My 2024 in books (goodreads)

This was my Goodreads review of the year 2024. A new year, an eagerly awaited one, most likely more eagerly awaited than any so far. Not that it was easy. But it was good. A character building one 😉, like my PhD. It was a good re-start, a difficult midway, and a rather tired but good ending with lessons learnt which had started being implemented. The restart wanted to have the character of this picture. But of course, sea sailing cannot and must not be so smooth, or demanded to be so.

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(Sometime towards the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025)
Writing this "review" is a self-reflective process. I just want to have some free time, a couple of hours, with no intentions, no aims, and reflect; reflect and then write how my year was in books, a year I tried to let my false pride not be hurt if my heart leapt at a good thin(!) book.. but those are hard to scavenge for. So, (am) starting it now, and will keep adding to it, perhaps tomorrow(🤞), perhaps next weekend, or the one after, ... who knows(!), because otherwise it will never get done. And I know very well in my heart and in my mind (although heart just pumps blood and etc.,), that I will deeply enjoy and absolutely relish thinking about my past year in books and how my own perspectives matured during that time of a whole year regarding my own reading habits, and life, in general.
...
coming soon, my dear void ❤️, coming soon 🤞
...
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Accompanied by cheesecake and coffee. I made it! ☃️😍🥰

This was the year of audiobooks and short stories for me. As I started a new position as a post-doc, my expectations from my yearly readings were low. Probably because my usual work also involves reading, though of a different kind, more intense and purposeful perhaps. On weekdays, especially, I find it hard to read even the books I really want to and have been looking forward to read for ages. So, the first "audiobook" whose entry I added on goodreads was an audio-adaptation of 'Debi Choudhurani' by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (my some kind of great-great-ish grandpa, and I, along with many proud members of my family, are woefully ignorant about his works, and most of us will remain so forever!). These audio adaptations, done under the famous 'Sunday Suspense' series, are done by Radio Mirchi, an Indian Bengali radio channel, which has a cult following. I don't know if they "qualify" as audiobooks as per goodreads' definition but in absence of a good audible-level curated and famed platform for Bangla, this has impacted our society a great deal. I remember the mark it left on us since 'Chander pahar' came out. So, to answer no one's question, yes, I think all those adaptations ARE very-very worthy audiobooks.

My 2023 and the start of 2024 weren't that great. I finally gave up on trying to control my neurodivergence and, somewhat associated with my neurodivergence, and somewhat due-to-other-reasons, controlling depression just-and-just based on talking therapy (CBT). CBT was a great leap of progress from trying to do it all by myself, starting late 2020. I, finally, after being implored by my therapist and psychiatrist, and NOT-AT-ALL by many people, started medications. It did wonders. I still had a lOOOoooOOOoooOOOng strings of unfinished, half-read, quarter-read, 23.456% read, 52.31% read books, but in general I felt happier and more positive, and as the year progressed, these good impacts became clearer. The second book was a book that my dear little book club wanted to read. It was 'Leonard and Hungry Paul'. At first I though it would be too "woke" for me. It wasn't. It resonated. Leonard and hungry Paul were simple, unremarkable and, from a like-to-another-set-of-likes - two definitely neurodivergent protagonists minding their own business, and not exactly fitting but still managing somehow in a world ill-designed for them. Absolutely loved it. A warm, slow bed-side read for happy sleep-times knowing that there are similar beings out there, some recognised, some not, somewhat recognised, somewhat not,
and their stories appeal to "normal" people too (I although I gave 'Normal People' a very mixed reaction), although (another!) what even is "normal"? 🤔

I finally finished Nora Ephron's set of essays. She used to feel bad about her neck! I can understand that. And as big a fan that I am of her films, I became one of her essays and her wit too. Her more controversial book is on the charts this year, let's see how that appeals to me and if it does, or will it come across as spiteful, as some people say it is. The woman usually makes a lot of sense, in a manner of speaking that is.

I read Kafka for the first time, his story of 'the Hunger artist', and now could finally understand who and what Sigrid always raved about, and she read him in German. I resorted to my Nancy Drew's and Sunday Suspense audiobooks, which I resorted to most of the times, every once-, rather, many ones-in a while during difficult spells throughout the past year. I read many filling kiddie books to increase my goodreads number (how shameful! but I am hugging and loving my anxiety these days in imperfect manners!) and discovered Amelia Bedelia, wooo! People say she was neurodivergent too! What's happening!?

I also read my first Philip Pullman, 'Lyra's Oxford'. The book had appealed to me since I live in Oxford these days, and walk everyday the street beside the one he write most about i.e., 'Turl street'. I went to Turl street, now-a-days between an amazing Italian restaurant 'Gusto' (there are many Gustos though, we were once fooled) and All Saints' Church, and tried to imagine the architecture, the nature of the spires that he put down on his paper. His writing style isn't something I took an immediate fancy to, (maybe I have become too old for that?) but the charm of Oxford in his writings makes my everyday life more beautiful. It makes me feel fortunate and thankful. I attended a book launch where he was a speaker. It was not a book of his, but most people had come to see him. Not surprising. he signed my copy, asked my name and said if he can use my name for one of the characters in his books!!! whOAAA!!! How wonderful! One of those instances in life that you don't forget. But I didn't give him the note with my name written down on it, and I am worried he might forget it. Or worse, he couldn't actually pronounce it and was just being polite! Or worse-er, what if he remembers and it is a villain? Or, fAAAr worse-er-er, a character not much needed killed-off rather soon as a plot element! Ah, okay, okay! Let me not get too much ahead of myself and just be happy that he heard my name, and gave it the most wonderful compliment. I find it often very difficult to make people pronounce my name correctly. I think after being in the UK for so long, even I have forgotten how to pronounce my own name when I introduce myself sometimes. I say what the British do. Woah, unreversed-unreversed-so-not-reversed colonialism! Even in India, outside Bengal it was so, and I used to adapt a pronunciation more suitable to people there. In the UK, I have done the same, but keep reminding my closest friends from time to time though, although less often than I ought to! 😉

I read the much hyped 'Lessons in Chemistry'. I understood why it became famous and what I liked and disliked in it. In a way, the book is for patience-less people like me, courtesy its pace, but it lacked a depth that I had expected from it. Also, a story about a woman in science, is a concept I absolutely love, that it became so famous is even better news, but I wish it had more maturity in its plot and lines. 🫣

I also heard 'The Testament of Mary', and fell in painful love with Meryl Streep all over again. I loved her voice, her emotional orations as Mary, so much that it is difficult to comment on the writing. I cannot separate her voice and her ability to emote through her voice from the writing and its quality. Downing of this realisation and critical perspective is something that my favourite audible books, which are always autobiographies, could never provide. I also finished Michelle Obama's 'Becoming' on my third try (I think). It was whitewashed (the irony!) for sure, but you cannot take away from the part of her life that she has chosen to show. It is worth a hear (or an ear or a listen, or WTF!). There were moments, even with my cynicism, when I had tears in my eyes.

In autumn 🍁, I became part of the goodreads short-story club. Oh, what a wonderful online book club. I didn't know what I was missing! I discovered Lord Dunsany there. Being a fantasy writer some generations removed, I had thought his stories would be predictable (dated will not be the right word here). Many were not. What an amazing surprise. I read some stories, got to know about writers like Alex Comfort, whom I never would have read by myself and all added something to my life. A BIG hug for the club. 💞❤️

This year I tried to not feel guilty that some of my entries were short reads, or basically short stories, or kid's books, and only with their help did I manage to finish my reading challenge. It was an even bigger challenge not to feel guilty. Then I remembered the words of wise reminder from my friend Matt that I read for pleasure and knowledge, for my own gain and happiness, not to prove a point or finish a challenge. Easier said than done, but I tried, and progressively succeeded. As long as the read adds to your life, it is a countable book for a "challenge".

Overall, the volume was less this year. That, as I mentioned above, was in itself a personal challenge to overcome - that associated guilt! But now as I look back from the other side of the year, it was a good year of reading and growth and happiness through reading. Maybe without the heavy burden of expectations, and finally being able to be away for good from the video medium (which I count as perhaps 2024's greatest victory, yaya! 💃💃💃) which has been my worst addiction, nothing less, making me progressively unhappy, and with the practice from 2024, maybe I will be able to be less anxious and read more enjoyably in 2025. Let's see!🤞 I am hopeful. ❤️

Happy reading, my dearest void (not that I am ghost, and progressively less like Ben)! 🙃

Church Bells and Darjeeling Tea

A very happy and pleasant book, if you are looking for one.

I picked up this book from a stall in the Bangladesh hall in Kolkata Book fair 2023. It was strange to have picked up an English book from the Bangladesh arena as per some of my friends. But the one random page that I opened of the book, its illustrations, its cover all just seemed so charming. They echoed and promised the same Ruskin Bond-ish charm but from Darjeeling and from a female point of view that belong to both India and Bangladesh. And I am so so glad that I picked this book up. It is just so charming. ❤

Not that anyone cares (:P) but I would share one experience of mine with this book. I was sitting in a  beautiful cafe the day before yesterday at the heart of south Kolkata surrounded by warm lights, my Ma's favorite black and white marble flooring, white-colored and heavy old iron chairs and slightly cool unexpected Kolkata summer evening. Reading this book with a flat white and a brownie made that evening just perfect. The perfect happy book at the perfect happy place. It was a very good evening. ❤

(Sorry for repeating) This is such a charming and happy book that I am glad I picked it up. True to what it promised at the first glance in the book fair, the flavor for Darjeeling presented here is partially, not entirely, similar to what Rusty's is for Dehradun and his school days, for all Ruskin Bond fans out there. It talks about the history of Darjeeling, of Loreto convent interspersed with  the history of pre- and post-independent India, how the culture of the British Raj was entwined in the Indian culture, Zeena's nanna, her family, histories of many other famous family's whom you will recognize if you are a Bengali. It is a walk down the memory lane, the nostalgia of a romantic age that is now lost to time. The illustrations add to the charm.

On its cons, sometimes the historical descriptions are rather dry. I did not mind it as in general I am interested in the history of the hill station but it might be a turn-off factor for many readers. There is no particular order or structure apart from Zeena Choudhury's school timeline, and that choice justifies the organization for me as well.

Overall it made me smile almost continuously and cry once or twice. The book is a happy autobiography of the writer's childhood spent at the Loreto convent. A very happy and light reading for one of the stressful work nights.

Happy reading! :)

Do you need a watchman?

I will confess I am one of those people who bought 'to kill a mockingbird', read a few chapters but never finished it. My justification? When I tried, I was perhaps too young and didn't like the pace. I started 'go set a watchman' a few days back. The pace was slow at first, and I again doubted if I will be able to continue added to the guilt of not having finished its predecessor, the book of the century even by some people. But I was IN almost as soon as these doubts of mine began to surface.


In spite of all the negative reviews on that book, I really liked it. Might be more so because I haven't read the 'original'. So me not finding the original masterpiece enticing enough in my 'youth' wasn't a bad thing after all! Ah, life! ;)

When I as reading and starting to enjoy 'go set a watchman' I thought it would be interesting to play the reverse game. My friend ho has read both and like the second but adored the first says that if I like this book, I would absolutely adore that first one. He is quite a reliable person, so I trust him. I will still keep a gap of a few months or a year between the two, so maybe at the end of 2023 I will finish the year with a mockingbird. Soooooo excited! 🤩 Can't wait to gain that view and perspective.

Some, not all and not-exhaustive or a complete set of, bits that stood out-
some fun excerpts, some emotions, -

“ ...
The question, gentlemen—is one of liquor;
You ask for guidance—this is my reply:
He says, when tipsy, he would thrash and kick her,
Let’s make him tipsy, gentlemen, and try!
”
😳

“…
(Would You Speak to Jesus If You Met Him on the Street?
…”
😂

“…
Jem reversed his field and tackled heaven: heaven was full of bananas (Dill’s love) and scalloped potatoes (her favorite), and when they died they would go there and eat good things until Judgement Day, but on Judgement Day, God, having written down everything they did in a book from the day they were born, would cast them into hell.
...”
How sweet! 😂❤️

“…
I don’t know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York’s not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I’m coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it’s like leaving the world. It’s silly. I can’t explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I’d go stark raving living in Maycomb.
...”
Ah!❣️

"...
Something that looked like a giant black bee whooshed by them and careened around the curve ahead. She sat up, startled. “What was that?”
“Carload of Negroes.”
My first book of this kind, of this aspect of history. I can’t express what I feel. Strange! But definitely not surprising.

I absolutely loved and connected a lot to Jean Louise’s discovery of Atticus and Hank in the court. The after effect on her seems a bit over-dramatic but still quite beautifully written. My takeaway was that I must, must, absolutely must read the “original”. If this controversial and slightly hated one is so good, how great the original must be!

“…
and was thumbing through it again when he said: “Scout, if there’s ever anything that happens to you or something—you know—something you might not want to tell Atticus about-
Huh?
You know, if you get in trouble at school or anything—you just let me know. I’ll take care of you.
Jem sauntered from the livingroom, leaving Jean Louise wide-eyed and wondering if she were fully awake.
... ”
💔❤️

“...
Blind, that’s what I am. I never opened my eyes. I never thought to look into people’s hearts, I looked only in their faces. Stone blind … Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone set a watchman in church yesterday. He should have provided me with one. I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is. ”
Chapter 13, unlike its previous two chapters started off rather slow, but then as the conversation between Hester and Jean Louis’ started with the latter's own monologue as well, it was ❤️.

Following parts were great too but I didn't make any updates or notes.

Recommended. Even more so if you haven't read the preceding masterpiece.

Happy reading! :)

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, by Lola Shoneyin - a review

Picture courtesy: Amazon

This is the kind of a book I have always dreaded. They are to a large extent a true depiction, and many truths hurt. This book is about the household of Baba Segi (father of Segi, his first born) and his household consisting of his four wives and their children. The fourth wife is, as it would seem to the household, an unnecessary novelty - a graduate( :O ). Educated and independent and young. How will that determine the future of the household? The book was marketed with and indeed has a secret, but what made me read was the picture of the society that was painted, and very deftly so too, but not the plot to be exact.

The book starts with a traditional and seemingly perfect and happy Nigerian family set a bit behind its new educated class. The way established patriarchal ways of family establishment treat women, first makes me pucker my brow and nose in disgust; this creates a sense of wonder for this uniformity of horrificness across continents and oceans for women, and finally the partial benevolence emanating from the patriarch Baba Segi and his family for each other confuses my disgust. Why it is the way it is with Baba Segi, Bolane and his other wives? Baba Segi, mind you, might be sexist but is not a misogynist. He is a good outcome of a society which has certain different parameters of judgement, so don't hurry your judgement.

The story goes on and I realise a thing about myself. I never thought that I would find the use of poop humour intelligent! Yes, I just wrote it. Having written it, in this story this is a good use of humour to bring a sense of normalisation, which exists if you are living this life as many people perhaps still do, into these situations which will make human rights' carers go hoarse. Humour in sombre and deeply distressing situations saves the day. It doesn't make you want to kill yourself in despair, or engage in a heated debate but start a conversation from a place which is comfortable(for some reason), even enjoyable for the apt use of comedy and makes you think before jumping into a conclusion you already know exists.

It is my first fiction which closely followed the lives of these classes of African women whose sense of normalcy and ours clash like a battle of titans. They are not "strong" women, some may argue but are they not? Why Iya Segi, Iya Femi, Iya Tope and Bolanle are who they are? Are they justified? Are they to be pitied, or feared? Or should we just marvel at the way they tried to hold on to life and the carefully elaborate plans they make to conquer it.

Iya Segi's wisdom- is it just wisdom, or is it her cunning and deprived self finding a way out, and quenching her thirst through ambition? Why shouldn't she be who she is? She is ambitious, in control, manipulative but is the matriarch of the household. You dislike her first and then you somewhere starts understanding and even rooting for her almost sometimes.
Iya Femi- her story tells you the origin of the poison in her, and is it that unjustified? It is evil and dangerous at one side, but when you look the other way, don't you feel pity for her? She had once a promising life ahead, perhaps if life had given her a chance she would become someone like Bolanle, but then she lost all. She found a way out. Does she hate Bolanle also because she wanted to be an image of what now scares her current life's stability and existence the most?
Iya Tope- you are always rooting for her, and if you believe in god, you would perhaps pray for her.
And Bolanle. She understood these women. She could decipher the root of their hatred, she pities them while she need as much sympathy and empathy as all the others. She is kind with horrors of her own. Why was this life her choice?  And how long will she be able to hold onto it? I was waiting. Their stories were unfolding, and I was waiting for Bolanle to snap.

We sometimes detest the "family politics", which we many-a-times identify as a soap opera like drama. But this story, and many others like this makes me wonder. That drama is ever present everywhere. Sometimes it transforms itself into something we know as world politics. Our own mistakes, conditions, others' sometimes unmeant actions make these stories and claim lives. Whose fault is it? Then something happens, something snaps. The "unnaturality" of Bolanle, the insecurity of people whose own lives have not been well drawn arcs of justice but kind enough to let them build an almost comfortable and happy world out of it, make something happen.

Segi almost died. Whose fault is it? Mama Segi's? Mama Femi's? Yes, they deserve punishment. But why they thought what they thought? Why they acted the way they acted? I personally am sometimes so obsessed with justice, and yes it is needed, but how just will be a sentence on these women?  Would it respect the story and the life that lead to its pronouncement? And how promising or dangerous will be a pardon?

As the chapters go on, I wonder if this is a book or a soap-opera? You know the twists are coming and you still enjoy them. A known story which you relish for its drama discerning into the folds of human character in designed situations. They seem similar, but are not that much.
I have hated those soap-operas all my life, but I am relishing this book and smacking my lips. Have I gone the way of that insane old lady that all predicted me to be one day!? :( I had thought I would be an aantel-er version of the old lady. Seems not.

The characters seem to come to a well-predicted cliff, and to move ahead, they paid an intolerably sad  and heavy price. But then they took their courses. Only Bolanle and Akin gave me hope at the end, the other endings seemed befitting to the story arcs, but... you wonder

This was a humorous book and a moving drama which is also very sad and challenging if you take human rights seriously. The good thing is that it doesn't blame anyone, but gives an impartial observation with kindness and amusement on what somewhere were the tragedies of life.

I definitely recommend this book. I will give it 4.4 stars(so 4 on goodreads and not 5). But do read it. It is a bit different. 

There is supposed to be a play about this too. I hope I get to watch that someday.

Happy reading! :)

Loud chuckles with "We Go to the Gallery" by Ezra Elia and Miriam Elia

 "We Go to the Gallery" by Ezra Elia and Miriam Elia

Is it a book? 

No. It is a fun DUNG BEETLE BOOK book. It is a very fun DUNG BEETLE BOOK book. It is an amazingly brilliantly funny DUNG BEETLE BOOK book of pictures and art.

Art and fun!? Ooooh... B-D

Before you drag your kids through the contemporary and abstract(is it?) art galleries, as I might do in near future, please read this book.

It will tell you why you should or not. :P

An ideal gift for expecting parents.

I loved the creativity in putting the new words, especially- almost every set of new words made many senses and those might not make sense to your child as he/she is still just a child.

For its brilliant funny creativity and making my self-conscious chuckles louder and louder(ahem!), I give this book full 5 stars.

Happy reading! :)

P. S. I think I am quite liberal in my ratings and try to accept first and then inspect if that makes any sense! :P

The death of meaning! :O (Source)

Period.

A quick short review of 'The Woman in Black' by Susan Hill

The book is one of the few relatively modern engaging horror novels. It is not a psychological thriller, but being written from the point of view of the protagonist gives it a flavour if being so, and I really liked that about the book.

The plot isn't a GRRM styled one in terms of excruciating details and intricate plotlines but I didn't miss the presence of that element. Perhaps it could also have been written as a short story, though I liked the length of the book. It is not grotesque but delivers the senses of fear through the perceptive senses of a rational, and I would say brave human being and relates simple but powerful descriptions of the natural occurrences, though mostly unrelated in logic but in the essence of fear with the supernatural occurrences, I would argue. But as you reach the end of the book, you do understand the enormous danger in the subtleties of fear with a heartbreaking consequence and end which I was literally dreading. Why that had to happen!?

The book is not completely unsympathetic to the perpetrator of the horrors. She had a terribly distressed and sad life, and there is an understanding of that pain. But understanding doesn't mean forgiveness or an open clearance to mad revenge and injustice. (On a completely different note, when I try to understand the workings of faith and religion this is the thing that I can never make understand both the parties- the ardent religious people and the hardcore atheists. Why, I wonder? May be there should be a little bit more patience in both the logical and illogical beings of the earth.)

I liked Susan Hill's style and perhaps would read more of her now.

I give this book 3.5 stars.

Happy reading! :)

P. S. I think I am quite liberal in my ratings and try to accept first and then inspect if that makes any sense! :P

Musings on 'The Ice Dragon by G. R. R. Martin

A sweet little story, but a little different ending would have satisfied me more. I was expecting the ice dragon to return to her someday, healed, from the lands of always winter.

She became a summer child! Why couldn't she be a laughing and crying(perhaps) winter child? Is it all metaphors or is it real? Well, the song of ice and fire seems more real than this story of little Adara and her loving, faithful Ice dragon.

I was wondering if she liked winter and the ice dragon more because it was the time her father hugged her?
 Was it all because of the absence of any apparent love and care in summer, and it all returned when the shock of loss or fear jolted her senses and brought her back to her emotions? Her feelings which were always deeply buried within her unknowingly from her fourth year when she had heard that conversation between uncle Hal and father and which now the fear of loss had finally let out on the surface?

Guess we will never know but will keep wondering...

That's the beauty of a short story, isn't it?

I give this story three and a half stars... :D

Dear void, happy reading! :)