Hindustantimes wants to start sending you push notifications. Click allow to subscribe

Book Box | Reading without rules

Jan 18, 2025 08:01 PM IST

On why there are no rules when it comes to reading

Anything works, there are no rules when it comes to books.

25 ways to read your way through 2025

Be indulgent with yourself this year.

Curate your reading, or be careless, whatever suits your mood.

Don’t be affected by the words of the highbrow book critics- at a party, at your book club or on Instagram.

Early in my life, I learned the joys of being indiscriminate; promiscuous in my perusal, Monday mornings with missionary Soldiers of God the nuns in school sold us for 25 paise each, library books and the newsprint my jhaal muri packets came wrapped in.

Favourites like the William books by Richmal Crompton and The Secret Island by Enid Blyton.

The Secret Island

Grist for my reading mill, everyone of them.

Honestly,

I just indulge myself, books are bread and butter- textbooks and reams of research,

Jam as well – murder mysteries with detectives restoring order in the world, travelogues that tell of people and places, and the slice-of-life novellas of Claire Keegan and Vivek Shanbhag.

Sakina’s Kiss

Kiss and Tell is what I do when it comes to these books.

Love, lust, likability- they all jump into the ways I read my books

Multiplying the highs and lows in my book clubs, dissing, debating, dissecting, discussing,

Nuances of character, plot, setting and style

Open it all up for analysis,

Pages underlined and highlighted.

Quick to pick up fiction and memoirs, always on the hunt for something

Rare, that literary gem that’s been forgotten, like the stunning Fire of Bengal book written by the wife of a Hungarian professor invited by the Poet to spend a year in Shantiniketan as the fight for Indian Independence hots up

Sometimes it is a book everyone is talking about like Orbital, perched on every best books of 2024 booklist.

Taste them all, roll them on your tongue.

Understand some, adore others, reject a few, that’s very important. Everything is

Valid when it comes to your reading

Wade in, dip your toes, dive or just lazily tread water

X-ray the word choices, the worlds, the points of view

You do You.

Zoom to wherever you want.

Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com

The views expressed are personal

See more
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now