The Good Book Corner Diaries- Preeti Reddy
Preeti Reddy is the CEO of Kantar Insights, South Asia with responsibility for Kantar’s insights agencies – TNS, Millward Brown and IMRB – in the region. Prior to joining IMRB, she was CEO of LMRB in Sri Lanka.
She has over three decades of experience in consumer marketing, consulting, and research helping leading Indian and multinational companies make informed decisions using consumer understanding.
Preeti was chosen from over 350 women professionals across the industry as one of Impact’s ‘50 Most Influential Women Professionals, 2016, in Indian Media, Marketing and Advertising’.
She holds an Honours degree in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and is an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. She is a voracious reader, a bad bridge player, an aspiring golfer, a wanna-be keyboard player who loves scotch, old Hindi film music, movies and poetry. Her main skill, however, is the ability to read anything.
1. List the books on your bedside
- Ever since I got myself a Kindle, there are actually very few books on my bedside. The books on my bedside now tend to be non-fiction or business reading. So, right now I have the following in various stages of ‘will finish it soon’:
i. This Unquiet Land – Barkha Dutt
ii. India’s Broken Tryst – Tavleen Singh
iii. The End of Competitive Advantage – Rita McGrath
- The books waiting to be read on my Kindle are :
i. A Manual for Cleaning Women – Lucia Berlin
ii. Beauty Is A Wound – Eka Kurniawan
iii. The Affirmation – Christopher Priest
2. How important is reading to you
As important as breathing or eating. Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting for me at the end of the day is enough to make me happy
3. How often do you read
- Every day for at least an hour – always in the night
- More than that on weekends
4. Your favourite genre
- I read anything and everything. But my favourite genre are murder mysteries/thrillers particularly police procedurals written by female authors (PD James, Elizabeth George, Ruth Rendell, Anne Cleves, Robert Galbraith (who is actually JK Rowling)….)
- I also love reading poetry – English and Urdu. Poetry is the only thing you can read again and again and not tire of the reading
5. A book you would recommend
- Too many to pick one. But here are some recommendations from my recent reading :
i. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing – Mira Jacob
ii. The Bees – Laline Paull
iii. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Jay Fowler
iv. The Giant’s House – Elizabeth McCraken
- The list looks like all I read are women authors ! I do favour them but I have a long list of male favourites as well – Ian McEwan, John LeCarre, John Fowles, Peter Robinson to name a few …..
6. Your favorite snack/drink while reading
Potato chips and ketchup. Makes for very messy reading
7. Favourite literary/book quote
- Among my favourites are the last lines from ‘The Great Gatsby’ : “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.
- But I also love :” Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”
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