Raman's Blog

I just read Lewis Buzbee’s book Yellow-lighted bookshop. I liked it a lot. It is his memoirs about bookselling experience and about his book-lust. Book also covers general history of book printing and selling. It’s a nice book written in a simple and cool way. I found a lot of useful bookstore’s names and other tips. Below I am going to record the things which I find useful for myself.

Book-stores (near bay area) ::

- Booksmith (SFO , Haight Ashbury Dist)
-City Lights book store (sfo north beach)
-Black Oak books ( SFO , used books )
-Hicklebee's (San Jose, Children's books)
- Tower Records (Book/Record stores)    
-Abebooks.com (website for used book stores)
- B Dalton (San Jose, not sure if it still there)

Book trends/tidbits/books:

- Book Business by Jason Epstein
- A heartbreaking work of staggering genius ( memoirs by Dave Eggers; his magazine McSweeny’s )
- Howl by Alan Ginsberg (first published by Citylights store)
- use of POD (print on demand) technology
- Ulysses by James Joyce (first published by Sylvia Beach’s Paris store Shakespeare & co)
- Don Quixote ( a great book )
- In search of lost time ( Proust)
- The grapes of wrath ( John Steinbeck , the book which started the book disease for Buzbee)
- The Long Valley ( Favorite Steinbeck book for Buzbee)
- Will you be quiet, please (By Raymond Carver)
- The sound and the fury (by William Faukner)
- The Essays of E B White
- Higglety Piggelty Pop by Maurice Sendak
- The Tall Book of Fairy Tales
- Great Children’s stories (Volland edition)
- A Farewell to arms ( E Hemingway)
- Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
- If on a winter’s night a Traveler ( by Italo Calvino )

My parents are here now. I am trying to behave as a good boy and keep everything in order at the house.

At office work is going manageable.  Because of the parents’ arrival some of my liberties are not available any more and I am running hard-pressed to find any free time. So not much time for reading books etc.

I think its going to be a little difficult one month ahead.

I am pushing my self to get the officework done on time but its quite difficult at time.

This saturady went to a kid’s birthday party with my son. It was fun with some usual little chit chat with other fellow Indians.

I read the second Dilbert book Dogbert’ Management handbook and it was quite a fun. I loved the Scott Adam has captured the little quirks of office/corporate environment. I am going to finish the third one Dilbert Future soon. I noticed that these kinds of books are making me more cheerful. So I am planning to include humor books in my staple diet of books.

Went to the book sale on jul 8th which has become a monthly ritual for me now. I got some good books for myself, my son and 1 cookbook for my wife.

I started with a new psychiatrist and he seems to be much better than my previous one who was basically useless. He is able to give all the details and answer all my questions. So lets hope that I will be able to streamline things with his help. On the health front things are little mixed and I am little confused about some of my symptoms. It seems to me that a lot of time I am feeling sleepiness, lethargy and very irritable/negative kind of mood and also a very slow working brain with difficulty in concentrating and having the freshness of brain.

On the office front things are going stable. There has been a cust survey which has been so far promising for our group. So hopefully that’s a good sign. At the home front things are pretty good. I have a lot of fun with kids and my wife. My little daughter is generally very cheerful so that makes my day. I joke with my wife that I am getting biased towards her compared to my elder son.  My parents are arriving this Sunday. I am hoping that trip will be smoother this time. Last trip when I was in A was disaster on several fronts.

I saw Cars with my son and family. It was OK.  I am planning to see Pirates and/or superman alone (if I get the time).

It has been a big tension to get my daughter Indian citizenship application processed. These guys have some weird photo rules. They have rejected my application once saying that photos are over exposed. My photographer tells me that he has never heard such a thing. It took me so much to drag myself get the second version ready. I am sending it this with a lot of prayers. Lets hope it will be accepted this time.

I missed updating my blog last week. It has been bit busy in on way or other. I went to the book sale and got the good books. I was very happy when the lady at the register said that she is impressed with my selection of childern’s books. Yesterday got a small gathering of few people from my one of the prev. companies.