booklover

Books of 2018

The Chinese Zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao, is based on a twelve-year cycle, each year in that cycle related to an animal sign. These signs are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

If I had to define 2018 for me, it would be Year of Books. In the beginning of the year, I had resolved to read 200 books. By the end of the year, I finished reading 209. This does not include any half reads (DNF ) ones.

Reviewing Books of 2018 is going to be a humongous task given that I have read 200 books and liked most of them! You can find detailed review of these books (I have posted some & will be posting more) on my Instagram account @bookdragonhaven

I am posting the best reads genre wise (it was difficult to choose one genre for some of the books)

Drama: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry & The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (sequel to the former) – It’s a story about friendship, love, commitments and loss. Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang – The book alternates between the script of the movie and real-life anecdotes while filming the movie. Interesting style, I think. I also read Nayak, which is of a similar style. Nayak is a movie made by Satyajit Ray turned into a book. Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy – content wise the book is not much, but the architecture, clothes and lifestyle of the riches are detailed in a very interesting manner! Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows – Balli Kaur Jaiswal – Not a fan of Erotica but this one is written very well. (It is not only erotica btw, it is more about the stories of Punjabi Widows who live in London, specially Southall) Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells – A moving tale of friendship and sisterhood. Wonder – a story about a boy with a deformed face (If you love books, read. If you love movies, watch the one with Owen Wilson & Julia Roberts), Godan – Premchand (Hindi)

Dystopia: All the novels I read of this genre were too good! Be it the Hunger Games Trilogy, Flawed & Perfect by Cecilia Ahern and the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood!

Fantasy: Artemis Fowl series – Eoin Colfer, The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern, The magical moonlight flower & enchanting stories – Satyajit Ray, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – Imogen Hermes Gowar, How to make time stop – Matt Haig (one of my most favourite authors now), Poonachi – Perumal Murugan (Story from a point of view of the goat – It was simply fantastic to know what goes in a goat’s world), The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin, The Bear and the Nightingle – Katherine Arden, Fire & Blood – George RR Martin, Father Christmas series – Matt Haig

History (History, Historical Fiction & Historical Romances): The last train to Istanbul – Ayse Kulin, Lincoln in the Bardo (More like the Abstract, Experimental category), The Rose of Sarajevo – Ayse Kulin, Barygaza (History of Bharuch, an important port for trading with Greece), The Guernsey literary and potato peel society – Mary Ann Shafer, The Colour Purple – Alice Walker, The little coffee shop of Kabul – Deborah Rodriguez, Love in Exile – Ayse Kulin (Was a bit disappointing, lots of questions unanswered), A Suitable Boy (Never ending saga of post-independence India), Good Things I Wish You – A Manette Mansay (Romance in romance, a writer writing book about 19th century pianists Robert & Clara Schumann & their relationship with each other & Johannes Brahms & also exploring a relationship herself), Lajja – Taslima Nasreen, Jinnah often came to our house – Kiran Doshi, Beneath a Scarlet Sky – Mark Sullivan, The name of the Rose – Umberto Eco, The boy in the striped pajamas – John Boyne, The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje, Lioness of Morocco – Henrietta Meire and Julia Drosten, The Architect’s Apprentice – Elif Shafak, The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah, The Good Earth trilogy – Pearl S Buck

Humour: The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared & The accidental further adventures of the hundred-year-old man – Jonas Jonasson, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews (It’s actually about cancer & death, but in a humorous way), Batatya chi chawl – Pu La Deshpande (Marathi)

Memoirs: Smrutichitre – Laxmi Tilak, Don’t Disturb the Dead – Shamya Dasgupta, Shashi Kapoor, The householder, the star – Aseem Chhabra, The Good, The Bad & The Ridiculous – Khushwant Singh, The one & lonely Kidar Sharma – Kidar Sharma, Romancing with life – Dev Anand, In Other Words – Jhumpa Lahiri, Shoe Dog – Phil Knight, This is me – Chrissy Metz, #GirlBoss – Sophia Amoruso

Mystery & Thrillers: The girl with the dragon tattoo trilogy – Steig Larsson, 13 Reasons why – Jay Asher, Ghachar Ghochar (sort of absurd), The Widows of Malabar Hill – Sujata Massey, Frog Music – Emma Donoghue, Seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton, Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra, I let you go – Clare Makintosh, We need to talk about Kevin – Lionel Shriver, We were liars – E Lockhart, Good Girl – Mary Kubica, Inspector Singh Investigates – Shamini Flint

Love / Romance / Feel Good: Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine – Gail Honeyman, Me Before You trilogy – Jojo Moyes, The art of hearing heartbeats – Jan-Philipp Sendker, Words in Blue – Cath Crowley, The Kiss Quotient – Helen Hoang, The History of Love – Nicole Krauss, To all the boys I have loved before – Jenny Han, I see London, I see France – Sarah Mlynowski, Less – Andrew Greer, PS from Paris – Mark Levy, One Man Guy – Michael Barakiva, Love & Gelato – Jenna Evans Welch, November 9 – Colleen Hoover, The Hating Game – Sally Thorne, Boy meets Boy – David Levithan, Cobalt Blue – Sachin Kundalkar, Dumplin – Julie Murphy

That’s it folks!!

How to train a book dragon!

In the beginning of the year I had resolved to read 200 books this year, having read 158 books the previous year.

I don’t count the books I have read but at the end of year, I take stock of what kind of books I am reading. I just list out the books from my #NowReading on twitter.

After 8 months, I am happy to share that I have more than met my target, having read approx 140 books till date. I have also ensured that I am challenging my comfort zone, reading books which I won’t usually read or enjoy. Like Lincoln in the Bardo (the weirdest book I have read this year)

Some books have been easy and some books were tedious and some books average. I have sacrificed food, sleep and social life. Writing my own book (s) has been put on a back burner.

I could achieve this only because I really really love reading books.

Conclusion: You can achieve anything you want as long as you enjoy doing that. This lesson is now going to be applied to several other things that deserve my attention.

PS:
Me: I finished reading 100 books Where is my medal?
Dad: I will give you a gift instead
Me: What?
Dad: Bucks (to buy more books)
???

Books 2016

As far as reading books is concerned, 2016 has been a fabulous year!

I have read more than 75 books & it has only been possible because of e-books. I could easily read while travelling / on breaks / eating out & also during sleepless nights.

I have read some pretty interesting books during the year, which includes memoirs / autobiographies (a genre I am not very fond of), chick lits, young adults, Indian authors, graphic novels, etc etc! Phew!

The list of books includes all books by Jhumpa Lahiri, all books by John Greene, Harry Potter & the Cursed Child (most awaited book of the year), Shakespeare, Short stories by Tagore, O’ Henry & Chekhov, The Oleander girl, Mallory Towers series by Enid Blyton, Aristotle Dante & the secrets of the universe, Dying for Christmas. Some of them were fantastic, others not so much. Some of them surprised me a lot!

I was about to write on my top 10 books of 2016, but I realised I have read so many good books this year, picking only 10 out of them would do gross injustice to the books.

So here’s a very random list of the books I liked this year.

Autobiographies / Memoirs: Started with If you ask me by Betty White. It was quite boring. Betty talked mostly about her show Hot in Cleveland. Is everyone hanging out without me by Mindy Kaling was a pretty interesting read. Adventures of a curious character by Richard Feynman was surprising. I realised only midway that this was the scientist who was involved in the making of the Atom Bomb. Much amazed! Agatha Christie’s autobiography was also an interesting read as it included the time during the World War. Hyperbole & a half is also a sort of memoir albeit in a Graphical format. Interesting read.

Chicklits: Shopaholic to the rescue (Much improvement on the earlier book), Lipstick Jungle, The Nanny were all good to read, specially The Nanny. Ms Draupadi Kuru had an interesting concept, but could do with a better execution. The Oleander Girl & Mistress of Spices were best amongst the lot. I love Chitra Divakruni’s writing style. Simple, yet heart touching.

John Green: The Fault in our stars (tear jerker), An abundance of Katherines (reminded me about the one name I am obsessed with), Will Grayson, Will Grayson (I am so much in love with this book (also Tiny) that I can cry! And I know the exact moment I fell in love. Chapter 7th.), Paper Towns (Am sort of confused about the end), Looking for Alaska (another tear jerker)

Jhumpa Lahiri: Every time I picked up The Lowlands, something or the other kept me from reading it. I finally got all the books of Jhumpa Lahiri & reading them was such a joy! (Though she keeps repeating pattern of her characters). The Name Sake, The interpreter of maladies, The Unaccustomed Earth & specially the Lowlands (the twist in the tale will surprise you) are all must read.

A Thousand Splendid Suns & The Kite Runner: Both these books by Khaled Hosseini depict the turmoils of Afghanistan. Heart Warming & best reads of not only 2016 but of all times.

The Grapes of Wrath: This is a realistic novel based on the plight of poor farmers migrating to  California in search of work. The poverty and the resulting incidents are heart breaking.

The Marble Collector: This book is about a journey of a daughter discovering the truth about and real passion of her father. I love this book so much that it is in my top recommendations. Cecilia Ahern remains a favourite writer.

Forty Rules of Love: You can find more about this here: The Forty Rules of Love

Fantastic Beasts & Where to find them: This book made up for the disappointment that the Cursed Child book was. Very far removed from the Harry Potter era, interesting read nonetheless.

Lemony Snicket Series: AMAZING is the only word for it. This 13 part series can put you in depression so beware while reading.

American God: My introduction to the fabulousness of Neil Gaiman could not have been better. Salute to his imagination!

Room on the roof: This is written by a 17 year old Ruskin Bond. Kind of feels like the author’s own story but the maturity in his writing would amaze you.

The Clifton Chronicles: I had read the first couple of books in the Clifton Chronicles but then did not pursue the other parts for some reason. I ended my year by reading all 7 parts of the series at one go. It is typical Archer style, with politics and scheming villains and enterprising heroes and heroines. It felt like being dragged at one point of time and there was certain inconsistency, but I admire Archer for the way he keeps us hooked through out the 7 parts. The end was as it should have been.

Re-reads: I also read lots of books that I have already read. Taming of the Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Othello, Twelfth Man, Hamlet (Shakespeare – Always a joy), Short stories by Chekhov, O’Henry & Rabindranath Tagore (Beauty in simplicity), Jeeves Omnibus I & II (Wodehouse – always entertaining), The man in the Iron Mask by Alexander Dumas (A worthy follower to the Three Musketeers), Wise & Otherwise by Sudha Murthy (Strictly okay), Eat, Pray & Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (First time I read this, I was impressed. Second time I thought the author was too pretentious & I did not like the way she described India)

Forgettables: Dying for Christmas, Bengali folk Tales, Witches by Roald Dahl, Harry Potter and the Cursed child (Too disappointing except for the character of Scorpius), The Serpents Revenge by Sudha Murthy and Landline by Rainbow Rowell (Rowell is otherwise my favourite author)

Which books got their hooks into you in 2016?