{"id":2073,"date":"2015-01-10T21:56:51","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T16:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2015-01-11T20:54:23","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T15:54:23","slug":"our-reading-resolutions-omer-wahaj-managing-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/our-reading-resolutions-omer-wahaj-managing-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Reading Resolutions: Omer Wahaj, Managing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New year, new books, new resolutions! This month, the Desi Writers\u2019 Lounge team is sharing its\u00a0reading 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<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some of the books that I have managed to read over the last year and a half include:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

– American Psycho<\/em><\/strong> by Bret Easton Ellis
\n– Anansi Boys<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Gaiman
\n– The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman<\/em><\/strong> by Laurence Sterne
\n– Kafka on the Shore<\/em> <\/strong>by Haruki Murakami
\n– The Pale King<\/em><\/strong> by David Foster Wallace
\n– Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew<\/em><\/strong> by Shehan Karunatilaka
\n– The Prisoner<\/em><\/strong> by Omar Shahid Hamid
\n– I am Malala<\/em><\/strong> by Malala Yousafzai
\n– Odysseus Abroad<\/em><\/strong> by Amit Chaudhuri
\n– Possession<\/em><\/strong> by A. S. Byatt
\n– The Scatter Here is Too Great<\/em> <\/strong>by Bilal Tanweer
\n– Narcolopolis<\/em><\/strong> by Jeet Thayil
\n– Deadhouse Gates<\/em><\/strong> by Steven Erikson<\/p>\n

I was also able to re-read the following:<\/p>\n

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– The Martian Chronicles<\/em><\/strong> by Ray Bradbury
\n– Rendezvous with Rama<\/em><\/strong> by Arthur C. Clarke
\n– Moth Smoke<\/em><\/strong> by Mohsin Hamid
\n– Through the Looking Glass<\/em><\/strong> by Lewis Carroll
\n– American Gods<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Gaiman
\n– Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
\n– Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death Five<\/em><\/strong> by Kurt Vonnegut<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I am currently reading: And Then One Day: A Memoir<\/strong> <\/i>by Naseeruddin Shah<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

So, in the spirit of this blog post, here’s my resolution to read – in 2015 –\u00a0 all of the books in the following list:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

– The Time Traveler’s Almanac<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
\n– A Century of Science Fiction<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) edited by Damon Knight
\n– The Complete Stories<\/em>,<\/strong> Vol. I by Isaac Asimov (can’t find Vol. II)
\n– 21st Century Science Fiction<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) edited by David G. Hartwell & Patrick Nielsen Hayden
\n– Time After Time<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) edited by Denise Little
\n– Timegates<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
\n– The Moslems are Coming<\/em><\/strong> (short stories) by Azad Essa
\n– Best Indian Short Stories<\/em>,<\/strong> Vol. I and II edited by Khushwant Singh
\n– The Ocean at the End of the Lane<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Gaiman
\n– The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad<\/em><\/strong> by Lesley Hazleton
\n– Home Boy<\/em> <\/strong>by H. M. Naqvi
\n– Breath of Death<\/em><\/strong> by Saad Shafqat<\/p>\n

Also, a list of books on my ongoing, incessant and interminable fascination with Karachi:<\/p>\n

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– Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan<\/em><\/strong> by Oskar Verkaaik
\n– Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City<\/em><\/strong> by Laurent Gayer
\n– Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi<\/strong><\/em> by Steve Inskeep
\n– Karachi, You’re Killing Me!<\/em><\/strong> by Saba Imtiaz
\n– The Prisoner<\/em><\/strong> by Omar Shahid Hamid<\/del>
\n– Karachi: Our Stories in Our Words<\/em><\/strong> (anthology of short stories) by Oxford Pakistan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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And of course:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Broken Triad: Storm of Assassins <\/i><\/strong>by Mohammed Qasim Mehdi<\/p>\n

And Another Thing…<\/i><\/strong> by Eoin Colfe, which I’ve owned since 2009 but haven’t been able to bring myself about to read<\/a><\/span><\/span>. Probably won’t read it in 2015 either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Here’s hoping that 2015 is the year in which I am able to read all these books and short stories so I can finish writing all those anathematized, half-written stories of my own that have slipped into a stream of unconsciousness, half-dead and vegetating, waiting comatose to be revived, or euthanized, to see some kind of an end at least.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New year, new books, new resolutions! This month, the Desi Writers\u2019 Lounge team is sharing its\u00a0reading 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[470],"tags":[123,15,488],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}