I wasn’t sure I’d maintain this streak, but this year’s count ended up at 53 books. However, the distribution of genres left a lot to be desired.
Here’s the breakup:
- Poetry: 2
- SciFi & Fantasy: 15
- Fiction: 18
- Science: 8
- Mathematics: 4
- Non-Fiction: 6
Last year I’d just read five novels and many, many more non-fiction books. Oh well…
Poetry
Shruti and I had a great time reading one poem from each of these every night
SciFi and Fantasy
I’m counting all the Expanse Novellas as a single one. I revisited the Foundation series because of the TV show, and Dune because of the movie.
I don’t remember how I stumbled on this trilogy, but while it was depressing (an extreme form of slavery), the ending was pretty nicely done
This is a book from the 1950s(!) and as you can imagine, their version of the ‘future’ is pretty funny.
At one level, this story is about how emotions can completely take over a person. At another level, there’s an elegant twist at the end that I should have seen coming but didn’t.
Fiction
Piranesi was a recommendation from a student (thanks, Sam!) and how could I not read Ishiguro’s latest (which lived up to all expectations) and Keillor’s latest (which fell woefully short of any expectations).
Homegoing is a fantastic read, but I found the individual sections too short. It is depressing to see the horrific conditions of some sections of society in America relatively recently.
I had been putting off reading The Book Thief for a long time, but finally got around to it. It never ceases to amaze me how we humans can treat each other so badly, but this has to be told over and over so that we never forget…
This was my masala read – just consume without too much thought. I wouldn’t be able to recall the stories if I tried to, but great entertainment!
Science
I will be re-reading The Gene and the Rovelli books in the near future. Fantastic, mind-expanding, and accessible coverage of their respective topics.
These two were fantastic in their own ways. I don’t know how to even start to describe Gulp, so I won’t. And the Johnson book should be paired with the models course.
Mathematics
Is it odd that three of these are by Japanese authors? Irrespective, all are brilliant!
Non Fiction
Sadly, a very small selection this year. However, The Lords of the Deccan and The Art of Travel are easily among my top reads for this year.
