My favourite reads of 2022
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
―Stephen King
I absolutely concur with the above phrase. Books carry a wealth of wisdom - in the form of life experiences, pieces of advice, or complete guides on how to live a better life. Without going into too much detail about the books and as a result, uncovering the plot, I have penned down a few lessons from my favourite books of 2022. Share your favourite reads with me by going to the Contact me page :)
When Breath Becomes Air - It is a memoir by Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who was based in the US. The book is an account of the time when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Paul vividly described his experience when he learned that he was terminally ill, of what it is like to be on the other side of his white coat, and of his transformation from treating his terminally ill patients one day to experiencing the face of death the next. One important lesson from this book was resilience in the face of a crisis. Paul’s ability to gather up the courage to face mortality before it is due has lessons for all of us. There are several lessons in the book and here is one which I found very important “At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living”. When you find yourself faced with your own mortality, you realise that there are only a few things that matter in life.
The Psychology of Money - The Psychology of Money is a self-help finance book by Morgan Housel. Finance is increasingly becoming complex with an extensive number of options available to invest in and save. To top that, social media has produced umpteen financial influencers, many of whom have no idea about the basics of finance. The Psychology of Money is a simple guide to saving, budgeting, and investing. I had written down a few key takeaways from this book in an article a few months ago. The article rests here and I definitely recommend reading it. With the current state of the economy and financial markets, and uncertainty in the foreseeable future, it is imperative that we take control of our financial situation.
Bruised Passports - Savi Munjal and Vidit Taneja started a travel blog called Bruised Passports a few years ago. They have also recently written a book of the same name. Apart from being a book about their travel adventures, it includes a heart-touching story of their lives and how their love for travel began and grew. Their story is supported by some breathtaking photos of the heavenly places this cutest couple have visited. What I learnt from this book? I learnt that it is possible to realise our wildest dreams, even when those seem impossible. My favourite phrase from the book is “And I like to think that happened because we were not scared to think BEYOND! Beyond the roles society laid out for us. Beyond the dreams others had for us. Beyond the expectations of strangers. Beyond the home we were told to have. We were not scared to imagine a future that made us smile every single day beyond the shackles of gender, circumstances or stereotypes.”
Regretting Motherhood - It is a sociological study of women who became mothers but have regretted becoming mothers. The book includes interviews conducted with a few anonymous mothers. The author Orna Donath undertook this important study to shed light on the current state of motherhood and on the toxic glorification of motherhood by society. She describes how motherhood has become a role that women have to fulfil and no longer exists as a relationship between the mother and the child. This has somehow led to people forgetting that mothers are humans too - who are capable of pain, who are capable of errors, who are capable of regretting a relationship, and who have the right to express their feelings. When we get into a relationship with someone - for instance a friendship, we keep the right to say that we regret getting into that said relationship. Then why do we take that right away from mothers? Why is their regret still considered taboo? It does not mean that those mothers hate their kids, it just means that they do not like the process/role of being a mother. This book made me question my preconceived notions regarding motherhood and made me realise how important it is to question these - for our well-being, for the well-being of our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and girl friends.
The Drama of the Gifted Child - Alice Miller was a psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher and wrote several books on child psychology and parental child abuse. The Drama of the Gifted Child is a book about childhood trauma. Alice Miller said that childhood trauma doesn’t always have to be a disturbing or horrifying experience, it could be as small as a lack of love on the part of parents or parental neglect or authoritarian parenting. The book describes how these childhood experiences could have a significant impact on personality and how it is passed through generations in one or the other way if it’s not resolved. The brain is susceptible during childhood - it is developing and as such, it is the most important time to pay attention and give love to the kids. It is an important book to understand what shaped our personalities, why we are the way we are, where our insecurities stem from, how it impacts other relationships we have, and how to face reclaim our lives back.
A Nation of Idiots - Daksh Tyagi has used tongue-in-cheek humour with anecdotes from his life to describe his experience of growing up in India. He has excellently penned down his thoughts of growing up with a certain set of values - that materialised from traditions, superstitions, and culture. A very relatable book that puts a smirk on your face every now and then with commentary on the absurdities of the things we practice. Also, an excellent book to question the values we have grown up with. Why do we do things that we do? What are our superstitions and do these superstitions have any catastrophic repercussions that we choose to avoid or are completely ignorant about? One of my highlighted phrases from the book “At what point is a generation free? Free to re-examine their way of life. Open to embrace tradition, but discard what makes us miserable. And does this thought matter in a place where traditions are biased, where the seldom understood is followed like a flight path, where to question is fast becoming treason, where what has been going on for ages carries more merit than examining what must stop now, and where to go along is the norm but to pause and ponder is a problem.
And I wondered, if in the end, what hurts us most is not what we inherit, but what we fail to shrug off”