All posts tagged: Books

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.

Reading Challenge: 2021 (Fiction)

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Here is a list of fiction books I read in 2021. There were a few misses as always, but overall, it’s a good list of books. I am also glad that the authors I read this year are from diverse cultural backgrounds—Algerian, Indian, Vietnamese, and Dutch, to list just a few. If you’re interested in diversifying your bookshelf, read my previous post on Around the World in Books.

Women’s Day: Demanding a diverse, equitable, and inclusive world

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On March 8th every year, the world celebrates International Women’s Day. We look at the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women worldwide, past and present. It is also a call to action for accelerating women’s equality globally.
Most women reading this are privileged enough to have had an education. Many are still denied education and opportunities solely based on their gender. It is a day for raising awareness about how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go in our quest for gender equity.
A discussion plus some book recommendations for women, by women!

collage of non fiction books I read in 2021

Reading Challenge: 2021 (Non-Fiction)

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When I read books in my younger days, I was always looking for adventure and escapism. Non-fiction didn’t seem to offer any of these. I was one of those kids who had 7 Habits of Highly Effective People forced onto me in both written and audio formats as a teenager. That was no fun at all.
In my 20s, I realised that non-fiction doesn’t have to be tedious and drab. Biographies, essays, and informative books based on research are rich with fun and intrigue, sometimes more than fictional books. 
Here are some great non fiction books I enjoyed in 2021