/ Reflecting

#52in52

Jan 7th, 2016

After being asked for the one hundredth time what my New Year's resolution was, I finally succumbed to beer pressure. Buoyed by liquid courage, declared that 2016 would be year I got back into reading.

Not just any old reading, I would read 52 books in 52 weeks. If you just want to see my 2016 list, see below. Jeez! Anyway, I read 40 books in 2016 out of the targeted 52. I will be trying to hit 52 in 2017 but it isn't looking good :) - My first pick this year is the biography of Thomas Jefferson which clocks in at about 15hrs of reading on my Kindle app.

My picks for the year are below.

What I did not account for were:

  • weeks usually don't neatly start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday
  • Some books are readable, some are not and neither is a reflection on my endurance as a reader or the author's skill as a writer. Just like I won't enjoy every cup of coffee, I won't enjoy every book.
  • You will eventually start flailing because you would have perused your library's ebook offerings one too many times and there are few books left that you have not considered and rejected

What I discovered:

  • I could read and digest ebooks
  • Immersion in books is possible
  • Immersion in books is not necessary

Books by Week

  • Week 48: Night by Elie Wiesel. First of his holocaust trilogy of Night, Dawn, and Day, this 116 page book describes Elie and his father's stay at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Buchenwald concentration camps. It deals with themes of loss of faith, betrayal of family, and an inversion of relationship between parent and child as parents age.

  • Week 47

  • Week 46: million dollar launch: ninety days to a consulting career by Alan Weiss. How to launch a successful consulting career in 90 days. Liking it so far

  • Week 45: Homegoing by Yaa Gyaasi. The history of slavery in America told through two interleaved stories of sisters separated by birth and station. I'll be honest, i felt like I was reading a phone book. So many characters, not enough interconnections but nonetheless, I finished and that's cool.

  • Week 44: 3-body Problem by Liu Cixin. Interesting (in a potboiler, pulp fiction sort of way) look at the idea of first contact between Trisolaris and Earth. Some interesting science and science fiction. Easy read though. No complaints,

  • Week 43: Strength Based Leadership by Tom Rath (Gallup.) Recommended by Ron Chapman, this book investigates what characteristics different types of leaders have.

  • Week 42: Unusual uses of olive oil by Andrew McCall Smith (of The No.1 ladies private detective agency fame.) This story is about a German professor of Portuguese irregular verbs and his enemity with his colleague Professor Unterholzer. Quite funny

  • Week 41: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. Predicable YA fantasy of the long drawn out war between Silvers with supernatural powers and Reds who are normal and the red queen who transcends straddles (Note to self - avoid $5 words) both worlds.

  • Week 40: The storied life of A.J.Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. Small, heart felt novel about a bookstore owner living on an Island and his life after his wife passes.

  • Week 40: the life changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo. I somehow reached the end but the book didn't resonate. It was basically page after page of the author telling us to discard things which don't evoke emotions in us.

  • Week 39/40: Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I found the book confusing. He writes that being black represents the underclass but then also enjoys the camaraderie of interacting with a black man using a common language.

  • Week 39: my name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. What a wonderful, spare, austere book! Took me by surprise how good it was after I saw its 3.5* rating on Amazon

  • Week 38: the Revenant by Michael punke. Very beautifully described scenes of the Wild West. Hugh Glass is a memorable character. I feel like watching the movie after reading the book.

  • Week 37: Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult . About elephants and mothers. Man, this book is a hidden gem if ever there was a hidden gem.

  • Week 36: Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling. Extremely funny take on life by Mindy Kaling from The Office

  • Week 35-
  • Week 34-
  • Week 33-
  • Week 32-
  • Week 31-
  • Week 30: Go Set A watchman by Harper Lee. The first draft of To kill a mocking bird. DID NOT FINISH
  • Week 29: Modern Romance by aziz ansari. A descriptive not prescriptive look at dating in the present day and age. Insightful and funny in an Aziz-y way
  • Week 24: Green Washed - why we can't buy our way to a green planet Kendra Pierre-Louis. A book about living a more sustainable life. Eye opening and insightful. Consume less, get back in sync with nature. Don't drive 60 minutes one way to get to work. Don't buy new furniture every 2 years.
  • Week 23: the Crossover by Kwame Alexander. A novel in poem about a basketball loving boy transitioning from innocence to maturity
  • Week 22: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I wish I understood the story a bit better. I kept expecting it to be more but it was exactly what it seemed. Post apocalyptic world where "survival is insufficient."
  • Week 21: 0 to 1 by Peter Thiel. A business book about focusing on innovation and inventing rather than incrementing. Finished this in one workday - from morning to night. Even read it during lunch hour
  • Week 21: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Just genius. Story is about a Nigerian woman in America, the love of her life, and her return to Nigeria
  • Week 21: the Rosie project by Graeme Simsion. What a wonderful love story! Funny, sweet, insightful, definitely the best book I've read so far this year
  • Week 20: Quiet: the power of introverts in a world which cannot stop talking by Susan Cain. What a fantastic, insightful book. Loved it! I learnt about introversion, self monitoring, using Internet and online communities to tap into the insights of introverts. Loved it!
  • **Week 18-19:**The heart goes last by Margaret Atwood. An easy read, much more so than The Handmaid's Tale. The story of Concilience/Positron - a social experiment in a worlds in decline. Flat characters and too-pat resolutions. Jocelyn, the female anti hero seems incomplete. Charmaine and Stan are mostly incidental to the story
  • **Week 17:**The silliest autobiography of the world by P.G. Bhaskar. Light reading about the guy's life. I had initially borrowed a different library book about alchemists and Magic by Neal Stephenson but could not bring myself to read it. Felt very heavy and plodding at 900+ pages
  • Week 16: A light between oceans: a novel, by M.L. Stedman. What a story! A baby washes ashore at a lighthouse. The lighthouse keepers keep the baby while the mother pines for her from the mainland. Eventually, the lighthouse keeper sets in motion events which throw him in prison and return the baby to her rightful mother. Beautiful book. Beautiful book.
  • Week 15: Rush, the breathless trilogy by maya banks. Very turgid but I finished the book anyway
  • Week 14: 2 yrs, 8 months,28 days by Salman Rushdie. Couldn't finish it. Felt derivative - like I basically knew the story
  • Week 13: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. She weaves a story of two foes who have a long running contest to determine if the world runs in chaos or control. The contest takes place in a circus which only opens at night. Hence the name of the book. The imagery is amazing but the book fails to touch greatness. 3/5
  • Week 12: The Maze Runner series, book 1 by James Dashner. The book read like Enders Game or Ready Player One. It's was bumpy with many flash backs and deux ex machina. I'd give it a 3/5
  • Week 11: the $100 startup. It's a slog and I've sort of given up hope of finishing it on time. None of this stuff is new to me. What I am struggling with is the idea part. What can I build which has value and can reach a lot of people.
  • Week 10: Being Mortal by Dr. Atul Gawande. I'm glad I read the book. It made me recognize that mummy-daddy will soon be declining into their last days. Together, we need to understand what they want from their final days
  • Week 9: The five love languages by Gary Chapman. Appreciated the concept. I discovered that my love language is quality time together. I love hanging out with my partner - just us, against the world, watching and gossiping about its ebbs and flows.
  • Week 8: Bright Lines: A Novel by Tanwi Nandini Islam. A book about three girls who enjoy their last summer together before leaving for college. Lives and loves change in this story. Protagonists are from Bangladesh.
  • Week 7: Behind the beautiful forevers by Katherine Boo. This book is a meditation and a journalist's austere, unvarnished report of the lives of people usually ignored by fawning stories about india's upward economic march. It's unflinching, not particularly memorable because it doesn't link the story being told to familiar human themes but the author accurately describes vaguely perceived misgivings about the stresses faced by the book's subjects. Like the comforting fiction that prostitutes need only to walk into a police station for help, we have convinced ourselves that the poor have options for upward mobility where none exist. The author expertly cuts through those fictions and shows how the system perpetuates itself.
  • Week 6: The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri. The story is of two brothers coming of age during the birth of the Naxal movement, their wife Gauri, and how the choices of one brother affects all of them.
  • Week 4/5: The Dance of Dragons by GRRM - book 5 of GoT series. Jon Snow is dead. Cersei is screwed. Boy King Aegon reemerges to reclaim the Iron Throne. Arya is now a Faceless Man. Jaime and Brienne have gone off to find Sansa. Bran is up in the cave with The Greenseer.
  • Week 4: A Feast of Crows by GRRM - this book is also done. Margaery and Cersei are both in prison. Samwell is at the Citadel. Prince Doran of Dorne is playing his own game of Cyvasse. Petyr has plans to announce Sansa as a heir of Winterfell. His advances on Sansa are fucking creepy.
  • Week 3: A Storm of Swords by GRRM - Jon Snow has been accepted into the Wildlings brotherhood. Margaery wants Sansa to marry her crippled cousin. Davos has been rescued. The Red Wedding happened with Robb losing his head. Sansa is a prisoner of Lord Petyr who instigated Lady Lysa of House Vale to kill her husband Jon Arryn which kicked off the Game of Thrones. Jon Snow is Lord Commander of The Wall. Stannis has reached the wall to fight the Wildlings. I'm happy to say the story isn't totally lost on me even thought I have not watched Season 3 of GoT.
  • Week 2: The Clash of Kings by GRRM - as I was reading this book, I was getting flashbacks of season 2 of GoT on HBO. Theon is dead. Starks are in good shape though they don't know it - Bran lives. Renly and Stannis is are dead. Danaerys Targaeryn is being brought to magister illyrio's manse. Jon snow is now part of the Wildlings having killed Qhorin Halfhand. I'm afraid to start Book 3. Will I be able to keep it all straight in my head not having watched Season 3.
  • Week 2: Game of Thrones by George RR Martin - good book. Far more memorable than LOTR. Finished it in 3 days flat and that too as an ebook! Can't say I'm fully sold on ebooks but I'm not complaining about the experience either.
  • Week 1: Tiny little things by Cheryl Strayed (Sugar) - that book of letters written to Sugar, an advice columnist. Most letters in the book are moving and emotionally wrought.

My Picks

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