Federer on Clay

I was an ardent tennis fan and Pete Sampras is my favorite. Even after four or five years of his retirement from professional tennis circuit, my loyalty remains unchanged. I still watch and enjoy tennis, so I realize that Roger Federer seems formidable to all his opponents now, perhaps except of course on clay. His recent loss to Nadal at Roland Garros reminded me of Sampras' only semi-final run at French Open in 1996, where he lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov (it is a solace Kafelnikov eventually went on to win the open). That was a sad moment, because it was the closest he got to the title, unlike Federer, who is a two time finalist. Federer has a lot of great tennis left in him and might still go on to win on clay in the next year or two (unlike Sampras). Once I would have vouched that Sampras' fourteen grand slams was unbeatable. But now I know Federer will beat Sampras' record before he retires, which I am not too happy about. But then, records are meant to be broken and a few years down the line someone else will break Federer's.

List of books I've read

2007:
The name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Banker to the Poor - Muhammad Yunus
July's People - Nadine Gordimer
My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

2006:
Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Lord of the Flies - William Golding

2005:
One flew over the cuckoo's nest - Ken Kesey
Canary row - John Steinbeck
Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck
Short stories by American authors
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Things fall apart - Chinua Achebe
The great Gatsby - Scott Fitzgerald
Years of childhood: AKe - Wole Soyinka
Heavier than heaven - Charles R. Cross
Random walk down wall street - Burton G. Malkiel
Trial - Franz Kafka

The Name of the Rose

It's very hard for me to write a fair and personal review on this book. First, because of all the Latin text, which I initially tried to follow by hopping on to the web every now and then. I began to realize I was spending way too much time understanding these (I have more books to read) and so decided to find the meanings of only those phrases that seemed important to me, given the context, or those that occurred repeatedly. Well, it worked (because I finished reading the novel), but I am sure I have missed a great deal in not understanding those beautiful phrases, which convey much more than a reader like me can perceive. Books like these are lot more than a rudimentary plot. Often they express and solicit varied opinions on bigger things like life, its meaning, death or trivial things like sleep, dreams, food etc. At every stage the richness of content and power of words feed to your mind, forcing you to think and form a viewpoint. As for the novel itself, it is sort of firsts to me in some respects. Being my first about early Christianity, it was a great opportunity to read about Franciscans, Benedictines, Papal legations, and monks. The story itself moved at a relatively slow pace giving ample time to absorb these details. The manner in which chapters have been titled is novel. One handicap was that I was unable to visualize their settings and appearances very clearly (although I did surf for images on the web). I plan to watch the movie soon. On the whole, a different kind of book to read. I am still in the process of figuring out the meaning of the final Latin hexameter.