Hello, a happy 2023 to everyone.
Continuing
the habit, here is a list of books I read in 2022.
1.
The brief wondrous life of Oscar
Wao (Fiction) by Junot Diaz; Came to
know about yet another dictator! The world is really a shitty place if there
had been so many. Too much Spanish made reading the book exasperating at times,
but you always get the drift. Old-style footnotes at the bottom of the page were
great. A good book. Surely not great or worthy of recommendations or to be
gifted immediately like The Return.
a.
Started on 28th December and
Finished on January 6th
b.
Picked the book from Akshaya’s
library; so, counts as her recommendation.
2.
Why I write (Non-Fiction) by George Orwell; “The
English are not wicked; they are just unteachable” This is just one line from
the slim volume. What a genius. “England is a family with the wrong member in
control”. He also recommended nationalizing industries with justifications like
“will ensure a shift from ownership to management and privilege to competence”.
That could have been his vision during wartime Britain, but does sound naïve
now. His pages concerning freedom in India are surprisingly clouded with a
superiority complex that one can’t associate with him. While he has not spared
the British their wrongs, his approach towards Indians appears condescending and
not allocating them their due. The short story Hanging is marvelous. The book
is worth just for the last essay “Politics and the English language” – a
masterpiece.
a.
Started on 7th January and
finished on 9th January
b.
Recommended by self
3.
The invisible life of Addie LaRue
(Fiction) by V.E.Schwab; The book
had been recommended on the 6th, purchased on the 6th and I
started to read it on the 9th. Must be a record. The premise looked
interesting and the recommender is no ordinary reader. A fast and gripping
read. The art references are almost supernatural. “That life is the minutes you
want minus one” is so beautifully written. Just as I was getting a tad
disappointed as the story was meandering to a predictable filmy end, it goes
ahead and ends with a BANG!. What an imagination. Lovely book.
a.
Started on 9th January and
finished on 17th January.
b.
Recommended by Mihir
4.
Navdurga – 9 goddesses, 9 women
(Fiction) by Natasha Ramarathnam; It
is not easy being a woman in this world. Natasha brings out the hope, the
fight, the frustration, the disappointments, the rage, and every other possible
emotion effortlessly to this slim volume. A satisfying read.
a.
Started on 17th January and
finished on 18th January
b.
The author is a friend, so count it as her recommendation.
5.
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga
of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (Non-Fiction) by Erik Larson; The research that must have gone into the
writing of this book is staggering. The perspective is unique. Looking at the
blitz from the pov of someone who is running the country, to someone who is
watching it as a spectacle unfolding from the river banks to someone who
decides enough is enough and plans to lose one’s virginity, lends the whole
book an earthly feel. WW II is a treasure that never stops giving. And the more
you read about the war, the more you realize how much the world owes William
Shirer for his records. A splendid book. And those Nazis who were unrepentant
till the end! Goebbels and his wife poisoning their six children, though a
known fact, still tugs at your heart.
a.
Started on 18th January and
finished on 4th February.
b.
Recommended by Mihir
6.
April 1865 – The month that saved
America (Non-Fiction) by Jay Winik;
Having read FDR, 1944 this supreme work comes as no surprise. Wonderful work
on the intricate events of the civil war. I have had just the general outlines
and was rich with many revelations from the book. The exemplary behavior of South,
General Lee in particular, how reconciliation came about eventually. Mr. Winik
is a gifted raconteur. The research and the reference material are
mind-boggling. The decision of the publisher to print the notes session in
smaller fonts is not understandable, what do you save? 30 pages? A strain on
the eye. I had to go stand next to the windows to get the full light, and at
times needed to resort to magnifying glasses or taking a picture on my mobile
and then enlarging it. 😊
a.
Started on 5th Feb and finished on
20th March
b.
Recommended by Self
7.
The Nutmeg’s curse Parables for a
planet in crisis (Non-Fiction) by
Amitav Ghosh; It is always difficult to
categorize a book by Amitav Ghosh. I went ahead with non-fiction anyway. There
were certain parts that were pure academia where I needed to read and re-read
(on some instances, I was not successful even after multiple readings). But let
that not take away anything from this book. Original thinking is such a rare
gift/talent. Mr. Ghosh stuns you with his clarity and an absolutely new way of
looking at issues. “White people is a project and not related to a group of
people” is a statement that would stay with me for a long long time. A relevant
book for the times we are living in.
a.
Started on 21st March and finished
on 12th April
b.
Recommended by Self
8.
I am not here to give a speech
(Non-Fiction) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez;
If someone had told me that Garcia could be funny I would not have believed it.
But this book was such a gem. A pure delight. Few speeches stand out as
extraordinary but all of them were excellent. Few samples. The whole chapter of
My Friend Mutis and the story about the woman having a premonition that
something bad was about to happen to her town were brilliant. “It is possible
to be a poet without dying in the attempt”, “Europeans think that everything
that is not like them is an error and they sat about correcting it” and “as if
it were written with goose feather by the goose himself” - such gems abound.
a.
Started on 12th April and finished
on 16th April
b.
Recommended by Self
9.
Lessons in chemistry (Fiction) by Bonnie Garmus; What a marvelous book! Had the same
sense of satisfaction I had after I read Catch-22 and Garp for the first time.
The book is a fast and entertaining read and resonated at so many levels. I can
dig up endless quotes but this one line is enough “but faith is not based on
religion”. An unwed mother, a dog named six-thirty, a girl who reads a lot, few
toxic bosses… bliss. And it is a debut. I smiled, laughed, pondered, and cried
through the book.
a.
Started on 19th April and finished
on 23rd April
b.
Recommended by Krish
Ashok.
10. Night (autobiography) by Elie
Wiesel; Will WWII ever stop haunting me? I had stood at the very place
where the selections were made by the angel of death. Go right to die
immediately or go left to suffer and die. “I trust only Hitler – he is the only
one who had kept all his promises to the Jews” – What a powerful line! How
cynical one must have become to reach this point. The blurb says “A slim volume
of terrifying power” – absolutely true. The acceptance speech on receiving his
Nobel at the end somehow fits like a perfect epilogue. I am not sure if Mr.
Wiesel had ever slept in his life after the ordeal.
a.
Started on 23rd April and finished
on 25th April
b.
Recommended by self
11. Red Famine – Stalin’s war on Ukraine (Non-Fiction) by Anne Applebaum; An astonishing book. How oppressive
regimes can suppress such massive humanitarian catastrophes so easily is an eye-opener. That Pulitzer prize-winning articles can be mere propaganda is another
shocker. Anne Applebaum writes with clarity, and authority and in an unflinching
way. The chapters describe the worse of the famine years when people
descended into cannibalism, killing their own children and eating them, boiling
shoes and belts to chew on the leather… gut-wrenching. There are two man-made
famines in the memory of modern history. Holodomor has been excellently
chronicled here. The Bengal famine
perpetrated by Churchill does not even have a name!
a.
Started on 30th April and finished
on 15th July
b.
Recommended by The
Guardian
12. The Honjin Murders (Fiction) by Seishi
Yokomizo; A normal murder mystery. Nothing extraordinary, the usual
twists, red herrings, and a Hercule Poirot sort of an ending. The clever
wordplay by the author in the initial chapters is nicely explained in the end.
a.
Started on 15th July and finished
on 17th July
b.
Picked up from some random Tweet – so
recommended by Twitter!
13. Deep sea and foreign going – Inside shipping the invisible industry
that brings you 90% everything (non-Fiction) by Rose
George; I became a Rose George fan after her excellent Nine Pints and
this book did not disappoint either. The best part is not the book per se, but
her concept that such a book should be written and could be written. Her
sparkling wit is abundantly evident throughout the book (the signal gives the
details of the ship, which is captured by other ships, coast guards, and well-equipped pirates, he does not take lunch and forgets others do). The moral code,
the pirates, exploitation, and the lack of scruples all vie with each other to provide
a complex mosaic that is the shipping industry.
a.
Started on 17th July and finished
on 2nd August
b.
Recommended by self.
14. A case of exploding mangoes (Fiction) by Mohammed Hanif; A recommendation from Arko can never
be below par. This was such great fun. A minor disappointment was the way it
ended rather abruptly. An engaging read nevertheless.
a.
Started on 2nd August and finished
on 15th August
b.
Recommended by Arko
15. Salt (Non-Fiction) by Mark
Kurlansky; My imagination of how Mark must have written this book is like
this; Start from home, make up your mind that you are going to write a book
about salt, and observe everything on the way, relate all of them to salt,
relate salt to money, wars, possessions, mysteries and so on. The volume of
research is mind-boggling. At stages, it felt like a recipe book but a
wonderful read. The word Salary comes from salt, Indian independence movement
had a pivotal moment around salt, the civil war had salt as one of the main
players, pickling de-icing, gourmands, and on and on.
a.
Started on 16th August and
finished on 11th September
b.
Recommended by Madeline
16. The uncommon reader (Fiction) by Alan
Bennet; What a lovely bit of writing. This part of the monologue from
the Queen, “One has met and indeed entertained many visiting heads of state,
some of them unspeakable crooks and blackguards and their wives not much
better.’ This at least raised some rueful nods. ‘One has given one’s white-gloved hand to hands that were steeped in blood and conversed politely with men
who have personally slaughtered children. One has waded through excrement and
gore; to be Queen, I have often thought, the one essential item of equipment is a
pair of thigh-length boots. ‘I have at the instance of my various governments
been forced to participate if only passively in decisions I consider
ill-advised and often shameful. Sometimes one has felt like a scented candle,
sent into perfume a regime, or aerate a policy, monarchy these days just a
government-issue deodorant.” this is wishful thinking though. I do not think the
monarchy ever expressed regret for the empire!
a.
Started and finished on 12th
September
b.
Recommended by Nuts
17. Aria (Fiction) by Nazanine
Hozar; A book full of lyrical imagery. And statements like “the poets
write and people go and die” are plenty. The epigraph with the line Ï saw a
woman pounding light in a mortar” is stuck in my mind forever. The only problem
is, when it comes to books on Iran the inevitable comparison with Persepolis
crops up, and no book can survive that ordeal. On its own, this book and the
carefully etched characters are a delight. A lifetime of the girl punctuated by
periodic tragedies and extreme acts of kindness in the backdrop of the Shah / Khomeini
era grabs you and holds your attention. A lovely read.
a.
Started on 12th September and
finished on 17th September
b.
Gifted by Goutam,
so counts as his recommendation.
18. Mothers – An essay on love and cruelty (Non-Fiction) by Jacqueline Rose; Exploding the myth of a perfect
mother! Incisively analyzing the irrationality of the societies since time
immemorial to now demanding the impossible from the mothers and then crucifying
them when they inevitably fail. One will tend to become less critical of motherhood
after reading this book. A wonderful book picked up from the strangest of the
recommendation corners, a clip from a film! “When a woman becomes a mother, she
loses her freedom” will continue to haunt people with a conscience who are
party to placing that cross on her shoulder.
a.
Started on 18th September and
finished on 2nd October.
b.
Recommended by a
scene from the film C’mon C’mon.
19. The grownup (Fiction) by Gillian
Flynn; What a delightful little book, actually a short story. Reminded
me so much of the spy who came in from the cold, so many twists, you are not
even sure what to believe anymore as truth. Do you even know when the story ended? I, myself, am not sure.
Killer of a book.
a.
Started and finished on 2nd
October
b.
Left behind for me by Sambit, so counts as his recommendation
20. The forty days of Musa Dagh (historical fiction) by Franz Werfel; While everyone knows about the
holocaust, few know the full extent of the Armenian Genocide. I was one of
those who were ignorant and hence my thanks to Asia for bringing this book to
me. The style of writing is nearly a century old and is slow to read. But what
a momentous book. The last four sentences knock out any daylight still left in
you. Achieving that impact in a book 870 pages long is no mean task.
One of those books that will stay with you for a long long time. Gabriel enters
your life and stays forever.
a.
Started on 2nd October and
finished on 24th November
b.
Gifted by Asia Dima
(An Armenian) and hence counts as her recommendation
21. The forty rules of love (Fiction) by Elif Shafak; First it was Pamuk and now Ms. Shafak who
confused me with first-person narrative in many chapters with the person in the
name of the chapter. Took a while to understand the many “I”s. 😊. A
brilliant book. It is like she has the capacity to peep into most households. I
loved those small chapters after 80-page long chapters in my previous book.
“Are you the Shams? – Where is the Rumi to see” captures the essence of the
book. A lovely read.
a.
Started on 25th November and
finished on 16th Dec, extended by the world cup 😊
b.
Recommended by – Author recommended by Toker, the book was selected by Selin but long ago Savitha
Shetty also discussed this book. So, that makes it three people who
recommended this book to me!
22. Small things like these(Fiction) by Claire
Keegan; What can one say about this gem of a book that has not already
been said. The last page that explains the mental arguments that Furlong makes
is so beautiful. A highly satisfying read.
a.
Started and finished on 16th
December.
b.
Recommended by The
Guardian
Hope
you find some good picks from what I could manage this year.
Wishing
you all a wonderful 2023 and see you again same time next year.
