Books I read in 2019, the second half
Read 51 books in this year 2019!
In 2018, I signed up to one of those reading challenges to complete 50 books. If I could have done it in any year, it would have been 2018 given the significant amount of free time I had. Somehow I didn't even get through five books. Instead I worked on an adult colouring book and some origami, and also tried to learn python.
Come 2019, I decided I should at least try. Also, I took a friend's advice on audiobooks and realised my library had a huge collection. So may be this year, I can read half that number.
June update: I have read 19 books in the first half of the year. If I keep that up, I might actually end up reading more than 50 this year. But we all know that's unlikely. Yet, I felt I need to publish now, lest the post is too long.
December update: this is the second version of that.
20. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante: after My Brilliant Friend it was inevitable that I immerse myself in the follow up literary experience. Just like Elena Greco's book, it's difficult to say what it is but every page has a certain energy that lends beauty to it.
21. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton: Have been looking for a good mystery and it couldn't get better than this. The twists are unpredictable and the story is a puzzle you piece together through the narrator who wakes up a different character every day.
22. Winter by Ali Smith: Following on from Book6, the author indulges in even more poetry than before. The wittiness of weaving political events into the everyday is charming but the ebb and flow of poetry leaves you a little confused, making the text feel somewhat jumpy.
23. Heroes by Stephen Fry: the book covers a host of heroes, well known like Heracles and lesser known like Atalanta, and through their labours, it covers creatures as well, like Chimera, and Sphinx, in the voice of a loving and witty grandfather that Fry carries well.
24. Norse Mythology by Niel Gaiman: it's a collection of stories strung together making it easier to digest the vastness of the Nordic culture. It covers the most important stories, but leaves us begging for more. I'm going to reread this one!
25. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma: The joyful childhood of four brothers growing up in 90's Nigeria slowly turns dark and wistful at the lost opportunities. It parallels MKO's 'hope' presidential campaign, his victory, imprisonment and the eventual military dictatorship. [I went on to watch a wonderful adaptation into a cast play (Benjamin and Obembe) at The Trafalgar Studios.]
25.5: I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes: TLDR. Read 44% before giving up. Supposedly a page-turning thriller, first third is spent praising our smartest secretest American agent. He then chases an ex-'muj' who synthesises an unbeatable virus. And presumably wins/ saves the world.
26. Our House by Louise Candlish: Fi discovers her house has been sold - every London homeowner's nightmare! The story unravels as it alternates between #VictimFi podcast and Bram's confession statement. A domestic thriller with a lot of twists, it hooks you from the start!
27. Leila by Prayaag Akbar: Unlike Handmaid's Tale inspired web series, the book is original. A dystopian world where water and air are luxuries afforded by the rich, and classism/communal boundaries are enforced for resource sharing/ preventing excesses.
28. Wild Swans by Jung Chang: it starts with the author's great grandmother to her own 27 years of life, through imperialist China, Japanese colonisation and the rise and rise of Mao in communist China. It showcases resilience of humanity through a very personal lens.
29. When I Hit You by Meena Kandaswamy: a raw account of a marriage to a man hiding abuse behind communist values; surreal after Wild Swans. The writing style is poetic with a dollop of irony flowing in phrases like "the rest, as they say, is the unrest of this story".
30. Nice Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty: The characters come alive with their back stories and personalities, both endearing and engrossing. But the mystery towards the end falls flat. Can't wait for the TV show Nicole Kidman is making. Think she plays Masha, or Francis?
31. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman: it's a beautiful read as a lonely woman with a horrible past learns to develop friendships and to live ordinarily like everyone. It's warm, funny and full of hope; how the smallest act of kindness can go a long way.
32. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry: two aging gangsters reminisce their past and the toll of crime on their bodies and lives, while looking for their daughter at the port of Algeciras. Philosophically lyrical but without punctuation, it's a beautiful but difficult read.
33. The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur: Mrs Sharma is a respectable woman, a good woman; as she will tell you repeatedly. The book shines a light on how we find ways to justify our actions and see ourselves as 'good' people who are victims of our circumstances.
34. Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics by Barbara Mertz: Mertz narrates the original Game of Thrones: the stories of Pharaohs, their achievements, plots and gossip, piecing together information from excavations. Ancient Egypt is enchanting, as is the process of understanding it.
35. Crocodile on the sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (pen name): 1st of Amelia Peabody series written by Mertz of Book34. They are mystery stories of an Egyptologist, set in late 1800s Egypt with a childlike sense of adventure, peppered with actual facts and historical figures.
36. Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Retelling an epic so old is commendable in itself and Draupadi makes for a great narrator. But her voice is too womanly, contrary to what the author wanted. And all other characters are 1D, while her relationship with Karna is overdone.
37. Mythos by Stephen Fry: Greek mythology unfolds from Chaos into ether and earth that produce the sky. Then, politics takes over! Titans are born, who become Olympians, and give us the inherently humourous stories that Fry unravels, adding a generous dollop of his own wit. Ideally I should have read this before I read Heroes.
38. Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves: I might be a little old for this but I enjoyed Joe Harker and all the kinds of Joes that walk between worlds and fight the bad guys. The first book in the series ends with Joe assembling his team, incl the cute mudloaf, Hue!
39. A Man called Ove by Frederik Backmanland: Backman creates a grumpy old man who has a big heart filled with love for his wife and his Saab. It's a warm and fuzzy story that's remarkably sad and left me in tears more times than I would have liked. Still, a thoroughly lovely read!
40. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer: it's about a gathering of people who supported each other through the German occupation (of Guernsey Island) by reading books. Written as letters of correspondence, it makes you fall in love with letter writing all over again and drawing in a sense of romance.
41. Lullaby by Leila Slimani: The book opens with the nanny, Louise (a nod to Louise Woodford?), killing the two children in her charge - similar to the real life murder of the Krim siblings. The rest is life in the Parisian society, the poverty and desparation leading to it.
42. A Monster Calls by PatrickNess: It's a short children's book yet it captures grief so succinctly and is relatable regardless of age. It's about a boy whose mother has cancer; how he copes with it and the toll it takes on him. It's tender and beautiful.
43. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre: a hard-hitting black comedy that got me so shaken, at times I had to stop. Accused of being an accomplice to a Texas school shooting, a young boy gets lost with no adult to look up to in his life. Echoes with JD Salinger's Holden Caufield.
44. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari: It's his stream of consciousness on woke topics pandering to his cult of followers. Dissing religion in favour of meditation is not visionary but that's how new religions are born. Sounds like the birth of a new preacher!
45. Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga: Poverty sells and Adiga knows it. In this collection of stories set in fictional Kittur of Kerala, the poor struggle with poverty and casteism that transcend the multitude of cultures. Some stories flow, others seem forced.
46. The Wall by John Lanchester: A brilliant portrayal of the bleak future that climate change brings, problems from human migration that follow and the guilt the current generation ought to carry. The ending, like one taken out of Walking Dead, is ripe for sequels.
47. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (3/4 Neopolitan Novels): The title sounds like it refers to the readers. The characters go around in circles but the society and economy are changing rapidly in the background and brought to life through their lives.
48. Raavan by Amish: In spite of an attempt to give the character layers, the author creates a remarkably unidimensional evil character. I might have warmed up to the series, had it not been based on the Ramayana at all. It's just too different from the original epic.
49. Cell by Robin Cook: Cook bases this page-turner on the the stressed out healthcare industry. The book questions the medical profession's hypothetical oath when apps replace doctors. Meant to be futuristic, it feels unnervingly real. The future is here and it is scary.
50. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk: It's a collection of snippets, on travel and on the preservation of internal organs. Weird book this! Bits on travel are warm and soothing. Not sure how I feel about taxidermy/anatomy. It won the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize, FYI. Ummm...
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