In my reading, there was fair bit of non fiction (referred as NF below), close to half the books, mostly personal NF. Not as many Short Stories (SS) as I would have liked. Just 4 collections (and there is this Mansfield collection with unread bits on incomplete stories not added here). Very little science fiction. (SF, Just a couple of books). A few translated books (not as many as I thought I normally read). This was also the year when I discovered Elizabeth Von Arnim, read a lot from Katherine Mansfield, and came across the essays of Stephen Jay Gould. Read a bit of autobiographical/ memoir writing from different people across different times and cultures. And finally read Vanity Fair, Portrait of a Lady and Jane Eyre. Finished my first Turgenev. And could get around to reading Svetlana Alexievich. This was also the year when I gave myself a few no-fiction months.
Following is the list of books that I read in 2018 from my 'recent reads' page. Not as many as 2017 (when I was lucky to read over 50), but I loved most of what I read.
For the following, the order is sequential: No.1 on the list read in January, last on the list most recent. The links lead to related post on this blog.
Apart from what's on the list, I explored and opened a lot more. And perhaps took away something from each one of them. At the end of the day, it is not the number that's relevant but what I come away with from the year.
For me, one of the big book-blog realization this year was that the thought-space you can access and unlock while reading a book, or fresh out of a book somehow magically disappears after a while. Difficult to retrieve those emotions or recreate the same magic even on an immediate re-read. Even as I am reading, the more moments of recording the thoughts, the more I have to say about the book. After the book ends, trying to relive the experience can sometimes be difficult. I do have the overall thoughts and impressions. But while reading, while bobbing on the stream of thoughts that the book triggers, if I write them down, it goes with the flow, perhaps just a pause to hover and examine before I row forward. A few rightly placed moments and I can express and save those transitory thoughts.
Wouldn't call this an epiphany, but a gradually unraveling thought, which has been in the making but not articulated or set in definite terms. Pretty much goes with other stuff in life too. And makes me wonder whether those who keep detailed diaries and journals of life as it flows through them, remember more or live more intensely? By recording as much as you can. You can perhaps click pictures which so many of us do so much more now. But what about the thought chain? From where things start and where they land, the chain is so unique. Each one of them. Illuminating different parts of memory and your inner landscape as the thoughts pass through them train like. When you write them down, you get the access key for future use. Makes little sense when I write it here like this. But what I wish to note and remember is that I am better off writing as I read, rather than not writing.
What next?
For 2019, no major reading plans or goals. Although I do hope that for books that start a conversation in the head, they get a little bit of that jotting down and recording on this blog.
To 2019, and to more reading.
- Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth (or Mary Annette) Von Arnim ****
- In Light of India by Octavio Paz (NF/ sort of personal essay) *****
- Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse (SS) ***
- Winter Tales by Isak Dinesen (SS) ****
- The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth Von Arnim *** (iphone reader)
- The Benefactress by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
- Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard *** (NF/ personal essays)
- Vera by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
- Elementals by AS Byatt **** (SS)
- The Writing Life by Annie Dillard **** (NF/personal essays)
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ** (iphone reader)
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte ** (iphone reader)
- Villette by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
- Memoirs of a Nun by Denis Diderot **
- 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke *** (SF)
- Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone De Beauvoir **** (NF)
- The Abundance by Annie Dillard **** (NF/ essay collection)
- Shakespeare by Bill Bryson *** (NF/ Eminent Lives)
- The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James ****
- Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson ** (NF)
- Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ***
- Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard ** (NF/ personal essays)
- Jacob's Room is Full of Books (a year of reading) by Susan Hill ** (NF/ personal/ memoir?)
- The Richness of Life - The Essential Stephen Jay Gould by Stephen Jay Gould **** (NF)
- Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich *** (NF)
- Under My Skin by Doris Lessing *** (NF | Autobiography)
- Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant *** (How should I rate a book when I don't like it as much, but it is not the book's fault. It is a well written story - and like all Maupassant stories, is a reading delight. It is just that I don't like the way people behave in it. Anyhow, these are my personal ratings. It falls more in three, and since I have avoided half points, books that are between two and three often get rated two or three basis my mood or my whim on the day I think)
- 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (SF) kindle **
- Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (phone) ***
- Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (NF | Memoir) phone ***
- From Silk to Silicon by Jeffrey E. Garten **** (NF)
- The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad ****
- The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** phone
- The Folded Clock, A Diary by Heidi Julavits *** (Diary/ personal /NF)
- The Golden Thread - how fabric changed history by Kassia St Clair *** (NF)
- Artful by Ali Smith **** (NF/F?)
- This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges (NF) *****
- Evening in Paradise - More Stories by Lucia Berlin (SS) ****
- The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton **
Apart from what's on the list, I explored and opened a lot more. And perhaps took away something from each one of them. At the end of the day, it is not the number that's relevant but what I come away with from the year.
For me, one of the big book-blog realization this year was that the thought-space you can access and unlock while reading a book, or fresh out of a book somehow magically disappears after a while. Difficult to retrieve those emotions or recreate the same magic even on an immediate re-read. Even as I am reading, the more moments of recording the thoughts, the more I have to say about the book. After the book ends, trying to relive the experience can sometimes be difficult. I do have the overall thoughts and impressions. But while reading, while bobbing on the stream of thoughts that the book triggers, if I write them down, it goes with the flow, perhaps just a pause to hover and examine before I row forward. A few rightly placed moments and I can express and save those transitory thoughts.
Wouldn't call this an epiphany, but a gradually unraveling thought, which has been in the making but not articulated or set in definite terms. Pretty much goes with other stuff in life too. And makes me wonder whether those who keep detailed diaries and journals of life as it flows through them, remember more or live more intensely? By recording as much as you can. You can perhaps click pictures which so many of us do so much more now. But what about the thought chain? From where things start and where they land, the chain is so unique. Each one of them. Illuminating different parts of memory and your inner landscape as the thoughts pass through them train like. When you write them down, you get the access key for future use. Makes little sense when I write it here like this. But what I wish to note and remember is that I am better off writing as I read, rather than not writing.
What next?
For 2019, no major reading plans or goals. Although I do hope that for books that start a conversation in the head, they get a little bit of that jotting down and recording on this blog.
To 2019, and to more reading.