The List That Matters

The Asian Age runs a list of best sellers for the week. For two weeks now the Booker award winning novel The White Tiger has been topping the list. The others that follow have been pretty consistent too. Brisinger has been at the silver medal winning spot and Meenakshi Madhavan Reddy who writes the immensely popular blog called The Compulsive Confessor is holding forth at spot number three while I am holding fourth (could never resist a cheap pun!) ... I missed even the bronze. But I don't crib. I am made of a different "metal" :)I was just beginning to wonder if it was the same list that they ran on the week of 7th Dec 08 that got reprinted. A bit like spot the difference between the two pictures. But no, there is the Non Fiction section to look at to see that another blogger is leading at No 1 with Stay Hungry Stay Foolish ahead of Thomas Friedman, Barack Obama and Randy Pausch.Best seller lists are lists. If you have not heard Randy Pausch, the Prof from Carnegie Mellon Univ, US talk about the list he made as a kid, then you have to listen to this one. Carnegie Mellon Univ posted the full 76 minute version of The Last Lecture it on youtube.com. The man made a list of things to do in his childhood and talks about how many of them he has met. Do you have a list like that? I had written about the film Dasvidaniya recently which has a list making protagonist. Randy Pausch inspires you to make a list of your own.If you had one last lecture to give, what would you say? The video that brings tears to my eyes and inspires every time I watch it. Don't miss it.