Vol. 10 - in the final book, Bhishma gives Yudhishthira his final lessons on how to be a just king. Yudhishthira holds the Ashwamedha Yagna & is accepted by all as the Emperor of the World.

A grieving Dhritarashtra retires to the forest with Gandhari, Kunti, Vidura & Sanjaya. Then, Dwarka falls & Krishna is killed. Heartbroken, the Pandavas renounce the world & enroute to the summit of Meru, fall one by one - where they are welcomed into heaven.

Vol. 9 is a purely philosophical treatise where we explore the practice of Moksha (renunciation). Bhishma continues his teachings to Yudhishthira, exploring the avenues of Yoga and Sankhya. We read many ancient stories and learn about long-forgotten philosophical scriptures here.

This volume was very dry & complicated. As the longest in the series at almost 800 pages, it was a challenge to get through. Definitely will need to revisit this book.

Tender & vulnerable, Heart Lamp explores the lives of Muslim women in rural Karnataka. But it isn‘t just a story of one community - rather it is the story of girls and women - the forced silences, the harsh hurts, the piercing dismissals and the painful denials that we women are made to confront, at the hands of the patriarchal societies we inhabit and the men in our lives.

These stories may seem simple - but they are real and universal.

So happy and proud this book won the Booker Prize 2025!

My country, my region and my beloved native language Kannada.

One of the oldest languages in the world - so glad other readers can get a taste of our language!

A poignant set of stories that explore the day to day lives of Muslim women ; and also capture the shared cultural legacies of Indian and South Asian women!

I was looking forward to this book - an LGBT+ romance set in 1700‘s India, among the famed Tawaif‘s. But I was sorely disappointed by the writing - which left much to be desired in coherent storyline & voice. The story jumps across the past & present often. The love story of the protagonists feels superficial. There were too many random characters. The entire book felt like random bits cobbled together in a way that makes zero sense. Such a shame.

Brilliant book about animal mental health. Brought me to tears with numerous examples of animal abuse and brought a smile on my face for the many anecdotes of love & empathy between animals and people.
A must read to understand how mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal tendencies, affect animal wellbeing, especially in captivity. An eye opener.

Vol 8 starts at the end of the war. Yudhishthira finds out, to his horror that Karna was his elder brother & resents his mother for the lie. The Stree parva focuses on the sorrow, desperation & mourning of the widows of both armies & is absolutely heartbreaking.

A distraught Yudhishthira is crowned as king & then goes to consult Bhishma on all matters Kingship. This sets the stage for conversations about Raja Dharma, Apad Dharma & Moksha Dharma.

An okay book - the story did not live up to the backcover description. The story about the dam construction and government corruption is only about 20% of the book and appears in a haphazard way through the book. 80% of the book is a love story between two people and it‘s consequences on others.

Deceptive and Disappointing.

The author tried to tackle way too many issues, without doing any of them justice. The writing seemed confused.

Lolita is told from the perspective of a pedophile. It makes us uncomfortably intimate with the mind of a vile criminal. We see various facets of HH & we realise that his crimes aren‘t the only trait that define him.

I hated myself for recognising the diverse aspects to HH‘s personality. My heart broke for Dolores. I hated Nobokov for not writing a character who I could easily revile. But I also admire Nobokov for not making things easy for us.

Pine is a gothic thriller genre that starts out interesting and fizzles out in the end. The book doesn‘t feature the disappearance of one of its characters until we are almost 75% through. It feels like the author was having so much fun writing about witchcraft and cartomancy, that she forgot she had to deliver on the thriller/crime and had to solve the mystery. The end feels very rushed and the revelation of the criminal an afterthought

This was such an engrossing book. Yes, it did have some of the cliched horror tropes, but overall it was so unique and exciting. I felt my skin crawl as I listened with bated breath, to see how things pan out. Definitely a must listen. It is low on the horror side - with the horror elements coming up only in the final section of the book. For the largest chunk, the author gaslights the reader, by making his characters intriguing and unreliable.

Meghadutam is an evocative & soulful poem by the 4th Century poet, Kalidasa. A poem of love, loss & longing, it gently draws us into the grief of a Yaksha, a celestial creature in Hindu mythology, who is exiled & forced apart from his wife. He requests a passing rain cloud to carry his words of love to his beloved. Lush in its descriptions of nature & emotions, we experience the joys and pains of union and partition through the Yaksha‘s memories.

“Kesar Ling Norbu Dadul” - The Kesar Saga

A Tibetan-Ladakh epic about a hero named Kesar. It gave such a rare glimpse into the culture of Ladakh, India.

This was a special find…I am so grateful for this gift, which allowed me to read about the myths and folktales of a geographically-isolated mountainous community.

I Who Have Never Known Men is not a book on female rage. Neither does it ask for women‘s rights to the exclusion of men‘s.

The book asks for one thing - the opportunity to love - irrespective of gender.

The women in this book don‘t hate or fear the men - rather they fondly remember their pasts where men and women explored love and life together.

I did like the book. But, I found the obscurity of time to be jarring in placing the narrative.

A captivating story that definitely keeps you hooked from the start. The performances are amazing. But the show does end on a predictable, tried-a-million-times trope. Still, the book is a good, fast-paced listen. Perfect for anyone wanting to get started with or get back to reading.

The actual final haul of 2024 - some books I‘ve shown here a week ago, but here are a few more.

Excited for 2025.

A very Happy New Year to all of you and I hope your 2025 reading is fabulous!! 💖💖

An unsentimental, realistic story about the struggle for survival faced by the poor people from lower castes in rural India. It spotlights the career of professional mourners - Rudaali - which allows these women to regain power over their oppressors, by making a day‘s meal from their (sometimes hypocritical) grief.
This book also includes a play inspired by the story - but which changes the narrative to favour women‘s struggle over caste.

DNF - maybe the audio format was wrong? The book has large chunks of non-fiction, which may be better read…?
Or perhaps I just didn‘t resonate with the way the book is written and narrated…

I‘m increasingly finding many of the “celebrated” , “on winning lists” books to be not worth the hype.
Happy with the less-renowned works in my library 😅😉

I might give it a try again some day…but not in the near future.

Went to the much-awaited annual Literature Festival in my city today, attended a host of interesting talks and toted home a bunch of incredible book. Yay! Holiday reading list is ready! 😍🤩

Brought up some interesting questions about the futility of life and how ”to live is an act of violence”. But overall this book felt half baked, hollow and translated with zero emotions.

Does this book deserve the Booker Prize? Honestly, I didn‘t feel so. But, to each their own.

Victory city is a very interesting and captivating book written by Salman Rushdie, which falls under the genre of historical fantasy. There was not a single dull moment in this book and it was highly engaging with some very touching lines and some very hilarious lines as well.
The real issue is the narrator, who is terrible. His pronunciation of Indian words is atrocious, he could not pronounce the Kannada names of people or places or customs.

The “Nitopadesha” is a collection of stories & sermons on ethics, morality & citizenship from ancient India. It is divided into 4 separate manuscripts, each covering a different aspect of citizen-craft. With stories that seem to contradict each other, the book proves how morality and ethics are ever changing concepts which depend on circa, context and circumstances. The topics dealt with here, are as pertinent today as they were centuries ago.

“Brotherless Night” is an emotionally-charged novel that follows a family & their experiences during the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from 1983 to 2009.

The book offers a very nuanced look at the lives of civilians who are swept into the eye of a war, whose contours & colours start to blur and become unrecognisable as time goes on. It offers insight into women‘s experiences in war.

A historical fiction by celebrated Kannada writer, SL Bhyrappa, this book focuses on the forced conversion, economic extraction and temple destruction by Mughal rulers in India, specifically during the rule of Emperor Aurangzeb.

The novel is replete with highly-researched examples and an extensive bibliography is also provided to various books and historical records by scholars, court scribes, eye witnesses and historians.

Volume 7 brings the 18-days war to a close. This was an emotional roller coaster.

Yudhisthira‘s foolishness almost costs him the kingdom. With no choice left but deceit, Krishna advises Bhima to break dharma in the fight.

This act brings into focus the many times the Pandavas & Krishna perpetrate immoral acts in the name of “the greater good”.

The Pandavas end up the winners of a broken & grieving kingdom; with a bleak future awaiting them.

Such misguided, pretentious writing. The author took a lovely story from mythology and transformed it into some verbose, nonsensical writing. I am mystified by this book‘s commercial success. Probably the pretty cover?

Boy Parts starts out with a strong premise, but becomes a strange psychological thriller. The ideas presented are interesting (such as the superficiality of Gen Z & younger; performative existence; reel v/s real life; gaslighting for power dynamics; women‘s gaze as not always purer than the male gaze etc…). But I think the book lacked in execution and seemed sloppy in parts.
The narrator swallows a lot of her words, making it a difficult listen.

Caste is an insidious thing. Thankfully, literature‘s open heartedness & generosity ensures everyone gets an equal chance at expressing their lived realities & sharing their hopes for the future.

This autobiography of Dwarka Bharti is a testament to what the love of literature can do, in giving a cobbler from one of the most marginalised communities, an opportunity to become a leading academician & writer who changed Indian literature forever.

An anthology of stories by one of the first women writers of Karnataka, India. Based in the 1920‘s and 1930‘s, Gouramma explores themes of child marriage, widow remarriage, dowry deaths, sexual abuse and moral policing - while showing us in intimate detail, the vivid inner lives of the women protagonists, who are often mute shadows to the men who control their destinies.

This book is based on the 1621 witch trials in Vardo, a small island in Norway. It fails to evoke sorrow and empathy.

The LGBTQIA+ romance doesn‘t feel like an actual love story; something‘s missing.

The lives of the women, the period of accusations, the witch trials and the consequent hysteria aren‘t explored in depth. The pacing is too slow and there is too much focus on the protagonists‘ inner monologues.

The narration isn‘t very clear.

With this we end Day 15 of the war. The five days after Bhishma‘s fall are the most brutal. Drona is a savage.

There are a LOT of battle scenes in this book. But the book ends with a huge debate and fight about what Dharma really means; and who is morally right or wrong.

When Drona finally succumbs, we don‘t know whether to feel anger or horror or relief. Ashwatthama is MAD and gets reckless, showing no mercy with his divine weapons.

This is such a strangely compelling book. It isn‘t by any means a stunning piece of literature, but it is one that you won‘t want to put down.

The twists and turns in this book will shock you. Definitely one that will make for an excellent movie.

Go ahead and listen. The narrator does an excellent job.

Now i‘m off to learn this Housemaid‘s secrets 🤪

This book critically engages with the Mahabharata and tries to understand the social, cultural, political, economic and religious structures of India at the time the Mahabharata is believed to have occurred.

Karve strips away the fantastical and divine layers and exposes the very real humans underneath the myth and mystery. She shows us why despite being such an ancient work of literature, the Mahabharata is still so relevant today.

I loved this book for the most part. Naoko‘s story is heartbreaking & her family history is so beautifully portrayed.

I found Ruth & Oliver‘s story to be a tad pretentious; although covering some very important environmental themes.

But the ending which involved a magical realism time travel, a strange dream sequence & quantum physics just threw me off and ruined the entire experience.

I still like this book, but it could have been better.

Inspired by the story of Noah‘s Ark, this book explores the impact of prejudice against those different from us. Using the imagery of an apple, the book shows how even utopia can be rotten at its core. There is poison hiding in the seed that fruits into a blessing in the most desperate of circumstances. This book was tragic - not one of the best works I have read - but heartbreaking. I can‘t believe we humans have done this to others in the past.

A commentary on racial relations in contemporary times, this book was humorous, entertaining, introspective and heartbreaking in turn.

At its core is the story of racial relations in a white-dominated country, where people of colour are colonised (not using earlier methods), but through the appropriation of their cultures.

Although this book focused on East Asians, I think it holds true of any BBIPOC community in a white-dominated nation.

First book shopping of 2024! I can‘t believe I held out for 4 months. 🥰😃

Brilliantly researched, accessibly explained so it can be understood by anyone, this book is a revelation. As a feminist, this book gave so much history, heritage and context to the feminist struggles in India and South Asia.

This was my pick for Women‘s History Month and it addressed the patriarchal issues plaguing women‘s gendered roles, bodily autonomy, economic prospects, desire, emancipation and upward mobility; and the hard won victories.

There is art, science and soul that goes into running a convenience store.

Keiko is a loveable - albeit frustrating - character. You root for her, but can‘t help being annoyed with her for some of the whacky decisions she takes.

Shiraha - the resident incel - really gets on your nerves.

This book was a powerful introduction into the way patriarchy functions and expresses itself in Japan.

Both the translation and narration were great.

The first ten days of the Kurukshetra war are led by Bhishma - oscillating in favour between the Kauravas & Pandavas because of Bhishma‘s equal love for both sets of grandsons.

Krishna‘s wisdom in the form of the Gita fails to rouse Arjuna to action - but others pick up the slack.

Duryodhana has many tricks up his sleeve, but he is an equally honourable warrior. But things don‘t seem good for him as Bhishma is felled and Drona takes the reins.

Who else loves minimalist, but aesthetic notebooks?…

Do you use planners/journals to record and review your reads?

I typically use Goodnotes for reviews and have recently discovered Storygraph for tracking & stats.

But nothing beats a physical notebook and the actual act of writing!

💖

Started out well, fizzled off at the end. Predictable for the most part and relying on common horror tropes (common if you consume enough horror content elsewhere).

However, stories like “The Head”, “The Embodiment”, “Snare” and “Goodbye, My Love” were well-written and I did enjoy them.

Won‘t dismiss this author - I do want to read her new book “Your Utopia”.

I did not like the translation - it lacked soul and perhaps made this book meh (?)

Black Cake follows the life of Eleanor Bennet, an older Caribbean woman living in California; and the mystery that shrouds her past.

It also follows the lives of Byron & Benny, her two children, and their experiences as black/brown people living in a white-ruled country.

It was nice to learn about the history of the Caribbean - both socia-culturally & culinarily.

However, the author wrote about way too many issues, making the script too busy.

This book traces the awakening that the protagonist Nora undergoes, as she experiences a crisis in her marital life. When her husband Torvald fails to meet the fantasy & expectations she had constructed about him & chooses to not fulfil his basic responsibilities as her husband, a major inner & outer shift takes place in her life. Nora‘s sudden change of heart can be jarring. But I feel each person reacts to relationship trauma in different ways.

What is madness? Who is mad? Is it that which is strange; or the one who is different? Or is it a state, an expression, of love?

Mad Sisters of Esi is a ballad of broken hearts and splintered dreams, set against a sea of hope. It is a tale about the desire to create, the desperate need to recover the past and the jarring dissonance that occurs when remembrances cannot reconcile with time & change.

Beauty Is A Wound is a book you get, when a writer starts out with an inventive theme, but slowly devolves into sexist, misogynistic garbage, which feels like its from the wet dreams of a horny and misguided teenager.

There is an unhealthy and disturbing fixation on sexual assault, incest and beastiality. But the worst is how the author makes it seem like the women invited their brutalisation with their beauty.

Just NO!!

(Contd in comments)

How much of propriety and morality is enforced by others; and how much of it is innate?

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata forces us to confront our own humanity - or society‘s definition of it, through the heartbreaking and fascinating stories of Natsuki, Yuu and Tomoya.

This book wasn‘t by any means super high on the weird meter. But, it stays with you. It certainly made me pause & take note of how the fractures & disintegration happens within us.

Vol 4 starts at the Virata parva - where the Pandavas are incognito. After the 13-year exile, Duryodhana refuses to accept the legitimacy of Yudhisthira‘s claim to kingship and the preparations for the war begin.

This book shows stories of ancient sages, swarga, patala, nagas and the wise woman Viduraa. Incredible & poignant philosophy here.

We end this volume on the Kurukshetra grounds, a few hours away from the start of the 18-days massacre.

A politically pertinent book, written by a performative and problematic author. I found the book important in terms of discussing key Indian socio-political issues. However, some of the author‘s statements in her personal life, make this book seem superficial and hypocritical.

The author narrated this herself - not a good narration. Best get a kindle copy.

Final book haul of 2023! 😝

(Anybody else got themselves something new?)

#bookhaul #newbooks #2024readinggoals