My top six reads of 2022

The year 2022 was quite a relief from the challenges of a vigorous pandemic times. Finally, the world had a significant break to the “new normal” as life resumed back to pre-pandemic days with travelling being the major happening for me last year. The habit of reading books with the combination of prioritising travel has added a different dimension to my thoughts and has helped me question my boundaries, beliefs to become the best version of myself.

My reading list for 2022 was on biographies, novels and self help and here I go sharing an excerpt on my top 6 reads from the year 2022, though I wanted to drill down to make it top five reads but was unable to do a trade off!

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

After reading Arundhati Roy’s some of the finest works already, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy is one of the classic books to be read beautifully connecting two people born and brought up in completely different circumstances. Every character in the book leaves a mark, questions some of the mundane thought processes in today’s society which flawlessly creeps into the lives of people leading to despair of human lives. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness also keeps the reader intuitive throughout the read and with curiosity on how the sequence of incidents would be untangled. The story spreads across different places in India talking about Kashmir conflicts which holds the political essence of the story.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy is a tale of a transgender who chooses to live in a graveyard and a woman loved by three men on how their destinies meet when a lively treasure comes their way.

“A gem- a great tempest of a novel : a remarkable creation, a story both intimate and international, swelling with comedy and outrage” — Washington Post

The Unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is a treasure which imbibes the concepts of philosophy, life and love with deep thoughts. The author keeps the reader engaged throughout the journey where the story revolves around very few characters mostly in places of Prague and Czech. The women characters in the novel are depicted to be strong by heart and passionate about what they want to do in life. The author eventually leads the reader to wonder which one is positive in the opposites of the world, whether its lightness or heaviness. The characters are personified with imperfections ultimately that conveys that imperfections are still perfect and there is no stigmatising there. The story is moved with different flavours of love, life, sexuality, survival, art, passion, political establishments and many more. The author also gives an arena of political set up that prevailed during the Soviet occupation of Prague in the late 1960’s.

The Unbearable lightness of Being is a masterpiece carved out, a book with wonderful thoughts and learnings which gave a feeling of completeness but still left me with curiosity.

“The Unbearable lightness of Being is a work of the boldest mastery, originality and richness” — Vanity Fair

Rescued by a feminist by Saloni Chopra

The narrative of the book spans across the author’s journey and how she embraces feminism. Rescued by a feminist was my first book to understand the concepts of feminism as the word feminism has become corrupted as everyone has their own definition of feminism. The author talks about all the so-called normal things done to womxn (that’s how women are referred to in the book for inclusivity) and expected from womxn to make sure the patriarchal roots prevail and continue to dwell in society. The author uses deep anecdotes which leaves the reader to think on prejudices and submissiveness ingrained in the minds of women centuries after centuries. At the same time, the thought process of how to respond rather than react to patriarchal practices is also conveyed. The title of each of the chapters in the book is quite intriguing and has a flow established for the readers. Sharing my personal favourite line from the book,

“Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers”.

Rescued by a feminist by Saloni Chopra is one of the best books to understand the meaning of feminism and highly recommended for anyone irrespective of gender.

Atomic habits by James Clear

Atomic habits is one of the best and a popular self help book for people who would like to change a habit/routine in their life. So it’s not about always having good habits, but to eliminate bad habits which will ultimately pave the way for good habits to follow the way. The author talks about the four laws throughout the book which are cue to be made obvious, craving to be attractive, response to be easy and reward to be satisfying.

Here is how it works (pointing to an example from the book),

Cue You hit a stumbling block on a project work

Craving You feel stuck and want to relive your frustration

Response You pull out your phone and check social media

Reward Craving satisfied and checking social media becomes associated with feeling stumbled at work

For any good habit that we want to pick, the above four laws apply and for any bad habit to be eliminated, reciprocation of the above four laws holds good. The author also highlights some of the techniques like two minute rule, habit stacking, temptation bundling and more which when followed gives amazing results to be productive.

Atomic habits should be a must read for someone looking to change their habits as in the world of social media and screen time it becomes the absolute mandate to course correct lifestyle when required

“A special book that will change how you approach your day and live your life” — Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the way

My story by Kamala Das

My story by Kamala Das is a heart touching autobiography which helps accept some of the hard truths of the solitude filled in women throughout their lifetime. Being brought up in a family where poetic aura is prevalent, Kamala Das narrates her entire story of life in “My story” in an extremely poetic way. There are short poems in between the narratives which at times leaves the readers with questions and repeated thoughts very relatable to today’s world. With her perfectly awesome narration she has clearly called out some of the reality in women lives which is still considered a taboo today.

My Story by Kamala Das is a poetic seasoning combined with strong narration, a triumph to the literature world that boldly talks about some of the societal standards which are way below bar but still prevalent in today’s world.

“I cannot think of any other Indian autobiography that as honestly captures a woman’s inner life in all its sad solitude, its desperate longing for real love and its desire for transcendency, its tumult of colours and its turbulent poetry” — K. Satchidanandhan, Indian poet and former editor of Indian Literature journal.

My life in full by Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi has been a phenomenal leader who transformed PepsiCo to great heights. She has carved out her life in full tying the different chords of work, family and future. Her story is an inspirational piece of work where a woman from a middle class family achieved beyond limits and became a visionary who broke the gender barrier by making it to the CEO of a top Fortune 50 company. She had narrated her story with a perfect balance of her family and work life, not compromising the cultural aspects on how she gained support to achieve her goals to position herself as an extraordinary person. She also talks about some of the business strategies and aggregations she introduced in Pepsico highlighting “Performance with purpose” which did wonders for the company. Her strong sense of intuition and confidence is a special mention where she took the extra leap to be people centric on top of providing revenue streams for the company.

My life in full by Indra Nooyi is an energising and motivational autobiography for professionals who want to know real life experiences that contribute to growth in the individual’s career and to help scale greater heights.

To conclude

Reading books is always the best escape zone from reality as it helps us structure our thoughts to tie back to reality. People read to gain knowledge, to understand trends, to know history but reading books at times help to get lost into the world of fantasy and that can be a simple reason to read more.

P.S Thanks to Shrinivass chandar for the pictures added to the blog!

Have a happy reading! Cheers!