Sunday, January 22, 2012

South Asian Reading Challenge 2012 and Good Reads

This blog does no justice to any of those wonderful people out there hosting events, conducting challenges in blog sphere. This, if I complete successfully will be go down as the first ever challenge or even a bet that I have won over myself.

Of all the comforts at Singapore, the one I have abused the most is the library system. Coming from a place I am so used to lines, waiting, nightmares in libraries - the system to get a card is a breeze. And, and whole choice we have here is mind boggling to say the least. I realized the idea of walking into a library without knowing what book to take, or at least what genre is pulling me back to boring business likes or really well known slight chick-lits. Honestly, I was getting too bored of my laziness.

I chanced on GoodReads and life got slightly better. With an updated set of shelves, I know what to pick up when I walk into the library next. The last three month saw some real amount of 'good reads' cracking at at least one book a week. The trend in my choices was either picking up books on India or by Indian authors, even to the extent of reading Lonely Planet guides.

2012 has to be a year of better reading habits, so my random browsing for more Indian authors led me to S. Krishna's page. She has been hosting a lovely event for South Asian authors and has a ready to pick up list on her page.

I challenge to read 20 books for this challenge by the year 2012. If you think I am crazy, please go and check my GoodReads shelf. Yes, that is exactly how I came up with the trend :)

Now, before I get all started - a few pointers on it.

  • I do not plan to review any book except if it is absolutely remarkable in my mind. Truly, I should not get into the reviewing business of books at all . My language flow goes for a toss and I end up using too many superlatives.
  • Most, if not all of my books will be from NLB. So, I do have a restrain if I do not manage to get enough books here.
  • For the interest of it, I plan to include some cooking and travel memoirs into it
I am also taking up the Good Reads challenge for 2012 ( please pretend that you have noticed the shiny new widget )


To a much well read 2012, here I come :)

6 comments:

  1. Its quite amazing! I recently..infact just a week back came across Goodreads... and here I am reading the great challenge! Let me test myself and see how far I go on this! (:

    Regarding the list, Hope to lay my hands on some soon, from namba own NLB! :D

    Happy reading!

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  2. Thanks for the goodreads site! Just joined, to get back to some serious reading!

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  3. Ever since blogging I had put away booksto a large extend.
    Somehow I am more for Indian authors as well.. 'keep the change' being the latest on my shelf!

    Loving the brownie post down there too :)
    Archana, I think that post you saw in your reader was initiated from my blog only, a drafted unedited post got published accidentally. Apologise for that :)

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    1. No apologies :) I had a similar issue when a draft was seen on reader too. I changed my feeds to feedburner recently. Thanks for dropping by!

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