{"id":1170,"date":"2011-08-12T06:28:22","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T06:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2011\/08\/12\/professor-j-manrakhan-6\/"},"modified":"2020-01-04T23:22:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T19:22:59","slug":"professor-j-manrakhan-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/professor-j-manrakhan-6\/","title":{"rendered":"30 books to read before age of thirty"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Professor J. Manrakhan\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>L\u2019embarras des richesses<\/span><\/h4>\n

— L\u00e9nor d\u2019Allainval (1700 \u2013 53) <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I was pleasantly surprised with the listing from \u2018Marc and Angel Hack Life\u2019, Mauritius Times <\/em>(5 August 2011 p 8), where I found that I had read 27 out of the 30. I have deemed the three remaining as missed, even if they still resonate in my memory.\u00a0 These are Nos. 12, 23 and 26.<\/span><\/p>\n

May I be allowed my \u2018subtitutions\u2019 of 3 out of 7 \u2018on the bench\u2019, as it were (in alphabetical order):<\/span><\/p>\n

As It Happened<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0— C. Atlee, British Labour PM, post WWII<\/span><\/p>\n

Discovery of India<\/strong> — J. Nehru, prior to being Indian PM<\/span><\/p>\n

Jungle Tales<\/strong>\u00a0 — R. Kipling<\/span><\/p>\n

Kon Tiki Expedition<\/strong>\u00a0 — T. Heyerdahl<\/span><\/p>\n

A Study of History<\/strong> — A. Toynbee<\/span><\/p>\n

Virgin Soil Upturned<\/strong> — M.A Sholokhov<\/span><\/p>\n

War of the Worlds<\/strong> — H.G. Wells<\/span><\/p>\n

I am rather amazed, however, to find a relative lack of (once mandatory) adventure, detective and travel texts in the 30 chosen, thus:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(i)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2018Bulldog Drummond\u2019 all the way to \u2018James Bond\u2019, and \u2018Flashman\u2019 of \u2018Tom Brown schooldays\u2019 having been metamorphosed into a Public Hero in the Army Service, although still a cowardly bully;<\/span><\/p>\n

(ii)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2018Sherlock Holmes\u2019 of Conan Doyle to RF Keating\u2019s \u2018Inspector Ghote\u2019 of Mumbai CID (via C. Dexter\u2019s \u2018Morse\u2019, Thames Valley; and H. Mankell\u2019s \u2018Warrender\u2019 of Sweden, now retired), and Ms Marples gracefully giving way to Ms Ramotse of Botswana.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(iii)\u00a0 \u00a0 Marco Polo and Magellan eventually to be replaced by Philip Toynbee and Vikram Seth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alas these days, family book collections have dramatically shrunk (\u2018Arabian Nights\u2019 with a lock-and-key device, \u2018Don, Camillo\u2019 and \u2018Jeeves\u2019, anyone?), the British Council Library is closed, and we have yet to find the most practical way to \u2018ring-fence\u2019 the funding in real terms of our Public Libraries: massively detrimental for future generations, surely?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am one of those whose everyday language is Kreol, (while my parents and family elders conversed in Hindi), and my schooling has been essentially French-based until 12 years old, when it changed almost overnight into English — compared with which French has had a huge initial advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

So can we have a repeat exercise please \u2013 but this time in French?\u00a0 I am hoping there (against the odds, admittedly) to find in the \u2018Top 30\u2019, those stalwart cartoon characters: Asterix and Tintin.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 12 August 2011<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Professor J. Manrakhan\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16931],"tags":[21434,21436,21435,21432,13250,989,21433,36,16761,16943],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-literature","tag-arabian-nights","tag-asterix","tag-british-council-library","tag-bulldog-drummond","tag-james-bond","tag-kreol","tag-marc-and-angel-hack-life","tag-mauritius-times","tag-professor-j-manrakhan","tag-tintin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-iS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}