Kavi Reads

What a year this has been. I started off strong, far ahead of my usual “book a week” target, but then fell behind as lockdown and work-from-home took away my usual reading spots, riding the bus to/from work and inside coffee shops; and in general, other hobbies like gaming and spending time with various Twitch communities took away a lot of my free time. However, I picked it back up in the last couple months and ended with a total of 48 Books. And overall, I’ve been pretty happy with the quality of the books as well. The full list of books I read is here on Goodreads. As usual, here are some fun little highlights from 2020 books

Stats for Nerds

Total books: 48 with 36 physical and 12 audiobooks
Total pages (including audiobooks): 14,090
Most read genre and author: Mystery with 24 books, 14 of which were by Agatha Christie
Longest book: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (578 pages)
Shortest book: The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth by Rachel Ignotofsky (128 pages)
Oldest book: The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1898)
Newest book: What Doesn’t Kill You by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska (June 2020)
Book 38 (random number between 1 and 48): Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

First and Last Pages

The year started with a journey through the world and science and astronomy with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. If anyone’s ever been mesmerised by Carl Sagan talking, this book is exactly that, just in written form. It talks about 14 billion years of Cosmic evolution, from the evolution of galaxies to the evolution of humans who explore it today.

The year ended with a couple simultaneous reads. Well I say “reads”. One was an audiobook. Foundation And Empire was a re-read of an amazing book I read a couple years back. And it was just an amazing two years later. The re-read was triggered by the fact that I bought eight books by the author, Isaac Asimov, all of which I had read before, and wanted to relive them. The audiobook, The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead was a lot different. It’s a mystery thriller but around a topic I never thought you could write a mystery around: elevators, with Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it.

Personal Favourites

I usually do a Best Three Books of the year, but I could decide on just three, so here’s six

The Poisoner’s Handbook was a random impulse buy I made at Barnes and Noble nearly a year ago, back when we were still allowed in stores. And turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. It was all you can expect from a book with the subtitle Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

The Bone Collector is the fastest I’ve finished a book of that size, just four days, if I remember correctly. The book’s intensity and thrill made it so I wasn’t able to think about anything else throughout my day and couldn’t wait to get back to it. I would almost miss my stop of the bus, sneak chapters in at work, and even stay up late, simply because I wanted to know what happened next.

Peril at End House was one of a dozen Agatha Christie books I read this year. And that includes the famous ones like Murder On The Orient Express and The ABC Murders. But out of all of them, this was my favourite. From the characters, to the story, to the Agatha Christie twist at the end, it was a great journey, especially coz I was able to solve it before Poirot.

How To Be Less Stupid About Race was like a class my high school or college never offered. Dr. Crystal Fleming did an absolutely incredible job making a topic that can be hard to read for some accessible and clear, and even opened my eyes about things around me. We all suffer from racial stupidity at times and this is a must-read for everyone who wants a brighter future for everyone.

The Talented Mr. Ripley introduced me to Tom Ripley’s fascinating character. I picked up this book without knowing anything about it other than it’s presence on a list of mystery thrillers, so I assumed it was a detective novel. And it started off sounding like one, with a not-so-well-of guy is struggling to make a living in New York City and is approached by a rich magnate with a task. Things change when that main character commits murder instead of solving one

The Martian Chronicles another impulse buy at an art fair, where it was available for a dollar. It is a brilliant collection of science fiction short stories that combines elements of humour and tragedy to tell the story about the human settlement of Mars, touching various themes from science and exploration to militarism and nuclear war to loneliness and homesickness, even racism and censorship.

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I also bought a bookshelf, finally, since most of my books aren’t library books anymore. Here’s to lots more reading in 2021