My 5 star reads of 2021

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Books worth 5 stars - Short Stories

Manto’s Selected Short Stories by Sadat Hasan Manto

“Writers rarely set out to be national writers. They need small, intimate worlds, full of details; the macro scale of countries, especially those as wide and various as India, cannot be their direct material.”

Three Thousand Stitches by Sudha Murty

“Confidence doesn’t mean that everything will go our way. It simply gives us the ability to accept failures that we will inevitably meet on our path and move forward with hope.”

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, and each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

5 star Historical Fiction of 2021

Bayan by Pramudith Rupasinghe

“My bayan is self-awareness, it show me who I am and what is going on in me.”

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

“Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”

The Boy called Ambi by Srividhya Venkatesan, Gayathri Venkatesan

“Little boy Ambi was standing in the queue outside the shop for the age-old delicious Tirunelveli Iruttu Kadai Halwa.”

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.”

Untouchables by Mulk Raj Anand

“Charat Singh was feeling kind, though he did not relax the grin which symbolized six thousand years of racial and class superiority.”

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

“At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.”

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

“First, there was trust. Then, there was betrayal. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust ... what you have learned is the same heart-wrenching journey of every woman to whom I have sold a poison. And it is, indeed, the same path for me.” —

5 star Dystopian Fiction - 2021

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

“Don't let the bastards grind you down.”

Animal farm by George Orwell

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Books worth 5 stars - Mystery/Thriller

The Stalker by Sarah Alderson

“It was meant to be a romantic getaway, but it’s turning into the honeymoon from hell.”

An Eye for An Eye by Carol Wyer

A killer running rings around the police. A detective spiralling out of control.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

“Grief is like a series of bombs exploding, one after another. Every hour, a new detonation. Shock after shock after shock.”

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

You’ll Be The Death of Me by Karen M Mcmanus

“You can be right in principle and still wrong in approach.”

The Evil Eye by Madhuri Sekhar

Graphic Novels - Best of 2021

Oddball by Sarah Anderson

Saga by Brian K. Vaughn

“Violence is stupid. Even as a last resort, it only ever begets more of the same.”

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

“No, darling! To die it's easy... But you have to stuggle for life!”

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”

5 star Non-fiction - 2021

Atomic Habits by James Clear

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

“Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”

Unlimited Memory by Grandmaster Kevin Horseley

“The best advice I ever came across on the subject of concentration is: Wherever you are, be there.”

To The Survivors by Robert Uttaro

“But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.”

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

“Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time.”

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro

"What made the difference, then, was the highly emotive image of the girls hanging in the tree. Urban Indians first saw it on social media, the place where they went to read the news and debate it. They wanted something to latch on to, to vent their personal frustrations over India's inability to change quickly enough, and the picture was it. Padma and Lalli could have been anyone's children. They were, obviously, blameless."

5 star Memoirs I read in 2021

Karukku by Bama

“I comfort myself with the thought that rather than live a life with a fraudulent smile, it is better to lead a life weeping real tears.”

Why I Killed Gandhi by Nathuram Godse

“An individual is never greater than a nation, Nana. But Gandhi has started considering himself greater than the nation.”

Night by Elie Wiesel

“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”

Educated by Tara Westover

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

“My pain was never more valuable than his potential.”

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor D. Frankl

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Children’s Fiction worth 5 stars

The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

'The umbrella was like a flower, a great blue flower that had sprung up on the dry brown hillside.'

5 star Classics worth reading - 2021

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Chronicle of Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“He always considered death an unavoidable professional hazard.”

5 star Fantasy/Mythology Books

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

“I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!”

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J.Klune

“We should always make time for the things we like. If we don't, we might forget how to be happy.”

Valmiki’s Women by Anand Neelkantan

Stories of Sita, Manthara, Shoorpankha, and a few more with narratives that make you revisit the epic. 

General Fiction - 5 star rated in 2021

Articleship Diaries by Akhil Manuel

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Naam-Joo

“The world had changed a great deal, but the little rules, contracts and customs had not, which meant the world hadn't actually changed at all.”

Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

“I didn't go to bookshops to buy. That's a little bourgeois. I went because they were civilized places. It made me happy there were people who sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote and there were other people who devoted their lives to making those words into books. It was lovely. Like standing in the middle of civilization.”

Romance -  5 star rated for 2021

The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara

“Whatever happens, the decision should be yours. Stay, if you want to stay and go if you want to go. But don’t stay and definitely don’t go because of someone else,” he says, and I suspect we’re both thinking about the same thing.”

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

“You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”

Poetry -   5 star rated for 2021

Soft Glimmers & Shining Stars by Niki A.

Soft Glimmers & Shining Stars is a collection of soulful poetry centered around love, hope and life.