New year, new books, new resolutions! This month, the Desi Writers’ Lounge team is sharing its reading resolutions: goals for the new year, finally tackling those to-be-read piles. Join the conversation by sharing your resolutions in the comments and on Facebook and Twitter.
Since my job involves a lot of reading and writing, I have begun to have a difficult time reading and writing what I really want to in my free time. When I get off work – most of the days after staring at the computer screen, reading and writing, for up to 18 hours a day – I usually don’t want anything to do with reading, writing, or staring at computer screens. This has considerably and mostly negatively affected my reading habits, as I don’t read as much I used to or like to. In this regard, the DWL Readers’ Club has been a great help, as it forces me to read at least a book every month. It feels funny saying that because up until a few years ago, I would literary devour large volumes of books every month and also make witty puns, one of which I am still able to do.
Some of the books that I have managed to read over the last year and a half include:
– American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
– Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
– The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
– Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
– The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
– Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka
– The Prisoner by Omar Shahid Hamid
– I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
– Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhuri
– Possession by A. S. Byatt
– The Scatter Here is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer
– Narcolopolis by Jeet Thayil
– Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
I was also able to re-read the following:
– The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
– Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
– Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
– Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
– American Gods by Neil Gaiman
– Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
– Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death Five by Kurt Vonnegut
I am currently reading: And Then One Day: A Memoir by Naseeruddin Shah
Over the past year, I’ve collected several books that are lying around my room, some half opened, others with nary a page turned. Most importantly, I have a few collections of short stories that I really want to read.
So, in the spirit of this blog post, here’s my resolution to read – in 2015 – all of the books in the following list:
– The Time Traveler’s Almanac (short stories) edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
– A Century of Science Fiction (short stories) edited by Damon Knight
– The Complete Stories, Vol. I by Isaac Asimov (can’t find Vol. II)
– 21st Century Science Fiction (short stories) edited by David G. Hartwell & Patrick Nielsen Hayden
– Time After Time (short stories) edited by Denise Little
– Timegates (short stories) edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
– The Moslems are Coming (short stories) by Azad Essa
– Best Indian Short Stories, Vol. I and II edited by Khushwant Singh
– The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
– The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad by Lesley Hazleton
– Home Boy by H. M. Naqvi
– Breath of Death by Saad Shafqat
Also, a list of books on my ongoing, incessant and interminable fascination with Karachi:
– Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan by Oskar Verkaaik
– Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City by Laurent Gayer
– Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi by Steve Inskeep
– Karachi, You’re Killing Me! by Saba Imtiaz
– The Prisoner by Omar Shahid Hamid
– Karachi: Our Stories in Our Words (anthology of short stories) by Oxford Pakistan
And of course:
Broken Triad: Storm of Assassins by Mohammed Qasim Mehdi
And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfe, which I’ve owned since 2009 but haven’t been able to bring myself about to read. Probably won’t read it in 2015 either.