Scroll To The Bottom (3/3) - A Guided Walk-through 111 Days of Bibliotherapy

  • 13 Jul, 2020

The third and final part of a guided scroll to the bottom of the Instagram feed, a walk through 111 days of Bibliotherapy in reverse chronological order.

Please find below the links to parts one and two...

Already read both? Awesome!!! Now...

[WANT TO READ MORE IN 2021?
ADD YOURSELF TO THE BIBLIOTHERAPY READERS' LIST]

Chapter VII

March 22nd - April 9th, 2020: Jaipur Literature Festival, William Dalrymple, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, Book Challenges, Shashi Tharoor, P.G. Wodehouse, Sebastian Faulks, Stephen King, Max Fatchen, Mark Manson, Charles Bukowski, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Shivya Nath...

#JLF #AnEraOfDarkness #JeevesandWooster #HankChinaski #Madna #TheShootingStar

Diggi Diaries...

Jaipur Literature Festival — Episode One, The Delegate Experience (2018–19)

Alternative Title — FanBoy meets TreesGoneWild

medium.com
Trulli

A Dissertation on Delhi...

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“I was only seventeen. After ten years at school in a remote valley in the moors of North Yorkshire, I had quite suddenly found myself in India, in Delhi. From the very beginning I was mesmerized by the great capital, so totally unlike anything I had ever seen before. Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices. Moreover the city - so l soon discovered - possessed a bottomless sea of stories: tales receding far beyond history, deep into the cavernous chambers of myth and legend… . ...All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, returned to the same dust… . ...Delhi, said Pir Sadr-ud-Din, was a city of djinns. Though it had been burned by invaders time and time again, millennium after millennium, still the city was rebuilt; each time it rose like a phoenix from the fire. Just as the Hindus believe that a body will be reincarnated over and over again until it becomes perfect, so it seemed Delhi was destined to appear in a new incarnation century after century. The reason for this, said Sadr-ud-Din, was that the djinns loved Delhi so much they could never bear to see it empty or deserted. To this day every house, every street corner was haunted by them… . ...In Delhi I knew I had found a theme for a book: a portrait of a city disjointed in time, a city whose different ages lay suspended side by side as in aspic, a city of djinns. Five years after I first lived in Delhi I returned, now newly married. Olivia and I arrived in September. We found a small top-floor flat near the Sufi village of Nizamuddin and there set up home. Our landlady was Mrs Puri…” . .- William Dalrymple, .‘City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi’ (1993) @penguinindia . . An eminently readable history of India’s capital, disguised as a travelogue. . . . .📸 - @abhishekapoor9. .📖 - @jitsunw_tharbus.

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[add to library --> City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi - William Dalrymple]

Compulsory reading - Indian History 101...

{add to library --> An Era of Darkness - Shashi Tharoor]
The Speech.

What Ho. What Ho? What Ho...

A tribute to Plum from Dr Tharoor...

"Don't Try..."

[add to library --> Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski]

Rahul Bose reading aloud from the screenplay of 'English, August'...

(Read Now on Kindle --> English, August - Upamanyu Chatterjee]

Valid tips from 'The Shooting Star'...

[add to library --> The Shooting Star: A Girl, her Backpack and the World - Shivya Nath]
Story Archive #1

(View on Instagram --> a selection of above highlights from the story archive)

Chapter VIII

...Britannia, Aldous Huxley, Douglas Adams, Jack Kerouac, Carl Sagan, Origin Story.

#42 #Cosmos #OriginStory

"Don't Panic..."

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"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has- or rather had- a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches..." . - Douglas Adams ‘The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A Trilogy of Five’ (1979-92) @panmacmillan . Already read this? Awesome! Now… .🗨️Head over to @herecomesthesunofficial to participate in their Shiny Happy Book Club for March, in association with @booksontoast .📚READ IT AGAIN, with Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) and ‘Don’t Panic’, his official companion to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy .🎧Feast your ears on a) the audiobook by the magnificent @stephenfryactually and b) the original @bbc radio 4 dramatization. On @audible .📚Discover the sixth book in the ludicrously inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, ‘And Another Thing..’ by @eoincolfer, the @artemisfowl guy .➕Don’t panic. Contribute to the guide in the comments instead... (:

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[ADD TO LIBRARY --> THE ULTIMATE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - DOUGLAS ADAMS
ADD TO LIBRARY --> DON'T PANIC: DOUGLAS ADAMS & THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - NEIL GAIMAN]

Saganism at its best...

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"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky..." . - Carl Sagan ‘Cosmos: The Story of Cosmic Evolution, Science and Civilisation’ (1983) Abacus Already read this? Awesome! Now... . .📱Follow the official fan page @saganism .📚 Read the just released sequel ‘Cosmos: Possible Worlds’ by Ann Druyan (@druyanism) . .📚 Read ‘For Small Creatures Such as We - Rituals for finding meaning in our unlikely world’, the debut book penned by his daughter @sashasagan . .📺 Watch ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’ (@cosmosontv) on @hotstarpremium (India), @foxtv and @natgeochannel (elsewhere). Hosted by @neildegrassetyson. Produced by @macfarlaneseth, the original Family Guy (@familyguyfox) Season 2 out soon!!! . .📱Explore @cosmos & @neil.degrasse for more breathtaking content. . .➕ Contribute to this list in the comments section. Thanks (:

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Origin Story (1/3)...

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One Billion Seconds (or 31.7ish years) 6th October, 1985 - 8th August, 2017 On the morning of the 9th, a Wednesday, my alarm didn't go off. Still I woke up at 9, surprisingly hangover-free considering the 11-pint 'fare-thee-well' bender the night before. I woke up absolutely free, completely clueless about the day ahead. My time was mine, and no one else's. For the first time ever. No school or college to attend. For the first time in seven years, there were no commutes, colleagues, managers, clients, meetings, targets, Key Responsibility Areas, achievements, designations, paychecks, rewards, bonuses, career advancements, job security ahead... Also no concrete goals or fixed Plan Of Action. Only uncertainty, and lots of it. The first few hours of my 'gap year' were three parts liberating, ninety-seven parts overwhelming. So it was a literally insane me who decided that the best cure for my blues would be to spend some exclusive quality time with the ones who’ve been responsible for much of my joy and happiness over three decades, but now scattered all over the place. My books. Over three weeks of self-prescribed bibliotherapy, I reunited myself with long lost buddies from all stages in life, the fondest from childhood. And there were more than a few still around, all thanks to a mother who believed there can’t be a thing such as too many books, and a father who carefully preserved every memory, even all those years I wasn’t around, busy playing the Game of Life. There were many gifted and treasured, some bought but never read; others borrowed but never returned; none stolen, thankfully. For the first time, I had all my friends in the same place, at the same time. And like responsible friends, one, they gave me perspective, and two, the encouragement to pull off crazy, random stuff, one day at a time… . . . (1/3)

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Origin Story (2/3)...

Origin Story (3/3)...

Congratulations!! You made it to the bottom of this trilogy of rather long reads. Thanks a ton for scrolling all the way. Now you know what I did this strangest of summers to keep myself sane and occupied.

In the words of Carl Sagan, ‘a book is proof that humans are capable of working magic’. And now, more than ever, we need magic.

This sanity project has helped me keep it together so far, one day at a time. I'd love to hear what's working for you during this transition to a New World Order. Also, I'm always happy to help with personalized recommendations for your next read.

Stay tuned for more experiments with Bibliotherapy. Suggestions for future editions are most welcome.

Stay safe, stay sane!!
- Nitin
Reader-in-Chief
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PS. #ScrollToTheBottom Bonus - the first ever post on Instagram.

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Edit- We have moved to Razorpay for payments within India. For readers outside India: Sign up for the Readers of 42 at a one-time fee of $50 to unlock access to the following benefits: Benefits: 1. Access to the Readers of 42 Library on Substack - readersof42.substack.com 2.Access to Global Weekly Readathons - Every Thursday in 2025, receive nudges to read 5 pieces of writing at 8:42 AM IST 3. Digital Copies of 42: The Curious Reader's Companion Volumes 1-5 - Swipe and tap to access a selection of 42 hand-picked reads, across genres, by 42 different authors in each volume + podcasts, videos, bonus links, writing prompts, and more 4. Access to The Biblio Lab - a Private Newsletter on Substack - Be the first to know about our curation, creation & community experiments and take part in them. - Nandini & Nitin

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