"My preferred way to travel is not a plane but a book.
How wonderful it is to be transported somewhere new without having to leave your bed." ~ Michael Faudet

This unusual winter, I have no plans of leaving my bed, unless absolutely necessary. For company, 42 books lie beside me, the works of thirty authors from ten countries, spanning multiple genres and diverse eras. The only commonality - I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of them yet.

[WANT TO READ MORE IN 2021?

ADD YOURSELF TO THE BIBLIOTHERAPY READERS' LIST]

Many of these have been courtesy your recommendations (thank you!!). Quite a few were discovered while experimenting with bibliotherapy over these past nine months. And some have been biding their time in the dark corners of my bookshelves since time immemorial, my tsundoku.

In accordance with the chief mission of this little 'sanity project' of mine, i.e. to nudge you to read more, here is the complete reading list in alphabetical order, along with...
- a few goodies from the internet to assist you in selecting your next read.
- handy purchase links for adding any book you fancy to your own library.

Happy reading, and a happier End-of-2020!!
- Nitin

Please note - this post contains affiliate links. For every purchase you make by clicking on them, this independent creator will earn a small commission which will go towards keeping Project Bibliotherapy sustainable in its mission to nudge you to read more. Thank you in advance for your support :)

On top of the pile is an old friend's debut effort at documenting his take on life, the universe and everything in the form of a travelogue...

Travel book: A Life Afloat

Time is at a premium for busy bees such as yourselves, so I’ll get right to the point: my book got published! It’s about travel, which was sadly curtailed for most of 2020 (the calamitous year), giving us all bouts of cabin fever!

opendurbar.scrollstack.com

Incidentally, he was the one to introduce me to the brilliance of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sixteen years ago...

DNA's final book, 'The Salmon of Doubt', consists of a wide variety of gems such as this mid-90s prophecy regarding the future of magazines below...

This mind-blowing lecture from 2011, based on 'Last Chance to See', was his final public appearance before his untimely demise...

Next up, Ove - an elderly Swedish male who has popped up on my #bookstagram feed the most this year. I know nothing more of him; but in my limited experience, Scandinavian senior citizens sure lead interesting lives...

The Bibliophile's Guide to the Hundred Year Old Man

“Things are what they are, and whatever will be, will be.” ~ Allan Karlsson

bibliotherapy.scrollstack.com

Before it completely merges with current affairs, Indian science fiction is one genre I'm keen on exploring this winter. No better place to start than the works of someone who dropped out of IIM-Ahmedabad to write science fiction almost two decades ago...

Winter is coming (for creatorfolk)

So here is an advisory checklist

samit.substack.com

add to library -->
#1 ‘A Life Afloat’ - Aradhye Ackshatt (2020)
#2 ‘The Salmon of Doubt’ - Douglas Adams (2002)
#3 ‘Last Chance to See: A journey in search of our most precious and endangered animals’ - Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine (1990)
#4 ‘A Man Called Ove’ - Fredrik Backman (2014)
#5 ‘Turbulence’ - Samit Basu (2010)
#6 ‘Resistance’ - Samit Basu (2014)
#7 ‘Chosen Spirits’ - Samit Basu (2020)

For seventy years, Mr Bond has been indulging in the simplest and greatest pleasure in the world - writing...

Why I Write by Ruskin Bond

I am a fortunate person. For nearly seventy years I have been able to make a living by doing what I enjoy most: writing.

harpercollinsindia.scrollstack.com

Continuing with education, a book about 'everything you were never taught at school'...

I discovered Charles Bukowski only three-odd years ago. And the unparalleled honesty in his writing simply blew me away. Swipe sideways below for a glimpse..

If he was alive today, he would outshine every existing podcaster on Earth by miles...

For a whole lot more Bukowski, check out...

The Bibliophile's Guide to Bukowski

“Charles Bukowski was a shameless drinker, womanizer, and all-around f*ck up. He would get drunk on stage at his poetry readings and verbally abuse his audience. He gambled a lot of his money away and had an unfortunate habit of exposing himself in public.

bibliotherapy.scrollstack.com

As an unabashed introvert, it's surprising I only stumbled upon 'Quiet' last month...

After revisiting the five-book 'trilogy' over the past couple of months, Book Six of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first one to be read off this list...

#8 ‘How to be a Writer’ - Ruskin Bond (2020)
#9 ‘The School of Life: An Emotional Education’ - Alain De Botton (2019)
#10 ‘The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993’ - Charles Bukowski (2007)
#11 ‘Hollywood’ - Charles Bukowski (1989)
#12 ‘Pulp’- Charles Bukowski (1994)
#13 ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking’ - Susan Cain (2012)
#14 ‘And Another Thing... Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three’ - Eoin Colfer (2009)

Colonial Corporate History 101 - or how an MNC looted the richest country in the world back in the day, explained in a lucid manner...

Somehow, Neil Gaiman's prolific bibliography decided to wait for the onset of the apocalypse to make it to my to-read list. The only nudge anyone needs to treat themselves to a masterclass in storytelling is this one below...

...the above lecture, for your reading pleasure...

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

A lecture explaining why using our imaginations, and providing for others to use theirs, is an obligation for all citizens

theguardian.com

#15 ‘The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of an Empire’ - William Dalrymple (2019)
#16 ‘The Sandman: Volume 1 Preludes and Nocturnes’ - Neil Gaiman (1988)
#17 ‘American Gods’ - Neil Gaiman (2001)
#18 ‘The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Non Fiction’ - Neil Gaiman (2016)
#19 ‘Stardust’ - Neil Gaiman (1999)
#20 ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ - Neil Gaiman (2013)
#21 ‘Fortunately the Milk’ - Neil Gaiman (2013)

Listening to Gaiman talk about reading and writing is one of the most underrated pleasures ever...

I can't wait to wrap up reading Good Omens just in order to binge this one before the world ends...

Prime Video: Good Omens - Season 1

Aziraphale and Crowley, of Heaven and Hell respectively, have grown rather fond of the Earth. So it’s terrible news that it’s about to end. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing. The Four Horsemen are ready to ride. Everything is going according to the Divine Plan…except that someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist. Can our heroes find him and stop Armageddon before it’s too late?

primevideo.com

Jaipur Lit Fest is close to my heart for several reasons...

...including being the focus of the last thing I ever wrote in the pre-pandemic era. A novel set against the backdrop of Diggi Palace and written by the festival's co-director had to make it to my reading list...

Timeless lessons on 'wealth, greed and happiness' never hurt, especially after stretched-out sabbaticals...

Also, listen to Morgan Housel guest-starring on an episode of the Knowledge Project podcast from 2016...

Morgan Housel on Reading, Writing, and Lifelong Learning

Financial writer Morgan Housel and I discuss reading, writing, filtering information, admitting error, important qualities to have in friends and so much more.

fs.blog

The creator of Brave New World shares his visions and fears in this interview from 1958...

Back in 2012, Chinaman was the first-ever book I purchased online. But somehow, it got lost (just like its protagonist) in the hidden corners of my bookshelves. Till now, that is...

Where in the world is Pradeep Mathew?

An ambitious, inventive, must-read new cricket novel from Sri Lanka

espncricinfo.com

#22 ‘The Graveyard Book’ - Neil Gaiman (2008)
#23 ‘Coraline’ - Neil Gaiman (2002)
#24 ‘Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch’ - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (1990)
#25 ‘Jaipur Journals: A Love Letter to the Greatest Literary Show on Earth’ - Namita Gokhale (2020)
#26 ‘The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness’ - Morgan Housel (2020)
#27 ‘Island’ - Aldous Huxley (1962)
#28 ‘Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew’ - Shehan Karunatilaka (2011)

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." ~ Janusz Korzak

To know more about the inspirational life of Mr Korczak...

Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak was a well-known doctor and author who ran a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw from 1911 to 1942. Korczak and his staff stayed with their children even as German authorities deported them all to their deaths a...

encyclopedia.ushmm.org

In 2020, Mr Krakauer announced his plans to not write any more. Listen to one of my favourite interviews from this year below...

"Into The Wild" author Jon Krakauer on adventure and risk

American mountaineer and writer Jon Krakauer was a member of a fateful 1996 Mount Everest expedition that got caught in a blizzard that claimed eight lives, including New Zealanders Rob Hall and Andrew "Harold" Harris. The tragedy, which remains one of the worst in modern climbing history, was the basis for Krakauer's bestselling book Into Thin Air. An earlier book, Into The Wild, documents the travels and adventures of Christopher McCandless, a young man from a well-to-do family who gave away all his money to hike across North America, and who ended up dying in the Alaskan wilderness.The book was made into a popular film directed by Sean Penn, and the bus at the centre of the drama has just been relocated to deter visitors from making the dangerous pilgrimage there. Krakauer's most recent book, a non-fiction collection called Classic Krakauer, will be his last.

rnz.co.nz

Narnia never quite figured on my itinerary growing up. Time to explore yet another fantasy world...

After a failed attempt in 2009, a pandemic seems like a rather apt time to explore Mr Marquez's masterpiece...

Also a part of the unread pile for way too long...

From the brilliantly weird mind of this guy, yet another title waiting for the end of the world to be picked up...

Jem Roberts's exhaustive chronicles of the froodest Douglas Adams is my biography of choice for the upcoming few months. For further 42+ resources revolving around him and his masterpiece creation, check out one of the earliest posts on ScrollStack...

The Bibliophile's Guide to H2G2

Greetings, fellow inhabitants of the Universe.

bibliotherapy.scrollstack.com

#29 ‘King Matt the First’ - Janusz Korczak (1923)
#30 ‘Classic Krakauer: Essays on Wilderness and Risk’ - Jon Krakauer (2019)
#31 ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ - C.S. Lewis (1950)
#32 ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985)
#33 ‘The Night Circus’ - Erin Morgenstern (2011)
#34 ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ - Haruki Murakami (1985)
#35 ‘The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and H2G2’ - Jem Roberts (2014)

Speaking of outstanding minds, here's a lost lecture delivered by Carl Sagan at Cornell in 1994...

For vicarious travel, I was recommended Ms Tokarczuk's award-winning effort...

The writer of my all-time favourite cricket article debuted as a novelist this year. Travel back in time courtesy his words...

Growing up with Sachin

How Tendulkar helped a generation of Indians make sense of their lives

espncricinfo.com

This novel is set in a Bengaluru school for high achievers, who include an India cricket captain

An excerpt from ‘What’s Wrong With You, Karthik’ by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan.

scroll.in

When a notorious fascist returns to modern-day Berlin, hilarity ensues...

And if you're craving more laughter courtesy a comfort read, the original bibliotherapist is here...

Also, treat yourself to one of the most enjoyable online events in 2020...

Here's some more Wodehouse for you from the Bibliotherapy archives...

The Bibliophile's Guide to Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975): The original bibliotherapist - chasing the blues away since forever.

bibliotherapy.scrollstack.com

And finally, to cap off this rather ambitious reading list, a revered take on life, the universe and everything - The Bhagavad Gita: as it is, gifted by my father this lockdown birthday...

#36 ‘Contact’ - Carl Sagan (1985)
#37 ‘Flights’ - Olga Tokarczuk (2007)
#38 ‘What's Wrong with You, Karthik?’ - Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (2020)
#39 ‘Look Who's Back’ - Timur Vermes (2012)
#40 ‘Piccadilly Jim’ - P.G. Wodehouse (1917)
#41 ‘Laughing Gas’ - P.G. Wodehouse (1936)
#42 ‘Bhagavad Gita: As It Is’

Phew!! I don't foresee suffering from 'reader's block' over the next few weeks. But in case I do, I'll be revisiting this list for a nudge or two. Hence, this rather long post with everything in one place. Here's hoping it provides to be as useful to you as intended.

Do let me know :)

Name. One book/author/topic on your reading list for 2021. Email. Phone number (optional). That’s all.
Sign up below to READ MORE this year and beyond... :)

Bibliotherapy Readers' List

Want to READ MORE in 2021? Add yourself to the Bibliotherapy Readers' List for exclusive nudges, guided reading meditations and more...

bit.ly