I know the title makes it sound like I read a whole cartload of books. But the truth is, I didn’t. And yet, I read more books than I have in a long, long time (which is driving my OCD mad because it’s one short of 30 and there’s no way I’m going to finish the book I’m currently reading by tomorrow to round it off neatly. But, I’m trying to fuck perfection this year, so I’m going with it like I don’t care). Also, it has to be said that all the reading fury kicked in in the second half of the year, once I bought myself a Kindle. It has been somewhat life-changing because it altered the very nature of my bedtime routine which now centres around ensuring I make enough time to really read before I fall asleep, it has contributed a greta deal to making me more anti-social because I indiscriminately avoided/cancelled plans in favour of staying home to read, and it has really, really made a wonderful companion through all the travel this year. Apart from all of this, though, 2016 was the first time after years and years of trying to reclaim the habit of reading, that I can say I have succeeded. After what seems like a lifetime, I have given reading a place in my life, rather than fit it into the gaps and empty moments, or use it to keep me company when I was bored/lonely/killing time. And only I know what a difference, not just what I read, but the act of making a habit of reading again, has made to my life. So, in that sense it’s been a very good year of reading.

Anyway, here’s a quick round up of all the books that I read in 2016.

1. Fiction: 10
2. Non-fiction: 13
3. Self-awareness/self-improvement: 6
4. Memoirs: 9
5. Collections of essays: 6
6. Books with marriage as a predominant theme: 11
7. Books with food as a predominant theme: 2
8. Books with women/feminism as predominant themes: 12
9. Books that made me cry: 6
10. Books that made me laugh out loud: 7

3 best reads of the year:

1. Bad Feminist: Essays, Roxane Gay
2. A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
3. Toast, Nigel Slater and 31 Songs (alternate title: Songbook), Nick Hornby (I couldn’t help myself!)

3 most forgettable reads of the year:

1. How To Sell Yourself, Joe Girard
2. Before, and then After, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan
3. The Mother-in-Law: The Other Woman in Your Marriage, Veena Venugopal

And here’s the whole list:

1. The Untethered Soul, Michael A Singer
2. How To Sell Yourself, Joe Girard
3. I Am You: a magical collection of stories and art about awakening, Carrie Louise Hilgert
4. We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Adichie
5. A Handbook For My Lover, Rosalyn D’Mello
6.  Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain
7. Before, and then After, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan
8. Tanya Tania, Antara Ganguli
9. Walking Towards Ourselves, Catriona Mitchell
10. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
11. A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
12. Alphabet Soup For Lovers, Anita Nair
13. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
14. This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
15. Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
16. Where’d you go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple
17. Love, Loss and What We Ate, Padma Lakshmi
18. In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri
19. Would You Like Some Bread With That Book, Veena Venugopal
20. Brave Enough, Cheryl Strayed
21. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brene Brown
22. Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
23. Toast, Nigel Slater
24. Bad Feminist: Essays, Roxane Gay
25. Love Warrior: A Memoir, Glennon Doyle Melton
26. The Mother-in-Law: The Other Woman in Your Marriage, Veena Venugopal
27. Hitched: The Modern Woman and Arranged Marriage, Nandini Krishnan
28. 31 Songs (alternate title: Songbook), Nick Hornby
29. The Private Life Of Mrs. Sharma, Ratika Kapur

In the coming year, I want to definitely read more fiction. I’ve been building a really long list of to-read books on Goodreads, and hopefully it will help do justice to that goal.

What did your year of reading look like? And what was the most stand out book for you? Tell all, so I can let my reading list growwww. Hopefully, this time around, the habit is here to stay.

PS: You can find all my posts about books filed here.