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Books read in 2019

After being stuck in a bit of a rut in terms of reading books, I ended up reading more books in 2019 than in previous years.

I read a lot of things online and this year I had to make a conscious effort at switching off from a screen and carry a book.

  1. Shivaji: The Grand Rebel by Dennis Kincaid
  2. Sapiens: Yuval Noah Harari
  3. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
  4. An Era of Darkness by Sashhi Tharoor
  5. House of Shivaji by Jadunath Sarkar
  6. The public intellectual in India by Romila Thappar
  7. Homo Deus: Yuval Noah Harari
  8. The Free Voice by Ravish Kumar
  9. Manto: Selected stories – Sadat Hasan Manto (translation Aatish Taseer)
  10. Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Favourite

Of the list Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is my favourite read in 2019. I would recommending reading it. I am glad I discovered it while listening to a Frontline podcast.

Comics

I got the entire collection of Asterix comic series. I read about 6-7 of them in 2019. The singular village in Gaul, standing up to the mighty Roman Empire of Julius Caesar has been a favourite since I was ten.

That said there are hardly any main female characters; and some of the story telling is a bit dated.

Some goals for 2020

I plan to (hope to) read 50 books this year! I also hope to write 52 posts this year (averaging one per week – I can see I am already 3 posts behind)

Reading currently

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8 responses to “Books read in 2019”

  1. Sujith Nair Avatar
    Sujith Nair

    This is great! Keep going.

    Reply
  2. Praveen Avatar
    Praveen

    Anarchy is great like all dalrymple…looking forward to learning about shivaji, thanks for the recommendations!

    Reply
    1. Aditya Avatar
      Aditya

      Hey, nice to see you comment here, Praveen.
      Anarchy is definitely great. Recently, I am greatly enjoying Manu S Pillai’s The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History

      I am planning to publish a detail review of both books, hopefully this month.

      Reply
      1. Praveen Avatar
        Praveen

        Oh nice… indian history is fascinating, I read in some tamil literature that during the chola times, there used to a street in today’s Tanjore where all the greeks used to live… I will check the book by Manu pillai.

      2. Aditya Avatar
        Aditya

        That is fascinating. Probably must be from the Seleucid empire. That said they might have not been Greeks per se but part of mixture of agents from Persia to Egypt to central Asia, who did form large part of Selecus Nikators corterie.

  3. Praveen Avatar
    Praveen

    Neat, Must have been really interesting to live in those times. I love to read description of travellers like ibn batuta who described they saw when walking through delhi around 13th century, creating a 3d image of what they saw. they were the original bloggers! any recommendations on such writings would be great.

    Reply
    1. Aditya Avatar
      Aditya

      Ah, now I see why you like Dalrymple. His early books are all travelogues through Syria, Israel and India.

      Read his From the Holy Mountain where Dalrymple retraces the journey by John Moschos, who did this through the Byzantine world.

      Reply
  4. Praveen Avatar
    Praveen

    haha nice… I will get that. danks!

    Reply

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