Goodreads Challenge 2019

As the New Year renews all the happiness and good tidings, hope the joyful spirit keeps glowing in your heart forever. I wish all my readers a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have not been very regular with this blog during the last few months. Work related obligations left me with little time for creative pursuits. I hope 2020 would be a better year for me in terms of writing! My New Year resolution is to be regular on this blog and post at least once a week.  In terms of reading, last year was good for me as I complete my Goodreads Challenge of reading 40 books. I read 42…Yay!!!

Here’s the list of the books that I read last year:

1. For One more Day by Mitch Albom
2. Lanka’s Princess by Kavita Kane
3. The New Tarot Handbook by Rachel Pollack
4. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, Simon Pare
5. The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan
6. Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
7. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella
8. Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
10. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
11. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
12. Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella
13. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
14. Rusty Goes To London by Ruskin Bond
15. Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella
16. Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen by Kavita Kane
17. The Girl in Room 105 by Chetan Bhagat
18. The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie
19. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
20. Battle For Bittora by Anuja Chauhan
21. Dancing In The Moonlight by RaeAnne Thaynne
22. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
23. Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
24. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
25. The Tarot Revealed by Eden Gray
26. Wake Up, Life is Calling by Preeti Shenoy
27. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
28. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini
29. Great Stories for Children by Ruskin Bond
30. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
31. Birthday Girl by Haruki Murakami
32. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
33. The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
34. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
35. The Last Boy to Fall in Love by Durjoy Datta
36. My Hanuman Chalisa by Devdutt Pattanaik
37. The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
38. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
39. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
40. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
41. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
42. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Fracesc Miralles

I discovered many new authors and thoroughly enjoyed reading their works. I read Sophie Kinsella for the first time and ended up reading six books from her.  If you are looking for light hearted books that can cheer you up then pick a Sophie Kinsella book without hesitation.  Neil Gaiman is another author who was an absolute delight to read. After reading two of his books last year, I plan to read more of him in 2020. I read Elif Shafak towards the end of the year and was blown away with her kind of storytelling. She is surely one author that I would like to read more of. I also read a few Children’s classics which were an utter delight to read.

One of my New Year resolutions for 2019 was to buy fewer books and read more on my Kindle. I used to be one of those old school people, who cannot do without physical books. But thankfully, I put Kindle to good use last year and it certainly helped me in reading more.  I also subscribed to Audible. Audio book was a new format for me and initially I was uncertain about it but now I enjoy listening to audio books during my daily commute.

My Top 5 Books from 2019

1. The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie
2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
3. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
4. For One more Day by Mitch Albom
5. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

I wrote book reviews for most of the books that I read which can be found here.

For 2020, I have taken the Goodreads Challenge of reading 60 books. I will definitely try my best to read more than that.  I would love to have book recommendations from you. Share your recommendations in the comment section below.  Also do share your reading goals for 2020.

Happy Reading!!

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