Write-ups and reading lists of our members in October 2023
From the vivid tales of Varsha Seshan’s Dhara’s Revolution to the profound insights shared by Marisa Peer’s Tell Yourself A Better Lie, to the philosophical musings of David Bohm in On Creativity, each of our OctoberReads brought a unique hue to our collective reading canvas. In this eclectic roundup of literary exploration, members dove into diverse worlds and navigated the realms of fiction, self-help, and the timeless classics that stirred our imaginations and ignited conversations akin to navigating a vibrant mosaic of perspectives and genres. This list is also a black swan as it has a non-fiction book read and reviewed by Fizza.
- Dhara’s Revolution by Varsha Seshan
- The Adventures Of Sirdar by Dhan Gopal Mukherji
- Grandmother’s Tale by RK Narayan
- How To Reach Mars And Other Possible Things by Menaka Raman
- On Creativity by David Bohm
- Mahatma Gandhi by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
- The Little Book Of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
- Traitor’s Gate by Jeffrey Archer
- Ikigai by Hector Garcia
- Sandalwood Soap And Other Stories by Perumal Murugan
- Fire Bird by Perumal Murugan
- Three Countries, Three Lives by Lindy Rajan Cartner
- What You Are Looking For Is In This Library by Michiko Aoyama
- Legal Fiction by Chandan Pandey
- Wild Symphony by Dan Brown
- Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- The Door-to-door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
- Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old And Wise by Katherine Rundell
- Cyrus Whyrus by Lavanya Karthik
- Wet Paint by Asha Nehemiah
- The Book Cat by Polly Faber
- The Less You Preach The More You Learn by Shashi Tharoor and Joseph Zacharias
- Friends Behind Walls by Harshikaa Udasi
- Dragons In A Bag by Zetta Elliott
What You Are Looking For Is In This Library
It’s translated from Japanese. Deals with 5 people of various ages and gender. They go through different issues in life and they happen to visit community library. The librarian gives each one a gift (random) how it help them to look life differently. Amazing storyline.
The Door-to-door Bookstore
It is about a old book Walker (he delivers books to buyers) and what happens when the owner dies and taken over by his daughter.
- Sixth Grave On The Edge (Charlie Davidson #6) by Darynda Jones
- Seventh Grave And No Body (Charlie Davidson #7) by Darynda Jones
- Failure Is A Knock On The Door Of Success by SSA Zaidi
- Eigth Grave After Dark (Charlie Davidson #8) by Darynda Jones
- The Librarian Of Crooked Lane by C.J. Archer
- The Dirt On Ninth Grave (Charlie Davidson #9) by Darynda Jones
- Brighter Than The Sun by Darynda Jones
Failure Is A Knock On The Door Of Success
It’s a well-thought-out and well-written book. I loved that it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. The book is not a magic formula that will help you succeed. Instead, it is a reminder that to be successful, you must learn from your failures. It might be a simple message, but it’s one that we often forget and needs to be reiterated. And “Failure is a Knock on the Door of Success” does it in a beautiful and meaningful way. It invites you to think about your failures and assess yourself before you decide your next step.
It raises some interesting points, which I believe will stay with me for a long time. We are often told to focus on success but never trained on how to deal with our failures. We also need to define the terms ‘failure’ and ‘success’ for ourselves and understand what these mean to us before we take action. I also enjoyed how each chapter concludes with the main takeaways, thus making it easier to remember the important lessons and reflect on what you have read. The book effectively uses examples, personal anecdotes, and quotations to make its point.
I enjoyed reading it even though I’m not a fan of non-fiction, so I’m sure people who like non-fiction would love it. And I hope you learn something that helps you in defining your success and achieving it.
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Project X521 by Sahil Sharma
Mrs. Dalloway
The story happens during a single day, it’s about Mrs. Dalloway who hosts a party in the evening. The book describes Clarissa’s preparations for the party, her meetings with friends, her thoughts and feelings about the people she knew. Woolf uses a third-person perspective and tries to give a sneak peek into the minds of characters like Dalloway, Warren Smith, Peter, and others. Through the story, Woolf tries to talk about various topics like mental health, homosexuality, feminism, and existential crisis. The book is known for its Stream of Consciousness style of writing. It’s often regarded as one of the best novels of all time.
Project X521
Project X521 is about the Indian intelligence agency that tries to find out about secret experiments happening in Pakistan. As they gather more information, the intelligence officers come to know about the sinister nature of those experiments. How did they manage to deal with the threat? forms the rest of the story. The book does have an interesting premise, and thrilling plot and moments. However the book contains 1-Dimensional and generic characters. Overall, it’s an ok read.
- Tell Yourself A Better Lie by Marisa Peer
- Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen
- The Secret Of Think And Grow Rich by Mitch Horwitz
- Out Of This World by Mitch Horwitz
- Miracle by Neville Goddard
- The Law Of Attraction Plain And Simple by Sonia Racotti
Tell Yourself A Better Lie
In this book the author talks about how we human beings are constantly telling ourselves lies and struggle as a consequence of that. The book is a precursor to her hypnosis training called as Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT).
The author’s basic premise is that you need to sit in therapy rooms for years via CBT when you understand why you are behaving the way you are. For example, the author talks of a case where a mother who become numb to all her feelings due to the death of her child. The other had some other problem but he was surviving. The mother thought if she express her feelings the whole family will crumble to pieces, so she kept on numbing the pain in her body. The author describes the fundamental reason for human beings survival and how when basic survival needs are not met people create a lie and live their whole lives around the lie. She talks about a switch through the power of hypnosis how the victim can stop living in the self sabotaging behaviour.
- When Love Came Calling by Preeti Shenoy
- A Place Called Home by Preeti Shenoy
- Krishna, The Management Guru by Sunita Pant Bansal
- The Art Of Living by Epictetus
- How We Die by Sherwin Nuland
- Quit by Anne Duke
- The Myth Of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
- Wild Problems by Russ Roberts
- The Life & Works Of Thomas Moore by Symington and Andrew James
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Half A Life by V.S. Naipaul
- As A Man Thinketh by James Allen
