undergoing those days.. so, in Mysore, it was always the library to give me books and I was unable to get membership of any public library too.. So, it was my school and college libraries. Even now, when I go there, I make it a point to visit my school library and spend some time there.

My dad told me that "Books are the best friends of a man" and the next thing that I did was beseech my school librarian to issue me two books per day! There have been a lot of funny incidents regarding my reading.. I had read so much one day that I forgot to eat. Once, I was reading with a book on my lap and had so much that I found it difficult to get up from the floor after food.

There was this duration of two years in which I studied in a not-so-good college and in those two years, I was unable to read much.. As soon as I got myself into a better college for my graduation, I started again!

If I reminisce now, it is quite amazing how freely I interacted with my librarians who used to go out of their bounds to get me a book that I wanted. And the library of the not-so-good college had librarians who themselves were not interested in any kind of books!

I also have this habit of using bookmarks.. I used to keep a small piece of paper in such a way that none noticed it even if they have read the book and I used to do this in public libraries.

So, as soon as I came to Bangalore, I was amazed by the number of books available on the road side.. and the rate at which they are available. So, I bought a few books and I still have retained them. But, I soon realized that they are pirated books and have hence, stopped buying books from roadside vendors. Now, 'm a regular visitor to Landmark, Oxford and Higginbothams.

Shelfari is a social networking website related to books.. but I was able to see so many people on shelfari who do not have any "books" and I know so many people there who do not even read any "books", but they are members of that...

What is the reason of being a member of a social networking website if you are not, in any way, making use of the network???