2015 was another year where I was certain that I would not meet my target of 50 books and I lived up to my expectations. I was able to finish/discard 19 books in all, and a lot of them have been mediocre. I tried to make up in quantity what I lacked in quality last year by reading a lot of books by first timers and unknown authors and they have disappointed me, but the biggest one of them all were Byomkesh Bakshi stories and The Seeker by Karan Bajaj. I have expected a lot from both these books and they have been very disappointing to say the least.  

So here are the others I read this year, in no particular order.

1.     Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka: If you are among the Cricket Lovers who can also appreciate fine commentary, then this is the book for you. Karunatilaka’s biography of a fictitious and eccentric Off Spin bowler from Sri Lanka tells you more about the game, the country, 1996 World Cup and what the victory meant to them than even Kumar Sangakkara’s Bradman Oration. Though a bit lengthy and unorthodox in its narrative, Karunatilaka’s wit and various anecdotes sprouting liberally along its way the book makes for a delightful read. Watch out for the wonderful epilogue. Strongly Recommended.

2.     Confessions of a Private Tutor by Vikram Mathur: It’s a guilty pleasure that I indulged myself in when I had to work early morning at 6 AM to 3 PM for about a month. There was no one along with me and I was sitting by myself when a couple of user reviews about its raunchy content made me buy it off Flipkart for 47 INR. Going by my expectations and the genre of the book, I have to say that I was surprised that the author made a decent job of making me read till the end. Savita Bhabhi meets 50 Shades of Grey. Leave everything else I wrote about the book except the last sentence. If that interests you, this is for you.

3.     The Humming by Deepak Karamungikar: I’m a huge fan of short stories, and having written a few of them myself, I would like to think that I know a thing or two about them. I make it a point to read a few Self Published Authors that I know through online interactions and I picked this one by Deepak as I read a couple of short stories he wrote on his blog. I’m not particularly impressed with this collection partly because these stories were written some time ago, and I guess the author was still evolving into a better one while he was writing these. I don’t want to open the book again and go through its index to remember a story that I would like to mention here. I guess that says more than anything I can say about this anthology.

4.     Yes, My Accent is Real by Kunal Nayyar: This is what I wrote on GoodReads when I finished reading this book. Had Kunal Nayyar been a blogger, I don't think this book would have existed.

Anyways, when I first saw this book on the stands I thought a book by Raj of Big Bang Theory would be funny and irreverent, but probably I had too high expectations on this one. Kunal didn't write his lines for BBT, so I guess it was my mistake expecting the same level of wit and humour from this book. I can't say I hated it, but this is not a book I would fondly recommend to my friends.
 
Nothing to add.

5.     An Assassin’s Diary by Arthur Bremer: I was interested in this book ever since Paul Schrader mentioned it as one of his inspirations for writing Taxi Driver. This is the diary of an assassin and it was presented as it was written with no editing, no corrections typos or otherwise. It provides an account of Arthur’s daily life on the days prior to his plotting to shoot Nixon. Arthur includes mundane details like fares of the stuff he brought and how he was able to cheat the cops to immigrate to Canada. The most interesting thing about this book, however, was to see how Schrader created the most fascinating character of Hollywood in 70s, Travis Bickle, from this memoir. The dialogue and scenes do not appear verbatim, but one can see a lot of Travis Bickle in Arthur Bremer.

6.     Nari by Sharath Komarraju: If you can forgive Sharath’s strange fixation for being vulgar and raunchy, the first half of Nari is an entertaining pulp novel thinly disguised as a tale of rape and sexual abuse, probably inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s legendary film Rashomon. But once the narrator is changed halfway, it all goes downhill. The book is an easy read and what it lacks in intelligent plotting, makes up with its prose and the characterizations of its leads. Sharath also tries to ask some important questions about Rape and even offers a casual look and a simplistic explanation into the psyche of victims and perpetrators of the act. They didn’t resonate particularly well with me, but that’s not to say they won’t appeal to anyone. The best thing I can say about the author is that I will buy another book written by him.

7.     Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh: The Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh is the finest work of Historic Fiction written in our times, not just because it is well researched, or intimate and epic at the same time, but it also shows how Historic Fiction should be written. The last instalment of the trilogy on Opium Wars between East India Company and China, brings back all the protagonists of the earlier two parts and narrates their tales through Kesri Singh and Indian Hawaldar in charge of a battalion in the army. Ghosh does not let his work attributed pure academic importance by painting history in broad strokes, but gets his hands dirty by exploring the lives of each of his characters during the war and how it has effected them, and none of them seems alternate or revisionist history. An ambitious work from an acclaimed author at the heights of his prowess. Strongly Recommended.

8.     Byomkesh Bakshi Stories by Saradindu Bandhopadhyay:   The stories are severely dated, or probably much of the good stuff is lost in translation, or there are better Byomkesh Bakshi stories than the ones chosen in this collection. Whatever might be the reason, this book has been a major disappointment for me, especially after the expectations I had before picking this up.

9.     Drop Dead by Swathi Kaushal: Another one of those easy read whodunnits I read in office over the ample leisure time provided by the early working hours. The whodunit genre has really been done to death and there isn’t much any new writer can do with the all too familiar red herrings. There will be a twist at the end, and many of us would be proved wrong by the time the truth unfolds but everything is yawn inducing. If you replace the book title with any other murder mystery out there, the review turns out to be the same. As a side note, there are numerous references to Priayanka Chopra in the book, so I won’t be surprised if she picks up this book and decides to turn it into a franchise.

10.  Getting Even and Side Effects by Woody Allen: A collection of essays, memoirs, short stories and some more bizarreness dished out by Woody Allen in his characteristic prose and style. People familiar with his work would enjoy this to the core like I did. If you can imagine him narrating the stories in his voice, it would be even more delicious. Guess I should look out for an audio book if he ever did one for this.

11.  The Seeker by Karan Bajaj: Read review here.

12.  The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty: One of the books that I abandoned midway this year as the pace was too slow and the chapters felt repetitive. After the success of Gone Girl, there were a lot of books claiming themselves to be the next Gone Girl, or whose blurbs read “If you loved Gone Girl, you would love this”. I fell into that trap, but couldn’t read more than 100 pages till the secret was revealed. Not interested in what happens further.

13.  The Mammaries of the Welfare State by Upamanyu Chatterjee: Agastya Sen of English August returns in this sequel to Chatterjee’s debut masterpiece and the novel is typical of all Upamanyu Chatterjee’s work. Difficult to read, eccentric characters, laborious prose needing endless run to dictionaries. Agastya Sen is a man who I love a lot and Chatterjee makes him even more grumpy than it was possible for him in the first edition, but he is older and became more eccentric than ever. For fans of UC, there is no need to recommend his books, but for others I can’t really say.

14.  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: I read the book after I watched the movie, and I liked both of them far better after reading the book. I was able to appreciate David Fincher’s choices of what to retain and what not to in his adaptation owing to the constraints the film medium poses him, and I liked Gillian Flynn’s book to pieces. Definitely Recommended.

15.  The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: Another “Girl” book, only far better than Husband’s Secret. Though the curse of repetitiveness persists in this book as well, a problem even Gone Girl had, the plot was moving and made me interested in the proceedings. I was able to empathize with the protagonists and the ending was unexpected, rang true and satisfactory. Recommended if you like Gone Girl. No Kidding.

16.  Breach by Amrita Chowdhury: Read review here.

17.  Delhi Noir by Various Writers: I’m a huge noir fan and have watched a lot of films and read books on the genre so I was pretty excited when I knew of this book after watching B.A Pass which was based on the short story Railway Aunty from the Delhi Noir anthology. Delhi Noir boasts a collection of Noir Stories by famous authors and a couple of other stories are done well, but the anthology itself turned out pretty mild and unintelligent for Noir fans like me.  The writers seemed to be more intent on getting the atmosphere right and may be Delhites would love their attempts, but the plots aren’t much to write home about. The language was a delight though.

18.  Fairy Tales at Fifty by Upamanyu Chatterjee: Read review here

19.  Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh: Train to Pakistan was Khushwant Singh’s most popular novel and the author was in fine form writing this, but it’s a shame that I read it at a time when I was slightly jaded with all the novels I read on Partition. The event itself bores me now, not that I’m indifferent to what happened, but I read so much about it that I needed a break. That does not take anything away from this celebrated work which, I feel, should be made a part of academic curriculum for students.

So, that’s the reading list for the year and my thoughts on the books. Clearly, there is not much quality and I should have better recommendations this year, though the target of 50 books for the year remains, which I have never been able to achieve. I opted out of receiving books for reviews as one of my New Year Resolutions because they have stopped sending me, so I think the number would be even lesser next year, but hopefully I can make it up with quality what I lack in quantity.

Please post your lists too, so that I can pick up some recommendations