Tea & Dark Chocolate

Again that time of the year when I try to cram in as much reading as possible in the last week of the year, and still attempt to spend time with my family and friends (I plan my India visits to be in December, mostly). Also the time of the year when I look back at the books I read and plan on the themes for next year's reading.    Per my  Year in Books  stats that Goodreads gives, I've finished reading 71 books in 2019, with an average of 296 pages per book.  Though I am pretty pleased with these stats (let's face it, I love numbers), especially given how often we traveled this year, and the frequent binges on Netflix that I've been on (thank you, Jane The Virgin and Breaking Bad!), the fact is - I read in numbers because I aspire to have at least 10% of my overall books read in an year as takeaways - books I can think of fondly or recommend or re-read. If I have met this goal, I rate the year as a productive one. Turns out, this year...

Off late, most of the conversations or debates I am having with friends fall in familiar patterns - someone in the audience would've said something that I disagree with, and I end up debating it with facts. Well, using facts not sentiments is the best thing to do, but what do you do in the world where every fact you pick might be discredited (either really because of the source of the fact or called as 'fake' news because people do not like this fact)? I have been thinking about this, I have a few options - I could move over from the argument and never touch it again with that same audience, or I could go at it in other ways. I flinch at the moving over bit, because that makes me feel that I am wasting an opportunity, both at learning and at giving it back. I am yet to figure out the right way to bring forth a valid point in a debate, something that will make the other person see the truth and not my face when I am uttering it.  This morning, a distant family member discr...

A few days ago, Hamsini , a friend from Instagram and GoodReads pinged me saying she was doing a profile on readers she knows. I answered the questions she had, and the resulting post on Curious Reader is here , which I liked very much. In the process of answering her questions, I put together quite some info about books that matter to me, and it made sense to record it all here. This post is in a Q&A format because I was answering questions for the profile. What makes a book, 'great'/ an-all-time-favorite/ unforgettable for you? Rather, in GoodReads parlance, what are a couple of those ingredients that make the difference for you between a four-star and five-star book? A quality book is something that stays in my mind - glimpses from the book should keep replaying in my mind, either when I am reading the book or much after. To name a few, I cannot forget - how my stomach squirmed when I was reading the chapter about the books being torn in Thirteenth Tale ; some pane...