Books Read in Dec 2024

 

Another year comes to an end.. 

The calendar created by Surabhi (@vapoursofthought) with lovely photographs she clicked has been my prop for every month's reading wrap up in 2024. As sheets of this beautiful calendar turned, some pretty fast and some achingly slow, I realized I stand at the threshold of another new year. There's a  mix of fear, apprehension and hope, a bag of varied emotions swarms my head; but this has been the norm now for last few years.

I stuck to short reads in December as kid's school routine - his exams and year end projects demanded a lot of my time. There was a lovely, short trip to Mangalore around Christmas time. I attended two lit fests in Dec - The Green Lit Fest on Dec 7th and The Bangalore Lit Fest on Dec 14-15. Living close to two decades now in a city known for its wonderful bookshops and bibliophilic crowd, this was the first time I was attending literature fests. Even if it was a meek start and I managed to spend only a little time at the events, I was extremely happy I got a chance to meet Monisha Raman at the The Green Lit Fest and Sayari Debnath at Bengaluru Lit Fest. They are avid readers, fabulous writers and editors and wonderful human beings I have had the pleasure to know and interact with thanks to Instagram/Bookstagram. 

Coming to the list of reads for Dec 2024 - 

1. Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life by Upamanyu Chatterjee (finally finished this book I had half left half completed by Sep)

2. Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishoi, tr from Norwegian by Caroline Waight

3. The Afterwards by AF Harrold, illustrated by Emily Gravett

4. The Whispering Chinar by Ali Rohila 

5. Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton

6. Veerapandiya Kattabomman by Ma Po Sivagnanam, tr from Tamil by Tara Murali

7. The Wartime Garden by Twigs Way

8. What Child is This by Rhys Bowen (Amazon Short Story Single) 

Two wonderful picture books (The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey and Amadi's Snowman) and two short stories translated from Hindi from the Dec issue of The Bombay Literary Magazine are other additions to the above list. 

I also finished a full year on Good Reads and am sharing my statistics below which clearly indicates my comfort with short reads, books that keep my reading habit going on. Like every year, I have no reading goals for 2025, reading is the only activity I have handy for stress busting and I wouldn't want to do anything that makes it stressful for me. So go with the flow will be my motto :)

The year 2024 presented some wonderful opportunities to share/write my reviews, my first time on Scroll.in and The Green Lit Fest newsletter. I tried to organize my published articles/reviews until now on Link Tree and here is the link - https://linktr.ee/divya.shankar

Here is wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR ! Signing off 2024 and welcoming 2025 with a little wish that may all of us get a little time to do what we earnestly love to until the time it becomes a habit or a comfortable part of our routine. 

Books Read in Nov 2024

November came along with a good number of hashtags that helped me read a little more than usual. The past few months have been really stressful, emotionally draining and books have become more essential than ever to preserve my sanity and health. 

Stress reading is just as real as stress eating. I don't think one should feel jealous at the appetite of a person who binge eats due to stress, and likewise, this little space with books that I share, to help me stay sane in really hard times shouldn't evoke envy, I feel. Stress has worked both ways for me - either I haven't read at all or I have read lots, but at the end of the day, it's a fact that I have looked up to books as extremely reliable, very faithful and silent companions that absorb a lot of my stress and leave me with a sense of calm. They have helped me in ways that human beings cannot. This preface before proceeding to the list of reads, I felt, is important, I hope it will help cut some negativity.

List of Reads for the month of November

Short Story Singles (in the order I liked, from most to least) 

• Half Truths and Semi Miracles by Anne Tyler 
• The Tale of the Unknown Island by Jose Saramago, tr from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
• The Cathedral by Raymond Carver 
• The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman, tr from Swedish by Elizabeth DeNoma
• The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman

Novellas 

• Unmoored by Ramachandran Usha, tr from Tamil by Krupa Ge 
• Hidden Treasure by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, tr from Bengali by Ipsa S 
• The Hour between Dog and Wolf by Silke Scheuermann, tr from German by Lucy Jones

The last one is a title I read for #germanlitmonth. I was happy to learn about #novellanovember hashtag as well.

Novels

• The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin, tr from Korean by Clare Richards
• The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, tr from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood
• Sixty is the New Assassin by Shesh (I read a crime mystery after a long time) 

For #NonfictionNovember 

• Daiva by K.Hari Kumar 

For #graphicnovelreadlong 

• The Lighthouse by Paco Roca, tr from Spanish by Jeff Whitman
• The House by Paco Roca, tr from Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg

Books Read in Oct 2024

 

Books read in Oct 2024 

1. The Go-Between and other stories, by Ghanshyam Desai, tr from Gujarati by Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal 

2. Bhava by UR Ananthamurthy, tr from Kannada by Judith Kroll with the author 

3. Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood 

4. The Music of Life / A Life's Music by Andreï Makine , tr from French by Geoffrey Strachan

5. The Door to Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn, tr from German by Melody Shaw 

6. Cold nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü,  tr from Turkish by Maureen Freely 

7. Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, tr from Spanish by Heather Cleary 

8. Lootaloot by Baburao Bagul, tr from Marathi by Manav Kambli

Books Read in Sep 2024

 

Books read in September 2024

1. Termush by Sven Holm, translated from Danish by Sylvia Clayton

2. Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar

3. A Bouquet of Dead Flowers : stories by Swadesh Deepak, translated from Hindi by Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt, Sukant Deepak and Jerry Pinto

4. Iconic Trees of India by S Natesh, illustrated by Sagar Bhowmick

Books read in August 2024

 

August was a very bad month on personal (health) front but I am glad that books worked as a source of solace and distraction in really tough times. Below are the titles I read during the month - 

1. Won't You Stay, Radhika? by Usha Priyamvada, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell.

2. Hellfire by Leesa Gazi translated from Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya

3. Not a River by Selva Almada, translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott

4. Reunion by Fred Uhlman

5. A Melody in Mysore by Shruthi Rao

6. Glass Bottom by Sonali Prasad

7. The Blight and seven short stories by Bitan Chakraborty, translated from Bengali by Malathi Mukherjee

Books Read in July 2024

 

Books I read in July 2024 

1. A Person is a Prayer by Ammar Kalia

2. Dukhi Dadiba and the Irony of Fate by Dadi Edulji Taraporewala, translated from Gujarati by Tulsi Vatsal and Aban Mukherji

 

3. The Eighteenth Parallel by Ashokamitran, translated from Tamil by Gomathi Narayanan

4. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, translated from German by Joel Rotenberg

 

5.What does Israel fear from Palestine? by Raja Shehadeh

6. Chronicle of an Hour and a Half by Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari

7. Vaadivaasal by CS Chellappa, translated from Tamil by N Kalyan Raman

8. Global (a graphic novel) by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin , illustrated by Giovanni Rigano

Books Read in June 2024

 

Books I read in June 2024 - 

1. The Many Lives of Pauloma Chattopadhyay by Devangi Bhatt, translated from Gujarati by Mudra Joshi
2. In the Cafe of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano, translated from French by Chris Clarke
3. Mahasena by Kala Krishnan
4. Theivanai by Kala Krishnan (both books 3 and 4 are part 1 and 2 of The Murugan Trilogy)
5. A Speck of Coal Dust by Rohit Manchanda
6. Nocturne Pondicherry : Stories by Ari Gautier, translated from French by Roopam Singh

Books Read in May 2024

 

I began my reading for the month of May with a collection of short stories not aware that May is popular as the Short Story month. I always love short stories, they always help me to keep some reading going on. They helped me more than ever in May which was messy, super busy, broadly a month with more lows than highs and happy days.

Below are the books I read - 

Short Stories Collections:

•  Selected short stories of Jainendra Kumar, compiled by Pradeep Kumar, translated from Hindi by Ravi Nandan Sinha 
• The Keeper of Desolation: Stories by Chandan Pandey, translated from Hindi by Sayari Debnath

I also finished reading half of the collection (first five of total ten) Kuttiedathi and other Stories by MT Vasudevan Nair, translated from Malayalam by V Abdulla. I re-read two stories from one of my favorite collections - Swimmer Among the Stars by Kanishk Tharoor. 

Novels

• Roots by Malayatoor Ramakrishnan, translated from Malayalam by V Abdulla
• The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese, translated from Italian by Tim Parks
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

Non Fiction 

• Hold on to your Dreams - A Letter to Young Friends by Ruskin Bond.

Books Read in April 2024

 

Books I read in April 2024 - 

1. Where God Began by Appadurai Muttulingam, translated from Tamil by Kavitha Muralidharan 

2. An Island by Karen Jennings 

3. Water by John Boyne 

4. Life Was Here Somewhere ; Stories by Ajeet Cour, translated from Punjabi by the author & Minoo Manocha 

5. Fool Bahadur by Jayanath Pati, translated from Magahi by Abhay K

(Also, a Short Story single - Tiger King by Kalki, tr from Tamil by Gowri Ramnarayan)

Books Read in March 2024

 

Two books for young readers, four novels and four short stories collections - these make my tally for March 2024 reads, definitely more than what I thought I would manage at the start of the month. March was 'messy' with my parents' health issues that have been surfacing quite often now, a bad bout of flu that left me weak. The last month of my kid's academic year meant end-year projects and exams lined up, demanding more of my time and attention. A more rigorous routine meant more sincere intent to read :) 

I am happy that a good chunk of these are translated literature (from Kannada, Telugu, Arabic, German and Swedish). 

Short Stories Collections 

1. Mayadevi's London Yatra - New and selected stories by Bulbul Sharma 

2. Instruments of Torture by Aparna Sanyal

3. The Hippo Girl and other stories by Shah Tazrian Ashrafi

4. Cracked Glass jar and other stories by Chandralata, translated from Telugu by CLL Jayaprada

Novels

1. A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, tr from German by Charlotte Collins 

2.The Old woman and the River by Ismail Fahd Ismail, tr from Arabic by Sophia Vasalou

3, Sakina's Kiss by Vivek Shanbagh, tr from Kannada by Srinath Perur

4. The Singularity by Balsam Karam, tr from Swedish by Saskia Vogel

Books for Young Readers 

1. Stitch by Padraig Kenny

2. Mehar's World of Colours by Arti Sonthalia

Books Read in February 2024

 

My February reading began with a graphic novel, The Pig Flip by Joshy Benedict, translated from Malayalam by KK Muralidharan. An Indian graphic novel, translated from an Indian language makes it one of a kind. I added two more illustrated books, specially meant for young readers to my kitty - The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Sophie Blackall and Paper Boat Paper Bird by David Almond, illustrated by Kirsti Beautyman. Also, added two more, very slim picture books- Shelter by Celine Claire, illustrated by Qin Leng and Olwen finds her wings by Nora Surojegin, illustrated by Pirkko Surojegin.

Other reads for the month include - 

Silk by Alessandro Baricco, translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein

The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay, tr from French by Sheila Fischman (for February in France)

The Secret of the Blue Glass by Tomiko Inui, tr from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Under the Bakul Tree by Mrinal Kalita, tr from Assamese by Partha Pratim Goswami

The Patient in Bed Number 12 by Rajkamal Jha 

Eden Abandoned : The Story of Lilith by Shinie Antony

Postcard from the Lushai Brigade by Hannah Lalhlanpuii

And cannot end the month's reading without a collection of short stories - Stories for winter : and Nights by the Fire (British Library Women Writers)

A wholesome reading month where I earnestly set aside a lot of my time to read as much as possible, knowing fully well that March is exam time for kid at school , April and May, the summer holiday months will have really spare or nil reading too.

Books read in January 2024

 

Below are the books/titles I read in January 2024 - 

For January in Japan, a hashtag, a beautiful initiative on Instagram, (I have been reading for the last few years), I read the four titles below this time -

Mountains, Radio Waves and a Love Letter- Days of Adventure on the Evergreen Ranch by Shinji Yoshikawa 

The Forest Brims Over by Maru Ayase, translated from Japanese by Haydn Trowell 

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, translated from Japanese by Alison Watts 

The Three Cornered World by Natsume Soseki, translated from Japanese by Alan Turney

Other novels read include -

I read a book translated from language Afrikaans for the first time - A Good Night for Shooting Zombies by Jaco Jacobs, translated by Obus Geldenhuys, illustrated by Jim Tierney. 

Maria, Just Maria by Sandhya Mary, translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil left a deep impression. 

I cannot have a month without a fair share of short stories. I read a collection of stories, two short story singles available on Amazon Free Prime reading and four singles from Mint Lounge - lounge fiction special. 

Short Stories

A Fine Thread by B Jeyamohan, translated from Tamil by Jegadeesh Kumar 

Amazon Original Stories -

A Planned Occasion by Angie Kim 

Days Before Us by Sejal Badani 

From Mint Lounge - 

The Bleeding Flowers - Linthoi Chanu 

Paper Boat - Manoj Rupda, translated from Hindi by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Unni Nair and Sumathi by Manu Bhattathiri

Just Friends by Shastri Akella