At Midway Point

At the beginning of 2012, I took a New Year resolution of a different kind.

Of late, I had been getting more and more irregular with my reading.

From a book each couple of days (the best way to spend 5 hours in a car while doing the daily commute to work and back in Mumbai), I had moved to one book a month and sometimes even less if accosted by a book I didn't like. After the Millennium series, I couldn't even recall a single book that had made me stay up entire nights or wake up in the wee hours of the morning and sneak into the guest room so I could finish reading! So clearly, my passion needed some stirring up!

This year, instead of my usual weight loss resolutions that led nowhere, I promised myself I would instead have a New Year resolution about something I really love - reading. And with 2 kids, who get me so exhausted mentally that I end up looking for mindless TV program to watch each night before I can sleep; I decided to set myself a very achievable target - one good book each month. All in all, 12 good books to complete by the end of 2012.

So this is a really quick, really short post, at the midway point (oh, well almost!) to take stock of where I have reached so far, w.r.t this resolution. Or in other words, this is a bookworm's equivalent of standing on the bathroom scale and yelling in glee and patting herself on the back!

So, without further ado, here is the list of what I have covered till July!

1. The Secret History - by Donna Tartt - A lesser known but simply brilliant book! Couldn't have started the NY resolution on a better note! Watch this space for a review, coming shortly!

2. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif - Another brilliant, witty book; simply one of the most absorbing books I have ever read!

3. The Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall - Another not too well known but amazing book! Very witty, insightful and very well researched! A must read if you propose to live in England! i loved it so much, I think I owe it to the book to dedicate a post to it!!! And you thought I only write mean reviews, did you?

4. Water for Elephants - by Sara Gruen - Not bad but not great either! Atleast it was better than the movie where watching Reese Witherspoon play Marlena was an exercise in pushing my credulousness to its limits!

5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - A modern classic, if ever there was one!!! I sat in the bathroom for hours each night so I could finish it (so that the hubby didn't nag me about going to bed on time). I never thought reading a non-fiction and that too one where I knew the story inside out, could be this engrossing! But it was an absolutely captivating read and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a great book to read!

6. The Poet by Michael Connelly and

7. The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly - These 2 were in my opinion, a bookworm's equivalent of falling off the diet wagon! My excuse to myself was that I needed some lightening up; some respite after a book as sombre as In Cold Blood. And hey, what can be better respite from a book about the senseless murder of an entire family than 2 back-to-back books about serial killers who mercilessly hunt down and kill and torture innocent people!!! :-) 

8. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - Since I fell off the reading wagon, so to speak and wasted valuable time, I had to make up. So I re-read Hemingway. Not just because I love it but also because it is short and I could finish it in a night to meet my month's target! (I am so glad the dead do not have access to my blog! Else, somewhere out there, Hemingway would have been rolling in his grave as he read this!)

9. The City of Djinns by William Dalrymple - Another absolutely brilliant book! After being in love with The Age of Kali and The Last Mughal, I was a little disappointed by Dalrymple's last book - Nine Lives. But this was quintessential Dalrymple -  witty, moving, insightful and travel journalism at its best!

10. Arranged Marriage by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Another good book but my only beef with it has been that it was just too depressing! Why on earth does everything have to come crashing down for a story to be worth telling? Are there no happy stories worth telling? 

11. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach - Not a great, but a decent read, the kinds you can finish while lying on the beach on a holiday! The movie, thanks to it's superbly talented cast, was actually a better watch!

12. Empire of the Mughal - Ruler of the World by Alex Rutherford - I have been hooked on to the Empire of the Mughal series ever since I read their (Alex Rutherford are actually a team comprising of a husband and wife) first book - Raiders from the North, a historical fictional account on the life of Babur, the first Mughal ruler. The book was my first historical fiction and I was blown away by the narrative style, the research and by the action-adventure- drama quotient which made it one of the most exciting books I had read in a long time! The second book, Brothers at War, on the life of Humayun, was almost as interesting. But this, an account of the life of the greatest Mughal there was, Emperor Akbar, while being an engrossing read, was somewhat disappointing - first unlike the other two books, Akbar wasn't really the central figure in the story which mainly focussed on his strained relations with his son Salim (Jahangir). Also some of the stories of Akbar that we grew up reading like the 9 gems in his court or his relationship with Birbal weren't even mentioned! 

Still, all in all, a not too shabby list!! (This is where I stop to give myself a pat on the back!)

Now, in the next coming months, I have some even grander, better, and more interesting books to finish, starting with Garth Nix's absolutely unputdownable fantasy trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen), Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red (somehow I never ended up finishing it), a couple of books by Amitav Ghosh and a few brilliant pieces by Tom Sharpe! 

And I also hope to finish that one book that has been sitting on my night-stand for months now; not because it is a bad read, but simply because I haven't gathered the courage to read it! The book is Room by Emma Donoghue, a book told from the point of view of a 5yr old child, who, along with his mother is kept imprisoned in an underground cellar by his mother's rapist and abductor. While the book has had rave reviews and is actually a celebration of the spirit and courage of the victims and the bond between the mother and child, I have somehow been putting it off for months now as I keep wondering how it would affect me! 

Well, the answer to that I will never know till I read it! So, I think I shall get down to it as soon as possible so I can come back with a review!

Until then, happy reading!