Yes, I fell severely short of my 50 book target for 2023 thanks to being ridiculously tied up with work (Work has been sucking my soul for 6-7 months now and I have had very little time to do anything). For the last 6 years I have been successfully reading at least 50 books a year. This year, however, I could only squeeze in 38! I tried really hard towards the end by searching shorter novels to read, but I didn’t stand a chance! Nevertheless, I was fortunate enough to be able to read many gems amidst some duds this year. Here’s an overview of those books (you can see a more detailed view here):
I also read just 1 book from my list of books to read in 2023 (you can see that list a.k.a. my list of failures here), and that was the epic Parva by S L Bhyrappa. It was brilliant such a surreal take on the Mahabharata despite consciously removing the mystic and literal magic from the story! Which brings me to the list of of my favorite books of 2023. and surprisingly, there are 7!
These books, spread across genres and themes and authors and settings, all still managed to capture my heart and how!
One good thing that happened this year is that we read and discussed all 4 books as decided by the book club. They were indeed enlightening and engrossing! The only change we made in our books is that we read The Personal Librarian (Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray) instead of The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan).
For 2024, we have only zeroed in on 2 books so far for the regular book club meetup and discussion:
- The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
- Three cups of tea (David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson)
Do you guys have any suggestions for us? Do let me know in comments!
We have also decided to do a Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) readathon this year – 2 chapters at a time. The coordination is going to be a bit tricky, but we’ll see if we can manage to NOT let this readathon go with the wind! 🙂
All in all, this was a stellar, if a bit insufficient year in books (is there such a thing as “sufficient” reading though??!)! Hopefully next year will be much better. Happy reading, people! May 2024 bring you lots of books, insight, entertainment, purpose, and a sense of belonging!
The Writing Block! 