2009 - The year that was..

When I made a list today of all the books I managed to read last year, I was damn thrilled! I started 2009 with a resolution to read at least 2 books a month and am glad to see that I've managed much more than that! I love reading and my passion has grown much stronger over the last 2 years and I hope to continue and read a lot more this year...

Thanks to all the publishers/authors for sending across a lot of review copies/ARC's all the way across the world and all my wonderful book blog community friends for leaving comments and suggesting great books to read :) Because of time constraints I couldn't post the reviews for the books I committed for December...will ensure they are up in the next 1 week..

Here's the complete list-
(Click on the titles to go to the book reviews)

1. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts by Hussain.S.Zaidi
4. Almost Single by Advaita Kala
5. Keys to Living Joyfully by Sheri Kaye Hoff
6. A Flight of Pigeons by Ruskin Bond
7. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
8. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
9. Keep off the Grass by Karan Bajaj
10. Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal
11. Dont Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight by Rujuta Diwekar
12. Buddha Mind, Buddha Body by Thich Nhat Hanh
13. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
14. Princess by Jean Sasson
15. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
16. Everybody Wins by Gary Chapman
17. Dancing With Ana by Nicole Barker
18. The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
19. Brida by Paulo Coehlo
20. But then again I could be wrong by Jim Rising
21. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
22. To Sir with Love by E.R.Braithwaite
23. Two States by Chetan Bhagat
24. A Quiver Full of Arrows by Jeffery Archer
25. The Energy of Prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh (not reviewed)
26. 24x7 Marriage by Vijay Nagaswami (not reviewed)
27. Symbols of the Soul by Gina Lake (not reviewed)
28. 34 Bubblegums and Candies by Preeti Shenoy (not reviewed)

Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW)

The Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW) is a fun event to celebrate the contribution and hard work of all the book bloggers on this internet space..and also helps in growing the book blogger community. Anyone and everyone who blogs about books and reading can participate in this and there are lot of awards and giveaways to be won!



The second BBAW is being hosted by My Friend Amy from September 14-18, 2009 at the new BBAW blog. You can register your blog here if you want to take part and also nominate your favorite blogs for awards in different categories...

For more details visit http://www.bookbloggerappreciationweek.com/
Like a blog? Then nominate it here

Kreativ Blogger Award!

I am thrilled to receive this very first award of mine! Thanks to Shona (who has an awesome book blog - Shona's Bookshelf) for sending this award my way and making my day :)

To accept this award I am supposed to list my 7 favorite things and also pass it on to my 7 favorite bloggers. So here goes -

My 7 favorite things -

1. Sipping my hot cup of green tea with a book to read..

2. Listening to music..

3. Doing Yoga..

4. Eating Hot Chocolate Fudge :)

5. Blogging...

6. Taking a walk...

7. Spending time with myself, just doing nothing!

I would like to pass on this award to my 7 favorite bloggers..

Ramya @ Ramya's Book Shelf

J.Kaye @ J.Kaye's Book Blog

Divya @ Divya's reading room

Anna @ Diary of an eccentric

Alaine @ Queen of Happy Endings

Bethany @ Dreadlock girl reads

One Swede Read

June reading roundup

June has been a good month in terms of reading. I managed to read a variety of books in different genres...stepping away a bit from the usual fiction...and I have lots more on my TBR pile :)

Books read:
(Click on the book titles for the reviews)

1. Dont lose your mind, lose your weight - This book by Rujuta Diwekar is easily one of the best books I've read in the Health/Nutrition/Fitness categories!

2. Buddha Mind, Buddha Body - One of the first books I read of Thich Nhat Hanh and I am truly drawn towards Zen/Buddhism and its teachings after reading this one!

3. The Remains of the Day - I finally read a book by Kazuo Ishiguro after reading hundreds of great reviews of this author. I didnt enjoy this particular book much though, will definitely try reading his other book - Never let me go

Currently on the shelf:
1. Princess - By Jean Sasson
2. Kafka on the shore - By Haruki Murakami
3. Energy of Prayer - By Thich Nhat Hanh
4. The Guns of Navar One - By Alistair Maclean
Watch this space for the reviews....

What makes a good book review?

Whenever I want to pick up a new book the first thing I do is to search for multiple reviews by different people so that I get an idea about the general opinion, the plot, characters and whether it appealed to most of the people who read it. So I realize that it's important to write an honest and a good review (by good, I dont mean just 'positive') becoz it does influence a lot of potential readers...

According to me, reading is a very personal thing. I've picked up few books which had some really bad reviews but I've enjoyed reading them and there have also been books which had excellent reviews but disappointed me..So it all depends on your personal tastes, a review just helps you in making a choice.

I feel that a book review should be short and sweet, should give a glimpse of the story without giving away too many details, describe a bit of the characterization, author's style, structure and maybe a few quotes/lines from the book to give an idea of the narrative. "Did you like the book - why or why not?" should be the focus of the review...sharing how the book made YOU feel is more important becoz if I my likes are similar to yours then I'd most probably take your recommendation and add the book to my shelf ..

So...what in your opinion makes a good review?

Monthly Reading Roundup - May

My reading has definitely gone down off late, but even with the hectic work schedule that I had am glad I managed to finish 3 books this month...

1. Keep off the grass, by Karan Bajaj - a light read fiction novel about a guy in wall street who quits his job to join IIM-B for his MBA, in quest of his identity.
2. Stay Hungry Stay Foolish, by Rashmi Bansal - a nonfiction book which is a collection of 25 successful stories on entrepreneurship
3. Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Yet to be reviewed) - I picked this up as part of the Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009

Currently Reading

• Princess, by Jean Sassen

Top 10 books of 2008

New york times lists the top 10 books of 2008 in the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories
Visit this link for details -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/books/review/10Best-t.html

Here are the titles -
(In the fiction category, I wonder why "The White Tiger" didnt make it to the list, but "Unaccustomed Earth" is one among the 5...)

Fiction
1.Dangerous Laughter - Steven Millhauser
2. A Mercy - Toni Morrison
3. Netherland - Joseph O'Neill
4. 2666 - Roberto Bolaño
5. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

Non-Fiction
1. The Dark Side - Jane Mayer.
2. The Forever War - Dexter Filkins
3. Nothing to be frightened of - Julian Barnes
4. This Republic of Suffering - Drew Gilpin Faust
5. The World is what it is - Patrick French

2008 - Round up

Just compiling a list of all the books that I managed to read in 2008. My target was to read about 25 but this is what I finally managed! Still...not bad I guess :)

1. The Inscrutable Americans - Anurag Mathur
2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
3. The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
4. Sister of my heart - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
6. The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
7. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
8. Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
9. In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar
10.The Last Lecture- Randy Pausch
11. AIDS Sutra - Anthology (Multiple Authors)
12. Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Adichie
13. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
14. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adamas
15. After Dark - Haruki Murakami