Sports & Reading

I am an avid though average golfer. I find the pursuit of perfection an enjoyable and worthwhile challenge. It is such a mind game! I played tennis for many years. I admire its athleticism.

I love reading biographies, fiction and nonfiction.

I highly recommend a couple of books I read recently. Paths of Glory (by Jeffrey Archer), is a biographical novel on the life of George Leigh Mallory, the English mountaineer who died in an accident on the Everest in 1924. Considered the best mountaineer of his generation, it has remained a mystery whether he died after or before conquering the world’s highest peak. He was last seen climbing strongly just 800 feet below the summit. Mallory’s frozen body was discovered on the mountain seventy-five years later in 1999. Archer deals with Mallory with empathy and affection, describing his lifelong love with mountains and his wife Ruth. If it be known in future that he had succeeded, the claims of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as the first men (in 1953) on the highest point on Earth would be re-written.

The other book series is by Alexander McCall Smith – The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Morality for Beautiful Girls and The Kalahari Typing School for Men. Set in Botswana the stories revolve around the times and tribulations of M’ma Precious Ramotswe, a ‘traditionally built’ lady, and her detective agency. Written simply, with affection for Botswana and its people the stories bring a constant smile to one’s lips.

Some of the other books I have enjoyed reading are Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, and Khaled Hosseini’s books A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner.

I read The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer. First published in Great Britain in 1951, and reprinted numerous times, Fischer’s book is considered the best biography on Gandhi. Fischer describes Gandhi’s greatness and warts with generosity and authenticity.