Book List 2017

Psychoanalyst Adam Philips, in his book ‘In Praise of Missing Out’ writes at length about what we, in our times, call the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). A pithy yet acutely diagnosed uneasiness of our times exacerbated by the social media and the glorious lives we’re all trying to live. Yet we agree that routine life is anything but glorious and sometimes it’s
hard. As readers we cushion ourselves with books and escape into words and worlds that are not our own but feel personal. However, what does one do when reading becomes a competition, books become events that can be missed, recommended reading morphs into a task to do, a checklist to be maintained, a 100 books to be crossed out before the year ends?

This year, the Bookhad blog found itself maintaining a stoic, unplanned silence. While the reasons weren’t clear we suspect it was because routine became hard, book challenges became commonplace, and we wanted to just do our own thing quietly for some time and escape so wholly that what we read became a salve, a warm blanket, a wake up call, and a joy in itself without us having to write home about it.

In essence, we did it the old school way this year. We borrowed books from the library, went back to our beds, lawns, cosy corners, and just read for ourselves. Just for the self. For now, here is a list of the books the admins read in 2017. Next year, we promise to join you readers and the party outside.

Here are links to some reviews that we published outside of this blog:

Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Safak (Scroll.in)

Harraga by Boualem Sansal (HuffPost India)

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter (Scroll.in)

We wish you a happy new year and a glorious bookish year ahead.

2017 Reads

Country	Book	Author	Rating	Genre/Type
Algeria	Harraga	Boualem Sansal	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Canada	The Mystics of Mile End	Sigal Samuel	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Canada	Milk and Honey	Rupi Kaur	♥	Poetry
India	Intimate Class Acts: Friendship and Desire in Indian and Pakistani Women’s Fiction	Maryam Mirza	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction
India	A Book of Simple Living	Ruskin Bond	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
India	Demons on my Mind	Aashish Gupta	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Ireland	The Playboy of The Western World	J.M. Synge	♥ ♥ ♥	Play
Israel	A Horse Walks Into a Bar	David Grossman	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Korea	Pachinko	Min Jin Lee	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Middle East	Exit West	Hamid Mohsin	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Middle East	Muhammad: A Biography	Karen Armstrong	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction
Middle East	Headscarves and Hymens	Mona Eltahawy	♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction
Nigeria	Things Fall Apart	Chinua Achebe	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Norway	Buzz Aldrin, What Happened To You In All the Confusion?	Johan Harstad	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Russia	My Childhood	Maxim Gorky	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Autobiography
South Africa	In The Heart of The Country	J. M. Coetzee	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Sweden	A Man Called Ove	Fredrick Backman	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Syria	The Calligrapher’s Secret	Rafik Schami	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
Turkey	Three Daughter’s of Eve	Elif Safak	♥ ♥	Fiction
U.A.E	Letters to a Young Muslim	Omar Saif Ghobash	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.K.	Home Fire	Kamila Shamsie	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	Great Expectations	Charles Dickens	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	Harry Potter and The Cursed Child	J. K. Rowling	♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.K.	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	Middlemarch	George Eliot	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.K.	Murder in the Cathedral	T. S. Eliot	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Play
U.K.	Look Back in Anger	John Osborne	♥ ♥ ♥	Play
U.K.	Pygmalion	George Bernard Shaw	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Play
U.K.	There and Back Again	J. R. R. Tolkien	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Upstream: Selected Essays	Mary Oliver	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	American Gods	Neil Gaiman	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	All Grown Up	Jami Attenberg	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	My Misspent Youth: Essays	Meghan Daum	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion	Meghan Daum	♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	Men Explain Things to Me	Rebecca Solnit	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems	Raymond Carver	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Poetry
U.S.A	Letters to my Daughter	Maya Angelou	♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	The Final Empire	Brandon Sanderson	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	The Well of Acension	Brandon Sanderson	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	The Hero of Ages	Brandon Sanderson	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	A Tale for the Time Being	Ruth Ozeki	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man	James Joyce	♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Carrie	Stephen King	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Salem’s Lot	Stephen King	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Everything is Illuminated	Jonathan Safran Foer	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Choke	Chuck Palahniuk	♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Storm Front	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Fool Moon	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Grave Peril	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Between the World and Me	Ta-Nehisi Coates	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction
U.S.A	Summer Knight	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Death Masks	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Blood Rites	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Dead Beat	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Proven Guilty	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	White Night	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Small Favour	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Turn Coat	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Changes	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Ghost Story	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Cold Days	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Skin Game	Jim Butcher	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fantasy
U.S.A	Shutter Island	Dennis Lehane	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Fahreheit 541	Ray Bradbury	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	And the Mountains Echoed	Khaled Hosseini	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Tiny Beautiful Things	Cheryl Strayed	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays
U.S.A	Slaughter House Five	Kurt Vonnegut	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Breakfast of Champions	Kurt Vonnegut	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A	Apt Pupil	Stephen King	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A/Ghana	Homegoing	Yaa Gyasi	♥ ♥ ♥	Fiction
U.S.A/Israel	Joining the Sisterhood; Young Jewish Women Write Their Lives	Edited by Tobin Belzer	♥ ♥ ♥ ♥	Non-Fiction/ Essays