Catch the Reading Bug :)

To read or not to read, that is the question. In the digital era, many ponder if the relevance of literature will stay mainstream with society. The fast-paced nature of business and entertainment alike, I believe, is overwhelmingly complex and the FOMO is real. Those closest to me know me as an avid reader, and maybe childish in the regard of experiencing fantasy worlds. My love for reading began from ESL days when I had to catch up to Grade 4 English from scratch. Harry Potter, The Series of Unfortunate Events, Magic school bus, Nancy Drew were my friends when I could not articulate myself in English well enough in real life. Later, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, Shadow Hunters came in.

To be frank, I did fall deep into a reading slump during my undergraduate years at university. I could not find solace in characters who were not procrastinating then cramming for exams, writing papers and reading academic journals for weeks on end. I found that reading should not be forced. The high school days with To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby and Shakespeare were different in my opinion in that they are classics that we can learn from and the plotline is often eye-opening despite the somewhat difficult language. Scientific papers, on the other hand, are tiresome and wordy. They say if you know something, you can explain it in simple language to any audience.

Nowadays, I am reading a variety – this is my tip for anyone in the reading slump and trying to get back into it. Just like writer’s block or a chef developing a recipe, people need new things to stimulate creativity. Taste all there is to offer – start with your interests and hobbies. Try fiction and nonfiction, English and foreign languages. Sounds like picking a movie or a TV show? It is the same. Fantasy, History, Horror, Supernatural, Biographies, Comics, Self-help, Philosophies, etc. The list goes on and on. Unlike watching a film, reading is active. It requires your imagination in the most basic yet crucial way. You must work to set up the landscape, characters, tone, colours, and remember details from the last day. Fortunately, we have ebooks, audiobooks, paperbacks, book clubs, libraries, booktubers, and lots of online resources that are helpful. Below is my list of to be read (TBR). I've forgotten a lot of what I read, but remember, it is the habit and journey that counts, so come, let’s go read!

TBR:

1. Cilka's Story

2. Somebody's Daughter

3. The Lucky List

4. We Were Liars

5. The Song of Achilles

6. Daisy Jones and the Six

7. The Blind Assassin

8. Atomic Habits

9. Shadow and Bone

10. The Power of Habit

2021 Completed:

1. The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

2. The Maze Runner series

3. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

4. The Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare

5. All the Light We Cannot See

6. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

7. The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

8. The Queen's Gambit

9. The Desolation of Devils Acre by Ransom Riggs

10. Pachinko

2020 Completed:

1. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

2. Circe by Madeline Miller

3. The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. 1984 by George Orwell

6. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

7. The Conference of Birds by Ransom Riggs

8. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

9. Grit by Angela Duckworth

10. The One and Only Ivan

11.Anna Karenina

12.When Breath becomes Air

13. The Book Thief

14. The Testament by Margaret Atwood

15. Catcher in the Rye

16.The Perks of Being a Wallflower

17. Arc of a Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman

18. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavour by Hank Green

19. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

20. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

21. Where the Crawdads Sing

Past Reads:

1. Becoming by Michelle Obama

2. Thrive by Arianna Huffington

3. Artemis Fowl

4. I am number four

5. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

6. The Handmaid’s Tale

7. Kafka on the Shore

8. Bitter Orange

9. Scaling Up Excellence

10. Principles by Ray Dalio

11. The Start-Up of You

12. Wuthering Heights

13. Anne of Green Gables

14. Night by Elie Weasel

15. Anne Frank

16. The Book Thief

17. Looking for Alaska by John Green

Excellent Movies (for reading breaks)

1. Interstellar

2. Inception

3. Just Mercy

4. Shawshank Redemption

5. Forrest Gump

6. Elf

7. Moana

8. Maleficent

9. Parasite

10. Detective Chinatown

11. Roman Holiday

12. Titanic

13. Coco

14. Mulan

15. Divergent

16. The Host (Stephanie Meyer)

Cheers,

Kelly

#Book #Reading #Lifestyle