Continued the habit of reading a lot, that's the thing with habits always very hard initially but once you get used to it then its no longer that difficult or surprising. I had set the goal of doing 5 books a month and again was able to successfully do it for another year. Really happy when I look back as I had expected to not have so much time since I had taken on additional responsibilities at work. In a way that did help as I started putting in a lot of conscious time into reading in the first few months of 2024 and somehow that initial momentum just carried me forward even though there were spells when I got overwhelmed with work and got distracted ( twice) with elections.
Enough talk, so without much further ado here is the list
Fiction
Japanese translated books
1) Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
2) The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hero Arikawa
3) Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
4) What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Toyama
Picked up a few Japanese books last year and then Amazon recommended more plus heard about a few in a book readers group. All were super good - its lift you up types with reflections on life and living
Sci-fi / fantasty
5) Dune by Frank Herbert
6) Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
7) Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
8) God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert
Dune part 2 movie released this year and as a prep I started reading the books and went down the rabbit hole pretty quickly. Ended up taking the Golden path
9) The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
10) Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
11) To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
12) Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
Covered some sci-fi and fantasy - want to more of these next year, was good fun to read them - a couple were re-reads having read them super long ago.
Mysteries
13) The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
14) The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
15) Inspector Singh Investigates : A most peculiar Malaysian murder by Shamini Flint
16) Inspector Singh Investigates : A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint
17) The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
Murder mystery set in various places and eras ( 1920s India, 1930s Singapore, 1990s South East Asia) - got into this again thanks to conversations with a dear cousin 3-4 years back. Think of her every time I pick up a book in this genre!
18) The Maid by Nita Prose
19) The Night Of The Storm by Nishita Parekh
20) A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - one of the best fiction reads of the year for sure
21) The Khan by Saima Mir
22) The Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters
Non-fiction
Countries, Places, Cultures and understanding our world
23) Israel : A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Now Tishby
24) In the Footsteps of Rama : Travels with the Ramayana by Vibrant Panda, Neelesh Kulkarni
25) Ibn Saud : The Desert Warrior Who created the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by Michael Darlow, Barbara Bray
26) Chasing Hope : A Reporter's Life by Nicholas D. Kristof
27) Make Time : How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky
28) 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenk
29) How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner
30) Storyworthy by Mathew Dicks
31) Same as Ever by Morgan House
32) Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell
33) Richer, Wiser, Happier by Willian Green
34) Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution by Uri Levine
35) Rework by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
36) The Four workarounds by Paulo Savaget
37) Hidden Potential by Adam Grant
38) Alchemy : The Surprising Power Of Ideas That Don't Make Sense by Rory Sutherland
39) An Immense World : How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Young
40) Entangled Life : How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake. - One of the last book reccos given by my cousin sister who will be deeply missed :(
41) The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
42) World of Wonders : In Praise of Fireflies, Whalesharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
43) The Last Rhinos by Lawrence Anthony
44) An Elephant in My Kitchen by Francois Malby-Anthony
45) The Elephants of Thula Thula by Francois Malby-Anthony
46) The Botany of Desire : A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
47) Torn Trousers by Andrew St.Pierre, Gwynn White
48) The Hidden World of the Fox by Adele Brand
49) Outlive : The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
50) Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
51) The Anxious Generation : How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
52) Sultan : A Memoir by Wasim Akram, Gideon Haigh
53) The Dhoni Touch: unraveling the Enigma that is Mahendra Singh Dhoni by Bharat Sundaresan
54) Believe : What Life and Cricket Taught Me by Suresh Raina and Bharat Sundaresan
55) Pitchside by Amrit Mathur - Tales from 90s Indian cricket from the author who was cricket manager and a prominent board official during 90s and 2000s - he played a big role in the setting up of IPL and was part of the league during initial years.
Others
56) Where Is My Flying Car? by J.Storrs Hall - very intriguing read on a topic that I have wondered about - how the visions of future from sci-fi novels/movies mostly set around current era didn't really materialize. Yes we have still come a long way but some of these sexy innovations aren't really there yet, this looks at that question in detail.
57) How The World Ran Out Of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain by Peter S. Goodman
58) Frostbite : How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley - loved this one, was a very illuminating read.
59) Fool Me Once : Scams, Stories and Secrets from the Trillion Dollar Fraud Industry by Kelly Richmond Pope
60) The Sassoons : The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon
61) The Milk Lady of Bangalore by Shoba Narayan
62) Name Place Animal Thing by Daribha Lyndem
63) What Time is Noon : Hilarious Texts, Ridiculous Feedback, and Not-So-Subtle Advice from Teenagers by Chip Leighton. - Utterly hilarious compilation of real texts, comments, feedback from Teens
64) I'd Rather Be Reading : The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel
65) Seabiscuit : An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand - A fabulous read this one, I had no idea of horse racing or about US of 30s but this was such a captivating read.
66) The Serviceberry : Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer
67) The Secret History of Christmas by Bill Bryson
So 67 books it was - at one stage reading was going on really well and I had hopes of crossing 75 but then it kinda leveled out which is to be expected. It took a late surge to take me past last year's tally. Out of the 67, the split was 22 fiction and 45 non-fiction, happy to have almost doubled the amount of fiction reads. Goal for this year will be to continue the trend and increase the number of fiction reads.
Will be really awesome if I can keep up or reach this level in 2025 and certainly hoping its possible. Some of the things I have tried is to visit libraries with my daughter to ensure she reads and reads a lot and as a byproduct I have ended up picking some really cool reads as well. I follow a few book channels/groups and keep collecting interesting reccos, sometimes events in the world make you want to learn more about some event/place/phenomenon and that drives some reading as well. Trick is to keep a good supply of reads to look forward to and that ensures minimal downtime and helps me spend lot more time reading than doom scrolling on my phone - which to be perfectly honest happens a lot too. Happy reading everyone!
