(Vanity) Bookworms -- need yopur suggestion(s) on a book.

Dec 03, 2008 | Yankeedame

[yankeedame]

Hey gang,

I need some suggestions for a book on the real Mahama Gandhi. I've read two or three books on the British Raj over the course of years, but have yet to read a bio of Gandhi. Needless to say I don't want to get stuck with some fawning dribble.

Thanks!

Your fellow bookworm,

--YD

[Cagey]

"The Mahatma?"

I heard he used to polish off a box of Triscuits.

[Chickensoup]

I have read a lot of Ved Meta’s work over the years. He is well worth reading. Interestingly, he is also blind.

[wideminded]

Interestingly, he is also blind.

According to Wikipedia he became blind at age four. I had no clue about this in reading his Gandhi book. I recall one place in the where he described a woman (a follower of Gandhi) whom he met as having "large weak eyes". I wonder how he knew.

[MHT]

This year I have found The Book Thief to be my favorite read. I also enjoyed A Thousand Splendid Suns much more than its brother, The Kite Runner.

[henkster]

I’m kind of in a holding pattern until Christmas. I usually get four or five books from my continuing list. Right now I’m reading an old British book on “Operation Sea Lion.” It mostly discusses the “mood” in Britain and the domestic security measures taken by the authorities during the invasion scare of 1940.

It’s a good lesson that once people accept a level of government intrusion into their private lives in the name of national security, it is very difficult to get the government to keep it’s nose out when the emergency has passed.

[Tanniker Smith]

Are the spellers the “dummies” or the teacher? or both?

[MotleyGirl70]

Please take me off your PING list. No more.

Thanks.

[Rebelbase]

I miss you.

[La Enchiladita]

For Gandhi, truth was the sovereign principle; inclusive of many other spiritual principles and schools of thought.

I don't know why people insist on believing this garbage. Gandhi was not a saint, not even spiritual but just a small, cruel man.... about as "spiritual" as Jimmy Carter.

[annalex]

Because he was able to achieve independence for India without war.

[La Enchiladita]

Okay. You're saying that because you choose to accept the propaganda that Gandhi achieved independence for India, you also accept without questioning that he was "spiritual."

Some Indians feel that after the 1930s, Gandhi although by now world-famous, was in fact in sharp decline. Did he at least "get the British out of India?" Some say no. India in the last days of the British Raj, was already largely governed by Indians. ... and it is a common view that without this irrational, wildly erratic holy man the transition to full independence might have gone both more smoothly and more swiftly." The Gandhi Nobody Knows, p. 12.

I recommend reading the entire document as linked above in post 16.

[annalex]

I can be as skeptical as you are — I did not study the issue and you apparently have, and I defer to your knowledge. I simply say that the mythology of Gandhi stems not from his person but from the fact that India by and large avoided violence on her way to independence.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2142324/posts?page=10#10