Sahi's Books of 2019

The book blogger and reading community on twitter have been a source of multiple book recommendations as well as a way to meet fabulous people who love books as much as I do. I’m chatting with Sahi who is a book blogger at My World of Books.

Like all posts in the 2019 in books series, remember that Sahi’s words are in italics and since this is a bookish discussion, all book links open in a new tab so that you can refer to them afterwards.

Welcome to Armed with A Book, Sahi. 🙂 Tell me a little bit about your love for books.

 I’ve always loved reading, probably since my parents gifted me a bunch of them when I was 6 years old. It started with reading children’s editions of Indian epics like the Mahabharata or Ramayana, short stories from the Panchatantra etc in my mother tongue Telugu and later morphed into more English stories.

My name is also Sahitya which literally means “Literature”, so I always say that I was destined to be a reader.

I am quite an introvert and there really hasn’t been any other activity in my life that has been so fulfilling in my life as reading. It suits me perfectly because I love being by myself and getting lost in new worlds, meeting fictional characters and feeling everything alongside them.

How did your love for reading start? Do you remember some of the first books you read?

My father’s side of the family are readers so my reading habits come from them and their shower of books. Some of the first books I remember are Enid Blyton’s Famous Five (I think I had the full collection), Secret Seven, Magic Tree House. What about you?

I never had a huge collection because we couldn’t afford much but I loved rereading the few Famous Five and Faraway Tree books I had. And I was utterly fascinated by Sherlock since I read the first short story, so I always tried to buy those books. And whenever my friends bought any classics like Jane Austen or Dickens or Jules Verne, I made sure to borrow them and finish reading before even my friends did.

I loved Jane Austen too! Do you participate in the Goodreads Reading Challenge or set reading goals for yourself? If yes, how do you usually choose this goal and what was your goal for this year? 

This is my 9th continuous year participating in the Goodreads challenge and I’ve only failed twice, which I’m quite proud of because I’m not usually that persistent about sticking to goals in other areas of my life. I’m a pretty fast reader, so I knew I could easily read more than 100 books this year. I chose to keep it at 130 – achievable and not overly ambitious – and I’m so happy I already completed it..!! 

How is your challenge for the year going? Do you ever reduce or increase your challenge number in the middle of the year based on how your reading has been going?

130 is a massive number – great job on keeping at it! I started with 50 books this year, updated it to 75 and now am at over 80 books. I change the challenge only once because at some point, it is important to acknowledge all the time we put into reading and just appreciate the bonus time we get to read. 🙂

That’s awesome. I used to do that before, increasing my challenge mid year. But I’ve come to realize seeing a more than 100% completion is more satisfying 🙂

Do you read books in a variety of formats? I find when I am reading audiobooks, I tend to finish more books in the year.

I do have a lot of time, so 170 (which is where I am right now) is pretty reasonable. I could actually read more if I didn’t spend so much time browsing twitter lol. 

I’m actually a huge proponent of ebooks. I devour them very fast and the convenience is a godsend. I buy the odd physical copy but that’s mostly just my favorites, otherwise it’s always ebooks for me. I also love the audio format but it’s not always easy for me to retain the information. Over the past couple of years, I’ve come to understand that I love listening to nonfiction books narrated by authors (particularly memoirs) or romance novels. But it’s also my go to format if I wanna reread my favorite fantasy novels. 

How do you choose your books to read?

 I’m always trying to keep track of my favorite authors’ upcoming books, so they tend to be my highest priority. Otherwise, it’s just following the reviews of bloggers I trust and adding them to my tbr if I find them interesting. This year however, Book Twitter has also played an important role in helping me get to know about upcoming books or everyone’s favorites in the community.

Do you also depend on other reviewer’s thoughts before deciding on what to read?

I look at the ratings and synopsis and usually don’t give too much thought to reviewers. That might seem odd because I am a book blogger. I write about the books because I love reading and I want to make up my own mind it. Every person is different and no two people have grown up with the same experiences. What someone might hate in writing style, another person might absolutely love. 

I tend to look through reviewers if I am not feeling very good about a book, like I am struggling to finish it. At that point, it is more of a validation tactic whether other people have seen similar problems.

That sounds valid. I’m sure I’ve done that too. 

Do you consult the reviewers before you pick up a book?

I’m a big mood reader and go into slumps very easily, so I guess that’s why I like to be prepared before I read a book. If it’s something by a favorite author which I know I’ll read anyways, then I don’t bother much with the reviews. But if it’s a book I’m picking up because I’ve heard about from bloggers or it has an interesting premise, I like knowing a few details before I read it. I can’t always handle themes like depression or addiction or even grimdark fantasy, so I rely on reviewers to let me know if such themes exist in a book so that I can make an informed decision. 

About the books this year

Did you read any books this year that got you thinking about your writing/blogging style? How did these books inspire you?

I don’t think I’ve read any book that has got me thinking about my blogging style but I would love to know if you have recommendations of any books that you think would help improve my writing.

Were there any books this year that challenged your thinking or you learned a lot from?

 I recently read an anthology of essays called Burn It Down (link) which was about the relationship between women and anger, how women have historically been taught to be nice and not be angry and how our anger has been vilified and punished. All the authors’ own experiences and the different ways in which they accepted or channeled their anger into more productive avenues really got me thinking and I know I’ve got some introspection of my own to do.

Did you have a similar feeling while reading anything this year? I would love to know what kind of books affect you on a deeper level.

Burn it Down sounds like a fantastic read! I’ll check it out.

• Allie Michelle’s The Rose that Blooms in the Night was quite thought provoking. She talked about loneliness, love and also addressed what social media has done to us.

• Joanne Ramos’ The Farm and Angela Savage’s Mother of Pearl were about surrogacy and its ethics. I had a great discussion with my friend, Ariel, about The Farm.

• Beth Koritz’s Resilience road was probably the import impactful read because it made me confront some of the struggles I had been having in the last couple months, while at the same time, affirming my decisions.

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Like I mentioned in my conversation with Helen,  I look for themes and lessons in the stories, fiction, non-fiction I read but I am looking for the more mundane things, not the big movements. I look for examples of strength, resilience, ways in which the characters (and with memoirs, real people) have faced obstacles and grown. That’s one of the reasons I maintain the blog – to capture these thoughts.

I remember reading the conversations and that’s a lovely way of looking at reading. I fall in two extreme ends of the spectrum – on one hand, I love fantasy so that I can escape reality but also like them to be diverse and relatable to the real world; on the other hand, I love contemporary novels or nonfiction that deal with women (fictional and real) standing up for their convictions and fighting to bring about a change. So any book with political themes will fascinate me. 

Did you read any books that had practical strategies to apply to life?

I don’t think I look for books with that idea in mind, I actually run far away from the self-help genre. I like books which can make me introspect my own life, but mostly prefer internal rather than external practical strategies. Burn it Down which I mentioned above would be one which made me think about how I should be able to channel my anger. The Forest of Enchantments (review link) is a retelling of the Ramayana from Sita’s POV but it also made me think a lot about love and marriage and the differing ways in which men and women give for the relationship. 

I know it is hard to give recommendations, especially when we read so many books in a year! If you had to choose, tell me about four books that I should check out and why. 

This was tough to come up with and I’ve chosen a couple which may not make my top 10 list of the year but I still loved a lot, and I think you might too.

• I don’t think you read a lot of romance but Red, White and Royal Blue (review link) is my favorite book of the year and I couldn’t not mention it. It’s a sweet and adorable love story with lot of politics in it, but what endeared me to it was the overall message of love, acceptance and optimism, which I think we need a lot in our sometimes very bleak real world.

• Good Talk (review link) is a graphic novel memoir and the author’s story of growing up brown in the US, and the challenges of raising a biracial child in the current divisive political climate resonated with me a lot. But it also left me with a lot of questions than answers.

• The Huntress (review link) is a historical fiction novel set during WWII and a few years after, and it’s an amazing story (based on real life incidents) about brave women who survived the war and other people who kept fighting to bring justice to the victims long after the war was over.

• You Bring the Distant Near is a beautifully written saga spanning three generations of resilient women of an immigrant family and the struggle of trying to straddle the cultures of two different countries. This was another book that I found very relatable and it remains very close to my heart.

Do you have more book recommendations for me other than the ones you mentioned above?

Based on your last book, I would recommend The Braid and Winter Garden. They are such good books about women and family.

The Year Ahead

Would you change anything, whether it is your reading habits, review routine or reading goal, for 2020?

Towards the second half of 2019, I decided to become a bit more organized – plan monthly  TBRs and try and read at least some of them within the month, try to schedule blog posts in advance, and read a little outside of my comfort zones of YA fantasy and romance. I think I’ve succeeded a bit at this endeavor and hope to continue the same in 2020. I’ll probably stick to the same 130 books reading goal as well. 

One thing I would love to do is take more notes while reading, but I don’t know if I’ll ever remember to do it. 

It is a habit I took a while to develop. Just start with highlighting and that might eventually evolve into note-taking. It doesn’t have to though. Most of the time, my highlights are enough help when I am writing about the book later.

As I mostly read ebooks, I just highlight my favorite quotes and go back to them for reference while writing the review. Taking a break to jot down notes disrupts my reading and I don’t know if I can get over that feeling yet 🙂

What are some of your reading or blogging habits from 2019 that you would love to continue in the new year and what are you planning to change ? Have you already started brainstorming posts for 2020? 

I want to continue to post everyday on the blog about the books I am reading. I also want to continue doing author interviews since I learn so much from them. My focus has been on  books and reading for over 6 months now (my book blog is very new) and I want to go back to posting about other things I love like bullet Journaling and computing science topics. I am working on December now – one month at a time for me. 🙂 

That’s amazing. I saw your post about data visualization and it was brilliantly done. I will be very interested to read your future computing related posts as well. And one month at a time is almost what I’m trying to do as well. So, good luck to both of us !!! 

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Sahi! Please let us know what you think and share with your circles! Our handles will be tagged if you use the tweet below.

Ways to connect with Sahi:

Blog

Twitter

Goodreads

Next up on the 7th I’ll have my dearest friend Evelina from Avalinah Books over to learn about her year in books.

Thanks for reading! ❤️