The End of June

June has finally come to an end and 6 months of 2018 are already over; time does pass, whether we like it or not and I can for sure say for this year, Thank Goodness for that! Monsoons have hit some part of the country and the expectation of rains, definitely makes life more bearable, especially when we remember that, rains will be followed by the glorious Autumn! To summarize, end of June brings much hope and the reading that happened this past month, just added on to the sense of enrichment and sanguine calm, which makes the terrible times pass and help you see through a better tomorrow! So what did I read in June?

White Flock by Anna Akhmatova, Translated by Andrey Kneller

We thought: we’re poor and don’t have anything,

But as we started to lose one thing after another, 

So much that each day became

A remembrance day, 

We began to write songs

About God’s immense genrosity

And the wealth, we once had.

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittian

“When the sound of victorious guns burst over London at 11 a.m. on November 11th, 1918, the men and women who looked incredulously into each other’s faces did not cry jubilantly: ” We’ve won the war! ” They only said: ” The War is over.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography.”

The Lady of the Basement Flat by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

“I have been here a week and am already endorsing the theory that you can never really know a person until you have lived together beneath the same  roof.”

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

“We all recognize a likeness of Shakespeare the instant we see one, and yet we don’t really know what he looked like. It is like this with nearly every aspect of his life and character: He is at once the best known and least known of figures.”

This then was my readings for June and now here’s to a new month and new books!

And In September….

September is here, which means, October and by that extension, Fall is around the corner and atleast for next couple of months, Winter, lovely Winter is in season!! Yay!! Another Summer gone and another year is coming round! Time does fly , but I honestly cannot say that I want to go back to January 2017 and would much rather move to December 2017! But there are still some months to go and some more books to read!

As I have repeated time and time again, this is has been an overworked year where work pressure and studying for a certain certification has taken away a number of reading hours from me and therefore once again my reading plans are limited and I am leaving options to read basis my mood and level of tiredness, to make some real time reading plans. Having said that there are some books, that I am already in the middle of or read alongs that need to be completed and at the very least those, I can list down to make some sort of sketchy plans!

To begin with, there is the marvelous The Pickwick Paper Read Along hosted by O, heading for its conclusion soon! When I had first read this wonderful novel by Charles Dickens, I had not liked it much; but this re-read, maybe because of the timing or whatever, I really really loved and now look forward to the last few chapters! I also continue with Yasmin Khan’s The Raj at Work  – A People’s History of India’s Second World War. Just to make things a bit more interesting, I have decided to pair it with The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara. I also recently stated reading the much appreciated and  applauded history of mankind, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and am finding it a very interesting read,with some very interesting and unique hypothesis. Finally, Jane as usual got me interested in some little known works and I have downloaded Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye Smith and The Rector by the brilliant Margaret Oliphant. That is all I have mapped out as reading plans for the month.

This is the month of many Hindu festivals, so I am hoping for a little more of time off and a little more reading progress than what the previous months have shown, but knowing how things go, I am keeping this optimistic prognosis as a prognosis and we will see how things pan out as they pan out. I the meanwhile, I leave you with some shots of monsoon in India, specifically, of the grey skies and the blue black ocean, along the western coast of India, where I spent glorious, 10 days road tripping through last week!

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What The July Showers Bring

Finally July…Fall is only 3 months away and I survived yet another horrid Indian Summer. Actually, there are 3 more months to go, but these are technically the Monsoon months, where it rains and floods and while it is quite pleasant when it rains, immediately after that the humidity soars and the baking heat now with high humidity, makes life, well miserable to say the very least!! But like my oft repeated motto, as long as there are books, life will always look up!

Whats in my July book bag then? A very eclectic collection! I am slowly and by slowly, I mean barely crawling through Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War as part of the The Well Educated Mind Reading Challenge – Reading The Histories! And I cannot say, like Herodotus’s The Histories, I am enjoying it! In addition there is OMG-I-CANNOT-BELIEVE-HOW-PONDEROUS-IT-IS reading of The City of God by Saint Augustine, again part of the same project. History, the subject I love has never seemed such an uphill task! To continue my interest in the subject, it is extremely important, that I spice things up and I go to other end of the spectrum to read The Raj at War – A People’s History of India’s Second World War by Yasmin Khan. I have heard some amazing things about the book and am really looking forward to it! Now for Fiction, I have everything from 19th century Russia to 19th century England and finally, 19th century India. I should complete Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. I also continue with The Pickwick Paper Read Along and finally, I am hosting The Shadow of the Moon Read Along, for which the plan is to finish reading this month! I also have on my Kindle, The Red House Mystery by A.A.Milne (of Winnie The Pooh fame and yes, he wrote a adult mysteries as well!) and Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy; his first book which is considered to very different from his Wessex Rural novels.

All in all and exciting (I think!) and somewhat exasperating Reading month! I leave you all with a video that I think capture the very essence of Indian monsoons!

Happy Reading!

About Summers and Reading

I am seeing many posts around the internet, celebrating Summer! Reading and Summer seems a most conducive combination; reminds of my summer vacation from schools, with 2 and a half month of bliss, reading and eating! Unfortunately, as  a Project Leader, I do not get summer vacations and more importantly, the concept of an idyllic summer with bright, cheerful days and quite balmy nights is dispelled in my part of the word and instead replaced by unceasing, pounding heat,  that makes one feel like one is being slowly baked in one’s skin in the very middle of a vast furnace, with the earth and the sun belching out fire! Temperatures have hit 51ºC or 123º F and there is no respite in sight….monsoons when they come, if they come, will be hailed as Godsend by most, especially the farmers of this country, struggling with heat and drought!

Realities are harsh and books as usual provide a consolation from all that is mundane and distressing! Therefore without further ado, lets plunge into June Bookish Plans! As most are aware, for May, I had dispelled all reading plans because I had tremendous catching up to do; thankfully, I am almost caught up with all, but there are still some items that need to be finished, but hopefully should finish soon! I venture towards June again finally with a reading plan!

My Read Alongs continue on track as planned – I am hoping to finish the Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien Read Along with Cleo as I had planned in June. I should also make some progress in the ever challenging The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser which I am reading with O, Cleo, Jean, Ruth and some other readers; I am going really slow with this one as it takes up quite a bit of time to truly understand and absorb the various levels of intellectual gymnastics that Mr. Spenser had laid out for his readers! The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens read along is also in the plans and its an effort to really read it in piecemeal fashion, considering I am enjoying it tremendously! I have added another to my overspilleth list with Hamlette’s Jane Eyre Read Along. I have increasingly developed a great love for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and the cold of England is very bracing psychologically, sitting in the stewing pot! Among the reading challenges, where I am really truly behind is my 12 Month Classics Reading Challenge – I am still to finish Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis for May and I have for June themed A British classic,  Dombay and Son’s by Charles Dickens. I am also somewhat struggling to catch up on my Reading England project, and for this  I am reading The Darling Buds of May by  by H. E. Bates covering Kent. Finally for my Women’s Classic Literature Event, I am reading a modern and albeit a relatively lesser known classic  by Katherine Ann Porter  – Ship of Fools. In a stand alone event, I am also reading The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy as part of Margaret Kennedy Day hosted by Jane, who had two years ago introduced me to brilliance of Margaret Kennedy’s works!

That is all I have planned for June; like I said I have had to play catch up and am still struggling to complete everything that is outstanding. This is also the first time I am giving the Classic Club spin a miss – I have yet to finish Death comes to Archbishop by Willa Cather which was my last Spin Read and also my Women’s Literature Reading Event for April and it is only fair that I venture into another Spin only after I had finished the previous one!

That’s the plan then! Wishing you all a fabulous and less heat generating summer and a scintillating brilliant reading time!

Rains and Readings…..

Finally July is here and Thank God for that! I know atleast in 15 days or so, this parched piece of land in northern India will be awash with Monsoon rains and there will be some drop in the temperature. But the Indian Gods wanted to keep their people humble and realized that Monsoon was too much of a good thing and decided to ensure it increases humidity like nothing; so while the weather will cool, the humidity will make it again nearly impossible to live comfortably. So what’s there to really thank about… One, this ancient land just becomes beautiful during the monsoon, breaking into colors and hues of the most brilliant kind. And finally, if July is here, can October be far??!!

Regardless of weather and such like matters, reading continues and the good part is my Tab is back to the world of living again. One fine day, it stated working again and my Kindle is back up…I am overjoyed! I was not interested in buying a new e-book reader at this point, both due to financial and other concerns and this miracle, for that’s what it is, is much to be thanked for and celebrated.  To mark this extremely auspicious occasion, I went on a e-book buying spree (Yes! I know! I will never save money!!!) Most of these are recommendations from Jane and I am really excited about reading them – this spree includes: The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild, Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull and The Romance of the Shop by Amy Levy. Also now that my Kindle is back from the dead, there are a couple of books which I had bought but never got around to reading because the self-imposed exile from technical functionality by my Tab. Now I can really begin to pick up those threads again – topping the list are Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer. The latter I had bought long back, before it won Pulitzer and all, but had only just started reading it, when the Tab went bust!

In hard copies, I am yet complete Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell as part of Connie’s read along. I know she has taken a hiatus from blogging for a while, but I thought I will plod on. I also have Patrick Leigh Fenmor’s A Time for Gifts and Between Woods and Water. These two titles are a carry-over from last month along with Out of Africa by Karen von Blixen-Finecke; last month as I said was absolutely crazy and got really in way of some solid reading. But I am hoping to complete these three atleast by end of July!

That’s my reading plan for the month! I am really hoping that as things settle down, I will be able to devote more and more time to reading, but I am also cognizant that I am taking on a new job and that will require a lot of effort, to begin with. However I hold on to hope and keep my fingers crossed for some lovely and leisurely hours of uninterrupted reading pleasure!

To end, I leave you with one of my favorite song about Monsoon – it’s in my ethnic language, Bengali. While many of you may not understand the words, the beautiful image of monsoons in this land, transcends language!