Not a good year for reading, sort of gave up reading for while after relocating to US at the start of year. Netflix, Amazon Prime instant videos, reading The Economist magazine every week and having an ipad with insanely addictive games are some of the excuses.
With the necessary disclaimer issued, let me proceed to the business of revealing the List
1.Indianomix : Making Sense of Modern India -Vivek Dahejia & Rupa Subramanya
Picked this up as I had followed the writers on twitter, turned out be something on lines of Freakonomics set in India
2.Labyrinth : Short Stories
This was part of my conscious effort to read some Indian writing esp short stories. Some interesting stories, but at the end of the year don't remember much about this!
3. The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino
This was a Japanese book and was a cerebral murder mystery. It is different from conventional murder mystery as the focus is on how the deed is hidden from cops and was a good light read.
4.Oath of Vayuputras - Amish
I actually liked the first book in the series as I picked it up before all the hype around these books and felt the guy was on to something even though the language was very ordinary. But it has been steadily heading downhill after that. Used this book to read during long flight journey and while reading kept feeling why does he write like this! What a waste of such a good premise. I always felt we had so much good material in our mythology and history and lot of stories were there waiting to be written. But this was a colossal waste
5.Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Two awesome authors getting together to write about Angels , Demons and apocalypse and all that can go wrong. Hilarious stuff, enjoyed it totally!
6.Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
My first Terry Pratchett novel, picked it up after strong recco from my sis who has a huge collection
7. Irresistible Inheritance of Wilburforce - Paul Torday
My fav book of the year, delightful read. Unravels slowly but sucks you in!
8.Food in History - Reay Tannahill
Picked this on whim, but turned out to be a terrific read. The book explores the role of food in human life as civilization progressed from early hunter gatherer days through various ages till the modern era. In spite of this being such an obvious thing the role played by food is not very well understood or known. The book was packed with a lot interesting insights into various historical events and how food influenced it. Focus is more on Europe but effort is made to cover the entire world, learnt so many interesting things while reading this
9.The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht
Set in Eastern Europe during Balkan war and covers the present and past as a girl remembers about her relationship with her grandfather and some of the stories he used to tell her.I'm yet to finish this at the end of the year, hope to finish this in a week
10.The Illicit Happiness of Other People - Manu Joseph
Thanks @vaidya for this gift. Book set in Madras of later 80s and is a story of loss but is written by a satirist.
Finishing 10 books this year was a surprise for me given the slow start. But then I actually read 3 books in Dec when I got reminded that I need to blog about my reading list. Hope to get a Kindle in 2014 and switch to reading more e-books finally.
With the necessary disclaimer issued, let me proceed to the business of revealing the List
1.Indianomix : Making Sense of Modern India -Vivek Dahejia & Rupa Subramanya
Picked this up as I had followed the writers on twitter, turned out be something on lines of Freakonomics set in India
2.Labyrinth : Short Stories
This was part of my conscious effort to read some Indian writing esp short stories. Some interesting stories, but at the end of the year don't remember much about this!
3. The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino
This was a Japanese book and was a cerebral murder mystery. It is different from conventional murder mystery as the focus is on how the deed is hidden from cops and was a good light read.
4.Oath of Vayuputras - Amish
I actually liked the first book in the series as I picked it up before all the hype around these books and felt the guy was on to something even though the language was very ordinary. But it has been steadily heading downhill after that. Used this book to read during long flight journey and while reading kept feeling why does he write like this! What a waste of such a good premise. I always felt we had so much good material in our mythology and history and lot of stories were there waiting to be written. But this was a colossal waste
5.Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Two awesome authors getting together to write about Angels , Demons and apocalypse and all that can go wrong. Hilarious stuff, enjoyed it totally!
6.Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
My first Terry Pratchett novel, picked it up after strong recco from my sis who has a huge collection
7. Irresistible Inheritance of Wilburforce - Paul Torday
My fav book of the year, delightful read. Unravels slowly but sucks you in!
8.Food in History - Reay Tannahill
Picked this on whim, but turned out to be a terrific read. The book explores the role of food in human life as civilization progressed from early hunter gatherer days through various ages till the modern era. In spite of this being such an obvious thing the role played by food is not very well understood or known. The book was packed with a lot interesting insights into various historical events and how food influenced it. Focus is more on Europe but effort is made to cover the entire world, learnt so many interesting things while reading this
9.The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht
Set in Eastern Europe during Balkan war and covers the present and past as a girl remembers about her relationship with her grandfather and some of the stories he used to tell her.I'm yet to finish this at the end of the year, hope to finish this in a week
10.The Illicit Happiness of Other People - Manu Joseph
Thanks @vaidya for this gift. Book set in Madras of later 80s and is a story of loss but is written by a satirist.
Finishing 10 books this year was a surprise for me given the slow start. But then I actually read 3 books in Dec when I got reminded that I need to blog about my reading list. Hope to get a Kindle in 2014 and switch to reading more e-books finally.
