Ten for the price of None

November, for me, has always been a time of looking back the way I’ve come and taking stock of what and what not has been achieved in the months that have slipped through my grasp already since my last Nameday.

Most of my Novembers, therefore, tend to begin on the worst possible note, marking the beginning of the aforesaid responsibility (now impending) and then proceed to hit even lower notes with each succeeding day as I contemplate harder on what exactly was it that I had set out to but could not accomplish during this interlude that has galloped away into my past so swiftly and so indiscernibly- straight through my person- leaving not even a hoof-mark on my tanned temple.

But, seeing as the dreaded November is still a full day’s ride ahead of me as I type this, I am finding it impossible not to seek a middle ground, a kind of consolation for my troubled conscience, by forgiving the writer-who-doesn’t-write and celebrating the reader-who-reads-fine-enough in his stead. Why not simply shed the intent of making a desperate attempt to rekindle my penchant for the verbose? Why not leave it be, for one of them dreaded November days to crib, eh?

(Aye, I could do that)

And what better way to do it than taking stock of the gems I have been lapping up all this while that I haven't opened my word processor to write an original tale.

(Oh what gems these were indeed!)

Thus, what follows, for the audience to endure, is a series of reactions on the ten literary titles that I managed to gobble up since my date with the King in April; via his memoir- On Writing.

Of course, what follows still remains the desperate attempt of a writer to rekindle his penchant for the verbose; only in disguise.

But I cannot help it. Somethings just lie in your bones.

PS: To keep things interesting for myself (and also because its past bloody 2 in the AM already!) I unveil them to you in the order that they strike me, which means- in no particular order.