My resolution for this decade is to post a blog about the books I read. The first step is in selecting the book. While this may seem like a simple thing to most folks, to me it is the most arduous step. Given that time is quite precious and a single book takes tens of hours to complete, I spend a considerable amount of time in choosing the books I read.
My selection process starts with scouring Award winners like the Booker or Pulitzer prize winners and nominations. Once I run out of those, I look at the New York Times bestsellers, Amazon bestsellers and other popular lists. When I find a potential candidate, I move to the second step which is getting to know a little about the book and reading a whole bunch of reviews on Amazon to see what other folks are saying about the book. Anything less than 4 stars and 100 reviews is unlikely to make the cut. Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time reading the reviews than the actual book itself. To make matters worse, I mostly order the books from Amazon.com and to make the free shipping, I have to order two or three books. This doubles or triples the time it takes to place the order. After multiple hours, fatigue sets in and I finally pull the trigger for better or for worse.
So without further ado, let me launch into a reflection of the books that I have read. I intentionally use the word reflections as the term review somehow suggests that I am passing a judgement on the books. I am more interested in sharing my thoughts on the books that I read than on being critical. To me, the biggest advantage a book holds over a movie is that you can read it at your own pace and pause in-between pages and reflect on what you have read. You get to put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist and live his or her life for a bit. A movie on the other hand, seems more like you are watching from the outside.
My selection process starts with scouring Award winners like the Booker or Pulitzer prize winners and nominations. Once I run out of those, I look at the New York Times bestsellers, Amazon bestsellers and other popular lists. When I find a potential candidate, I move to the second step which is getting to know a little about the book and reading a whole bunch of reviews on Amazon to see what other folks are saying about the book. Anything less than 4 stars and 100 reviews is unlikely to make the cut. Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time reading the reviews than the actual book itself. To make matters worse, I mostly order the books from Amazon.com and to make the free shipping, I have to order two or three books. This doubles or triples the time it takes to place the order. After multiple hours, fatigue sets in and I finally pull the trigger for better or for worse.
In the past, I have circumvented the above process by simply asking my wife for recommendations. Her methods are opaque to me, but I have to admit that she has had a fairly good track record of book recommendations. On a few occasions, some of my friends lend me books that they recommend. These have been few and far between but have certainly helped diversify my selection of books and have for the most part been quite enjoyable to read.
So without further ado, let me launch into a reflection of the books that I have read. I intentionally use the word reflections as the term review somehow suggests that I am passing a judgement on the books. I am more interested in sharing my thoughts on the books that I read than on being critical. To me, the biggest advantage a book holds over a movie is that you can read it at your own pace and pause in-between pages and reflect on what you have read. You get to put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist and live his or her life for a bit. A movie on the other hand, seems more like you are watching from the outside.
I will start with my most recent book and will attempt at recollecting some of the older ones that I read and still recall. The goal is that over the course of time, I would have collected a fair amount of reviews including some comments from friends and neighbors who have read the same titles. Maybe there will come a time when I will re-read some of the books and will be able to compare and contrast my thoughts through the passage of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment