For the past few months I've been buried in reading. My free time is often spent indulging in the things that make me curious, interest me, I waste away my hours learning. I love to read. I eat up books as if I'm indulging colourful French macarons, popping one after the other. I also eat up news and blogs. I easily get lost in reading. It eases my mind and separates me from more existential turmoils such as wondering as to the purpose of my life (an entirely futile endeavor) or fantasizing when the man of my dreams is going to arrive (wishful thinking). Charles W. Eliot (whoever he is) once said: "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." Truth.
Among my favorite authors - Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Salman Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz, Karen Armstrong, Tariq Ramadan, Idries Shah, his son Tahrir Shah (my books have relatives), Gautama Chopra, Al Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Khalil Gibran, Jiddu Krishnamurti, poets Fernando Pessoa, R.M. Rilke, Rumi, Hafiz, Rab'ia, Jami, Sadi, and Mahmoud Darwish, and many more.
Books I've recently finished include: Heart, Soul and Self: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance and Harmony by Robert Frager; The Essential Feminist Reader by Estelle Freedman; The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss; and The Wind Amongst the Ruins: A Childhood in Macao by my auntie, Edith "Didi" Jorge de Martini; and The Sufis by Idries Shah.
Books I've been stuck on for the past year and half and still haven't finished (yes, I have a few of those): The Prince a biography of Prince Bandar bin Sultan by his friend William Simpson (undoubtedly bias but well-written), and Desert Queen a biography of Gertrude Bell by Janet Wallach. For some reason I get to certain parts in biographies where my eyes start glazing over and I can't get past them. These two books are my first attempts to crack the biography genre.
One of my favorite books by far was a travelogue by Canadian poet Marius Kociejowski, The Street Philospher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey where Kociejowski recounts his adventures across Syria with two unlikely and eccentric characters, an unemployed romantic smoking cafe-loitering philosopher and his friend a mad Sufi who aspires to uncover the secrets of alchemy and turn lead into gold. Reality is stranger than fiction indeed, but the two characters of Kociejowski's travelogue are exceedingly lovable.
My current reads include: In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey Into the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta Ahmed; The Religion of Islam, a classic by Maulana Muhamad Ali; Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jallaludin Rumi by Rumi.
I recently purchased Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary.
Arif & Ali's Blog provided a great review of the book noting it to be "an unbiased account from the birth of Islam 1400 years ago right through the various Caliphate regimes, covering the Mongol Raids as well as the Glory days of the Moghuls right down till the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I don’t think there’s a country or major event in the tale that Aga Ansary has left uncovered."
I'm dying to read it but I have to finish my other books first. At any rate, reading is a wonderful anti-productively productive hobby.
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