2011 - The Year in Books

I managed to read more books this year. The count stands a little over 40 I think. The good thing was that after many years I read many of those fat intimidating books and liked most of them. You can't beat the classics for good writing.

In January I read 'The World of Nagaraj' by R.K. Narayan. In February 'The English Teacher' by RKN, and 'The Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell. In March I read a lot of Ruskin Bond, six or seven books of his including 'The Room on the Roof', Landour Days', 'Roads to Mussoorie', Vagrants of the Valley', 'A Handful of Nuts' and 'A Season of Ghosts', 'The Case of the Exploding Mangoes' and 'The Counsel of Strangers'. April, I read 'The Untouchable', ' The Winner Stands Alone'. 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' 'Woody Allen on Woody Allen' and 'Zorba the Greek'. In May I read 'The Choice', 'Kanthapura', 'Going Places - Cricketers from small towns in India' and the 'Concise 33 Strategies of War'. In June it was 'The Music Room', 'The Mafia Queens of Mumbai', A Fine Balance', 'Waiting for the Mahatma', 'Our Trees Still Grow In Dehra' and 'Mojo'. July brought 'Think and Grow Rich', 'The Winning Way'. 'The Immortals of Meluha', 'Chanakya's Chant' and a book by Ruth Rendell. August I read 'False Impression' by Jeffrey Archer. September was a month when I did not complete a single book. October I read 'Such a Long Journey', 'The Popcorn Essayists', 'Lose Your Weight, Don't Lose Your Mind', 'Revolution 2020' 'The Book of 5 Rings' and 'The Grapes of Wrath'. November was for 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway' and 'Roots'.
In December I read 'Sea of Poppies'.

My top 10 for the year are Roots, The Grapes of Wrath, Zorba the Greek, A Fine Balance, The Untouchable, The Music Room, The Case of the Exploding Mangoes, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Kanthapura and Such a Long Journey. The ones that disappointed most were The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho, False Impression by Jeffrey Archer, Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh and The World of Nagaraj by RKN.

In non fiction my top 5 would be Outliers, the Concise 33 Strategies of War, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway and Going Places - Small Town Cricketers from India. The shelf is full right now and I look forward to reading some more good books in 2012.