Thread by @SlishaCrazy

Book1 #ElizabethIsMissing by Emma Healey: I sincerely recommend it. You feel the helplessness of old Maud as your own, when her mind slips away and she tries to hold it together. Sometimes memories get jumbled and it's hard to follow what's happening, but so is it for Maud.

Book2 #Educated by @tarawestover: This is a story of a girl rising out of her circumstances. Perseverance is at the heart of every good story. Yet she repeatedly flags that she's different and is adamant not to be relatable. Culture shock should have been a very relatable topic.

Book3 Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner: A well-loved book that I misunderstood? About female loneliness, it feels like a 1900s Mills&Boon. Relationships begin with no preamble and end in high drama and the author refers to our heroine as Virginia Woolf one too many times.

Book 4 The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota: It's a slow book about the world of illegal immigrants, living in the dark corners of society, invisible to most and exploited out of choices. A political commentary, it's a reality check for the naive and the policymakers alike.

Book 5 Girl, Woman, Other by @BernardineEvari is a phenomenal celebration of life. Like #HumansofNY or @HumansOfBombay, it's just stories about 12 people - mostly black, female, sometimes cruel, sometimes funny. It's rollercoaster ride through life, in different shades

Book 6. The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante: The tour de force comes to its glorious conclusion with Italy moving from fascist to communist to democratic but from violence to corruption. But the portrayal of the friendship loses track and the punch line feels lost.

Book 7. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: Finally read this thought-provoking book that makes you question your beliefs. But it's heavy like a textbook and I'm not sure how much I can retain. It's also scary; how easily can one be manipulated! Self-awareness is a myth!!!

Book8 The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters: my fascination with Egypt continues with Barbara Metz's fictional #AmeliaPeabody and her delightful family. In the 3rd book in the series, they get trapped inside the Black Pyramid while hunting down criminals in Dahshur.

Book 9. Heirs of Masaha by @sachit_handa: the 1st in the saga, it introduces the 'magic' of aether and the wonderfully layered characters who wield it. Apart from the rich history of the land of Malurk, what captures is the beautiful writing; almost philosophical. #BookReview

Book10. Invisible Women by @CCriadoPerez: it's a hard-hitting look at the gender data gap, but who is it for? I wish it was aimed at the default male statistician. Instead, it reads like a "women's book" that falls through the same crack that female data historically has.

Book11. The Tiger and the Wolf by @aptshadow: 1st of saga, a coming of age story of Maniye 'Many Tracks', it introduces a world where humans can transform or 'step' into animals. Too focused on Maniye's story, I wish supporting characters, say Asmander, were more center stage.

Book12. The City of Brass by @SAChakrabooks: Lovely to read a pager-turner fantasy with djinns, flying carpets and political games where every character is grey! A saga of love, betrayal, magical grandeur and politics, reminiscent of GoT, like the Tywin-Lannister-esque Ghassan.

Book13. The Talking Dead by @hackiechan: Not referring to the Walking Dead after-show, this is a book and a collection of four short horror stories written by a friend, set in Indian residential college campuses. Rest assured, I was as scared as a child reading Goosebumps series.

Book14. The Bear and the Serpent by @aptshadow: following on from Book12, two amazing characters take centre stage, Asmander and Loud Thunder. Both are outsiders within their tribes, yet leaders in their spirit. It's a joy to discover new tribes, their gods and complex politics.

Book15. Kingdom of Copper by @SAChakrabooks: Continuing from the cliffhanger in Book12, it has one too many plot twists. Characters go so dark that I feel sorry for the cruel Ghassan who spares the traitors. Chaos looms at every turn, setting up for a grand conclusion (last book)

Book16. The Fifth Season by @nkjemisin: Even with the best starting lines, the book drones on. Then I realised, I had internalised the incessant drone of the protagonist, Essun's life. It builds the most unique fantasy world: Angry Earth and civilisations that rebuild seasonally.

Book17. Empire of Gold by @SAChakrabooks: Epic conclusion to a page-turner trilogy! Like book12, starts with Nahri on a journey, with Ali. A convoluted plot ensues, towards a battle that ends abruptly. But after the battle, it's heartwarmingly hopeful as they pick up the pieces.

Book18. #TheSilentPatient by @AlexMichaelides: A disturbed therapist with a saviour complex wants to 'save' the beautiful artist who became silent after the death of her husband. It's a thriller with a solid twist. Makes for an easy page-turner/ popcorn read, I read it in a day.

Book19. The Hyena and the Hawk by @aptshadow: In the finale, a plethora of different tribes rally together to fight against the common enemy, the plague people. The truth about who the plague people are left me spellbound; ingenuis world-building! I couldn't shake the melancholy.

Book20. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami: It's a surreal novella that follows a boy on his fantastical trip to the local library that becomes a trap. He overcomes his fear to outgrow his childhood and grapples with loneliness while his memories help him deal with loss.

Book21. Those People by @louise_candlish: As a satire on the snobs of a posh South London neighbourhood who hate their new 'uncultured' neighbours, it's brilliant. Characters are so comical. As a suspense thriller, it's terrible! The pace and the (non)twists are poorly written.

Book22. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (@vinelandenergy): Estuko, grappling with her daughter's suicide, starts telling us a seemingly unconnected story of her friend in Nagasaki at the end of the war. As the story progresses, the ghosts of the past dig up Etsuko's guilt.

Book23. The Age of Magic by Ben Okri: it's a short book but I took forever to read it, rereading it more or less and yet I don't think I actually understood it. It's very metaphysical, discussing the concepts of evil, personified as Malazzo, and the search for happiness, Arcadia.

Book24. #RedheadbytheSideoftheRoad by Anne Tyler: To turnaround and look into another point of view, a view where you are wrong, is always so hard. Harder still in today's world. But we could all do with a little bit of that. A warm introspection set in Baltimore
#2020bookerprize

Book25. She by Deepa Mardolkar: It's a collection of poems, reflections on being a woman.
Every poem is so well modulated. It could be a celebration, a spark of anger, defiance, or a designated sigh but there is an undercurrent of strength and calmness that pervades all of them.

Book 25.5 (51%) Flash Boys by Michael Lewis: When I read Liars Poker, I was young and starting my career. Now, I see the hyperbole in Lewis's writing as just that. Also Lewis was there in Liar's Poker. He wasn't there in Flash Boys. Just saying...

Book 26. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro: A master in introspection, Ishiguro paints the generational disparity after WWII in Japan, but draws a contemporary picture. A poignant view of the acceptance of guilt of the older generation & resentment of the young.

Book 27. A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe: A political satire, it's a short book that explores the corruption of democracy and how the democratic people begin to accept it as part of everyday life. Greed transcends cultures and peoples.

Book 28. The Thing Around Your Neck by @ChimamandaReal: Twelve short stories from the master storyteller. The overarching immigrant narrative is relatable. Even in the 12th which as I started it, thought was not relatable at all, until I reached the very end and burst into tears.

Book 29. This Mournable Body by @efie41209591: Tambudzai's hopelessness permeates all. The use of the second pronoun draws you in and holds you accountable for the plight of women in independent Zimbabwe. But it's a finale of a trilogy I did not read, so to begin, I was lost

Book30. Little Fires Everywhere by @pronounced_ing: Is there a right or a wrong decision; Or are there just decisions and we need to believe are the right ones? Like her debut,the story starts at the end and builds the characters towards it, asking the question in different ways.

Book31. The Crowd and the Cosmos by @chrislintott: A fascinating read about how crowd sourcing comes to the aid of science in the Zooniverse project. This democratisation of science gives the new phrase #CitizenScience. Would Wikipedia be the first such successful crowd creation?

Book 32. Weather by Jenny Offill: It's a worryingly witty doomsday book, sprinkled with weird questions and observations. I warmed to it because I often have similarly weird questions in my head. But it's sad to think that we won't have apples anymore as global temperatures rise.

Book 33. The Forty Rules of Love by @Elif_Safak: Challenging the rules of righteousness that we've created, it gives us the rules of love, in the form of a discourse between Shamz & Rumi and Aziz & Ella. But rather simplistic, it reads like a sermon, making for a difficult read.

Book 34. Jaya by @devduttmyth: It's a thoughtful introduction to Mahabharata for children. It has grey boxes which are filled with tidbits of info on the vast folklore that originated from the great epic or points of discussions. The breath of the epic is always fascinating.

@threadreaderapp unroll