My reading history for this year has been appalling, for an avowed bookworm. I’ve barely managed to read a book a month. Most times I would return a book unread and often unopened.

A real reader always has his nose in a book. In fact, a real reader reads everything even labels on food products, hoardings at bus stops and random advertisements that catch the eye.

My only real excuse (apart from life making unexpected demands on my time and attention) is that I have hardly come across a book that has caught my attention. The books borrowed by Prima Donna that I see lying around at home have not been very tempting. I have been put off by the cover itself or the blurbs on the back. Quite often, I find that books that come highly recommended or shortlisted for Literary awards are quite vague and difficult to plough through.

So earlier this year, I made a conscious effort to read more books. But fiction which was once my mainstay gravitated towards non-fiction, especially historical novels. They are fascinating and are the best way of getting acquainted with the past.

But even then, my reading was spotty. I resorted to reading the first few pages, the end and then flipping through the pages in the middle to join the dots. It was no wonder that I hardly remembered the book! I consoled myself that opening the book and flip-reading was far better than returning books back unread. Or not borrowing anything at all.

KINNI’s RECOMMENDATIONS

So I decided to ask Kinni, the club’s librarian for his suggestions.

Kinni is the last person you’d imagine is a librarian. With his slightly balding pate and reading glasses, he seems more like an accountant. But he is a good librarian who knows his books and his readers.

I was a bit apprehensive about the books Kinni picked out. They were quite unlike the books I normally read. Besides, I find unfamiliar names quite difficult to read and often have to read a sentence more than once to get the actual meaning.

This Japanese author has been around for quite a while but I only got to know of him this year.

Apart from the intriguing title, I was drawn to the story about time travel. It is always difficult to get the back-and-forth storytelling in proper sequence. But Kawaguchi does this seamlessly. Initially, I was confused and frankly irritated but the premise that you can only find the future when you sit on a particular chair which is occupied by a person who was trapped in the future because he didn’t finish his meeting in the future before his coffee got cold. Equally intriguing was the condition that the person should have visited this cafe before.

But once you get caught up with the plot you realise that this is a really ingenious fo of story telling.

Nawaguchi has written other books that continue the story but quite frankly I found it hard to keep track of the characters simply because I am unfamiliar with Japanese names.

However, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants a change from the traditional way of telling a tale.

I wasn’t too keen on choosing this book because I thought it would be a trashy romance. Once again I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a novel with many layers.

It begins in rural Korea where a matchmaker comes looking for prospective brides for grooms settled in Hawai. The story, however, goes beyond the initial disappointment of the young brides and carries on till the Korean war. Thus the book is quite captivating.

These were two of the books that I enjoyed reading in 2024 and hope to read more in 2025.

Ciao