For Simone Singh, the tele-actress who appears in serials like Gaatha, Sea Hawks, Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai, Jootha Sach and Swabhimaan, books are one thing she cannot do without. Almost any paperback will do. "I'm not a snob for any particular kind of literature. I enjoy reading, period," she says. But she does have a bias for books on philosophy, the occult, mysticism and stranger-than-fiction. In fact, when she was 12, Simone had a revelation that the mystery behind the pyramids and the Sphinx were actually lamp posts lighting a spiritual path. Such books have insights to offer, which is why she prefers to stay away from pulp fiction. Currently she is reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, a "fascinating and complicated sort of a book on the mystery of the Atlantis." She has been looking for this book for a long time. She had read Eco's Name Of The Rose and since then has become one of his greatest fans. Books are also her sleeping pills. No matter how long the day hasgone on under the arc lights, she does not switch off her lamp unless she has read for a couple of hours, every night.
