And She Read

I set myself a goal of reading (or listening to) at least a hundred books in 2019. But, more importantly, I wanted to get into the habit of writing. I decided to start with writing book reviews for a phantom audience and in turn create my own mini-book out of those reviews. The reviews serve one primary purpose – to get me into the habit of writing. Something. Anything. I honestly don’t feel I have the wherewithal to pass judgement on anyone else’s writing. Every single published author out there is a content creator. That that fact alone makes their effort laudable. As a mere consumer of content, my opinion is simply that – a subjective opinion. I have to say I enjoyed the process of writing reviews because it gave me a second chance to recollect the content of each book, and that was a pleasurable experience (mostly). Also, the reviews turned out to be mini-journals and sometimes reflect not just of the book, but what my day was like as I read or wrote the reviews. The process was therapeutic enough to make me want to continue this exercise into 2020.

Now, for some numbers of what my 2019 reading list looked like

As you can tell, I love nonfiction and tread the fiction space carefully. Maybe I’m afraid of the emotional entanglement to good stories! The audiobook thing is new for me this year. I trained for and ran 12 races this year (half and full marathons) supported by the 66 audiobooks. I did not listen to anything else during my runs but these books. Sometimes they were a blessing and at others a curse (when either the runs were hard or the books were bad).

So, if you have time, or if any of these books pique your interest, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll share my take on it.

And most importantly, I’m immensely grateful for the gift that keeps on giving – the public library system and all the supporting apps and technology. My life would be so sad without the marvel that is my local Public Library.

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life” – Fernando Pessoa

My top ten picks (not in order)

• Atomic Habits
• Where the Crawdads sing
• Becoming
• The Gene
• The Alchemist
• We are the Weather
• Winners take all
• Maybe you should talk to someone
• Surely you’re joking Mr.Feynman
• The incomplete book of running
• Make your bed

Finally, here’s the complete list: