Multiple times this year my reading pace dipped. The first time was from March onwards when I started my training job. 9 hours a day, six days a week, the new busyness that I found myself in, gradually squashed my naïve belief that reading shall always remain invincible for me – that nothing could distance me from reading books. But in reality, every evening returning from work, I found my interest for reading already depleted, and I instead turned towards easier and distracting pass-times, like scrolling on the phone or watching YouTube videos. Eventually, I found out that I could only finish a couple of books a month – a dismal reading performance compared to my usual progress.
After I was laid off from my job in June, I returned home
and for the next four months all I did was read left and right. I should
mention here that my reading agenda for 2022 was ‘to read big books’. Sadly, I
could only read one ‘big book’, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which was the first
book I read this year. Eventually down the line, I was happy I could read
anything at all, and so I read impulsively: nonfiction, fiction, new releases, new purchases. But at least I was reading,
and reading optimally; I carried an average of 8 books a month in those four
months at home. Then, I left for Karachi again to get started on my preparations
for the upcoming competitive exams, and the second dipping began.
As a reader, I have a limited stamina for reading, which I
measure at fifty to seventy pages, or two hours, a day. However, once under the
robust routine of preparation, all my reading as well as mental stamina got
spent on reading academic and study materials. Once done with studying for the
day, I didn’t have the courage to turn to books. Having started with one of my most
anticipated reads, Eliot’s Middlemarch, I found out midway that I was
struggling to progress with this otherwise brilliant, however lengthy, novel.
Soon enough, I discontinued Middlemarch because my inability to read it
further frustrated me and negatively impacted my ongoing preparation. And that
was that – since discontinuing Eliot’s masterpiece, two months now, I haven’t been able to
finish any other book, despite my multiple attempts to start reading other
titles.
As of now, the second dipping continues. I am hoping that I could
finish the book I am currently reading, Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, before the
year closes. I know that since my studies would flow over to 2023, I wouldn’t
be able to return to my books at least for the first month. Yet I remain
eager, even more so, to get back to reading with a renewed energy, and most
importantly, with a consistent reading performance throughout the next year.
All in all, following are the ten titles (ranked) that I
really enjoyed reading during this inconsistent bookish year, and my collected
thoughts on them.
1: When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Non-fiction Science)
Comprising of five chapters based on certain episodes from
the lives of multiple scientists, Labutat’s book is a powerful and sweeping
account of how madness and genius go hand in hand, and how the twentieth
century scientists pushed the boundaries of human imagination and possibilities
to frightening edges. Utterly astonishing! Exceptionally well-written!
2: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Classical Fiction)
Rightly acclaimed, this novel is not only Tolstoy’s true
masterpiece but a fundamental example of how a novel, seen as a project, should
be thought-out and written. Following Anna’s infatuating story and its tragic
end, Tolstoy takes the reader not only through the human predicaments of love
and its challenges, but more successfully presents an art-piece on family life,
society, financial struggles, art and sciences, among other numerous topics of utmost
human relevance.
3: Ignorance by Milan Kundera (Translated Fiction)
Like every other book by Kundera that I’ve read, Ignorance
also, still with astonishing novelty, entertained me with its elated and
pointed psychological insights. My immense love for this novel comes from its
plot: a group of scattered yet related characters returning to their home town
Prague, and each of them carrying their own fascinating stories – troubled
love, of course, being one of them. My admiration for and my amazement about
Kundera only intensified with this book – what a writer!
4: The End of History by Francis Fukuyama (Non-fiction
History)
While becoming my most favorite book title of all time, this term
has also been a source of great joy and a means for understanding world history
and, ironically, my own life. Fukuyama builds on the theories of Kant and Hegel
that our history is directional and thereby marching towards an end, and ties
this idea with the fall of communism and the victory of liberal democracy. A comprehensive,
summarizing, and helpful for understanding book.
5: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (Play)
How a novel, or in this case play, ends is very important to
the impression it leaves on the reader. Ibsen’s play has as resolving and
satisfying an ending as desirable. Following the life of a dutiful,
husband-loving wife Nora, A Doll’s House reaches to the core of patriarchy
through a very convincing plot, and when it is under its grip, mercilessly and
triumphantly, crushes it!
6: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (Non-fiction
Letters)
While we find many books resonating with our own lived
experiences, there are only a few which truly, consolingly, feels like they
were in some transcendental way, written for us. Rilke’s this collection of
letters which he had written in response to a young poet, continually addressed
many of the problems I’m so intensely bothered with, mainly sexuality,
loneliness, self-discovery and acceptance, among others. A book to re-read as
long as one lives, feels.
7: If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler (Literary Fiction)
This is probably one of the less acclaimed, new to many
readers, books on this list. Ben Joe’s story, the only brother of a family full
of women whose father has recently passed away, reflects and maintains the
quietness that this book has in the bookish world. And exactly for this reason,
I deeply adored this book. Set during a dark winter, it’s very calming,
gathering, and relaxing read, brilliantly written with a soft prose and a
low-key plot. Books are beautiful, this novel reminds you that!
8: The Undertaking by Audrey Magee (Historical Fiction)
Set towards the end of WWII, Magee’s book follows the life
of a German soldier who gets married to a girl back in Berlin, while himself
being on the front-lines at Moscow. A candid, brutal, and heart-wrenching
war-tale which confronts the readers with the very real, on-ground
grotesqueness of war. And it doesn’t stop there, the ending is even sadder.
Successfully moving!
9: A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom (Nonfiction
History)
Fortune introduced me to this book as a response to my
earnest yearnings for this magnificent human organ. Yalom brilliantly takes the
history of breast from the medieval times up to the twenty-first century, and
shows how this organ has changed meanings: holy, erotic, motherly,
psychological, commodity, fatal, and sadly, patriarchal. This book helped me in
understanding my otherwise very base desire and knowledge about the female
breasts.
10: The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis (Nonfiction Religion)
In this book, Lewis tries to explain a very fundamental
question about the religion and the human condition, that is, if God is all
powerful and merciful, why is there so much pain in this world. While the
arguments can get self-servingly pious and uncompromisingly God-centered, there
are certain passages in this book that leaves the reader astonishingly resolved
and pithy about oneself, the world as created by God, and how we comingle in a
divine plan.
Honorable Mentions:
The House of Islam by Ed Hossein (Nonfiction Islam)
Hossein’s book addresses the contemporary situation of the
religion of Islam in a global sense, in that it explains how the Muslim
population would rise to 2bn by 2050s and that the east and west cannot afford
to continue their dismissive attitude towards the cumulative cracks in the
Muslim Ummah. Starting with a historical account of the present that we find
ourselves in, this book helps the reader understand and become thoughtful about
what Islam truly teaches and how we should live in the contemporary world.
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (Young Adult Fiction)
There are no bad books, just different tastes. Hoover has
been one of the most avoided authors by me because she is very popular and
because I dislike the type of books she writes. But after her interview-article
appeared on NYTimes, I was impressed by her sheer hard-earned success and her
amazing fan-base. Now interested, I read It Ends with Us and really enjoyed it.
It is by no means a serious, literary book, but Hoover has embraced her genre
and written a true page-turner.
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (Translated
Fiction)
A provocative, dynamic, and untamable story of a Sudanese
man who infiltrates into his colonizer’s society and rebelliously wreaks havoc
there. Compared to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Salih’s book explores
colonization’s dark consequences, but does so in a very revengeful manner,
where the western powers face up to the monster they helped make. Difficult due
to its relentless narrative, but worthy of re-reading many times.