All posts filed under: Books

Baby with a board book

Encouraging the Love of Reading: Tips for Parents to Inspire Kids to Read

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Reading is an essential skill that is fundamental to a child’s development. However, in recent years, there has been a growing concern that children are reading less due to increased screen time and a lack of interest in books.
In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of reading for children and provide tips on encouraging kids to read. We will also examine how the lockdown has affected reading in kids and provide insights into the types of books that children prefer.
I hope that this inspires parents and caregivers to foster a love of reading in children and unlock the many benefits that reading has to offer. You might even be inspired to start a reading habit for yourself!

collage of 52 book covers from my 2022 reading challenge

Reading Challenge: 2022

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This is my 10th year of the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I’ve been challenging myself to read more books for the last ten years. After getting interested in the Wheel of Time series, I decided to spend the year reading the entire series mixed with a bunch of random books I come across.
Usually, I would have a separate post for each category, but this year was dominated by Fantasy Fiction interspersed with some short stories and suspense thrillers. So here goes!

Book cover of The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra on an iPad screen. It is set on a floral beaded mat with a candle and a glass bottle with a plant stem with leaves

Book Review: The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra

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The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra is one of those soft mystery books that take you on a journey while investigating a crime. It is the first instalment of the Kaveri and Ramu mysteries set in pre-independence India. The reader gets an inkling of the socio-political situation around the time, providing an interesting background for the story to evolve.
Harini Nagendra is a professor of ecology at Azim Premji University. She writes on issues of nature and sustainability and has published works of non-fiction on the topic of sustainability in urban areas. The Bangalore Detectives Club is her first work of fiction.

White cat and a Kindle on the lap of a person wearing red sweatpants and a black and white striped sweatshirt. The Kindle shows the cover for the crime novel titled Lightseekers by Femi Kayode set in Nigeria

Book Review: Lightseekers by Femi Kayode

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Lightseekers by Femi Kayode is not just your regular crime fiction but is based on actual events. Femi familiarises readers with the town, its people, and their history while trying to figure out what went wrong. I’ve been reading books from around the world for the genre. This year, I’m becoming more familiar with other countries and their cultures. This book hit all the right notes, and I recommend you add this to your reading list.
Lightseekers was inspired by the necklace killing of four undergraduates in a university town in Nigeria and is Femi Kayode’s debut novel and the first in the series of novels about the investigations of Philip Taiwo. The book won the UEA/Brown Little Crime Fiction Award in 2019.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite with the colour image of the book The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto on a background of blue and yellow mirror work folk art from India

Book Review: The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto

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La Hora Azul or The Blue Hour is a novel by Peruvian author Alonso Cueto and is translated into English by Frank Wynne. The book looks back on Peru’s history, exploring the aftermath of the Peruvian Civil War.
Alonso Cueto won the Herralde Prize in 2005 for The Blue Hour (La Hora Azul). The book has plenty of themes to keep you engrossed: family secrets; an obsessive love affair; the brutality, misery and guilt of war; and an anti-hero searching for answers.

Translated books are a treasure trove of insights into different parts of the world. I would highly recommend adding this and diversify your reading list.

Collage of book covers from the out of line collection of amazon originals short stories collection

Amazon Original Short Reads—Out of Line Collection

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I came across a few short stories on Amazon last year and loved them. Amazon has commissioned a series of original short stories by prominent writers. These stories are categorised by genre and are only available as digital books on Amazon or as audiobooks on Audible.
If you have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, then you can read most of these for free. The narrators on Audible are often celebrities, so that’s something you might consider when choosing which format to get.
The stories are short but impactful. They take you on a journey and make you see the world differently.

collage of book covers of 6 short books in the amazon originals hush collection of suspense thriller short stories

Amazon Original Short Reads—Hush Collection

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I came across a few short stories on Amazon last year and loved them. Amazon has commissioned a series of original short stories by prominent writers. These stories are categorised by genre and are only available as digital books on Amazon or as audiobooks on Audible.
The stories are short but impactful. They take you on a journey and make you see the world differently.
Short stories in the Hush Collection ranges from political mysteries to psychological thrillers, in which deception can be a matter of life and death

collage of 6 book covers from the Amazon original series of short stories in the Forward collection of sci-fi short stories

Amazon Original Short Reads—Forward Collection

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I came across a few short stories on Amazon last year and loved them. Amazon has commissioned a series of original short stories by prominent writers. These stories are categorised by genre and are only available as digital books on Amazon or as audiobooks on Audible.
If you have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, then you can read most of these for free. The narrators on Audible are often celebrities, so that’s something you might consider when choosing which format to get.
The stories are short but impactful. They take you on a journey and make you see the world differently.