My Top 5 Reads of 2020 and a List of the 55 Books I Read this Year

I read 55 books this year. My top 5 reads were 1. The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides 2. Normal People – Sally Rooney 3. Ringa Ringa Roses – Neil D’ Silva 4. Memory – Pragya Bhagat and 5. When Push Comes to Shove – Ushasi Sen Basu.

I read The Silent Patient in a few hours one evening. I couldn’t put it down. The fact that I had nightmares that night doesn’t stop me from putting it on my Top 5.

I was really engaged with ‘Normal People’. I liked the writing style and the story flowed effortlessly for me as a reader.

Ringa Ringa Roses is one of my first few horror reads and I read it during the day. It kept me turning the pages and a bonus is that I did not get nightmares.

Memory by Pragya Bhagat is a collection of poetry. I enjoyed the feminist themes the book covered and the poems as well.

When Push Comes to Shove was a detective single. It was a quick satisfying read. I enjoyed it a lot.

The other books I read this year ( in no particular order) include the following books. I’ve hyperlinked some of them to the reviews I’d written of them:

1. How to write and sell great short stories – Linda M. James
2. Introducing Media Studies – A Graphic Guide
3. No Apologies – Women’s Web
4. Don’t go away, we’ll be right back – Indu Balachandran
5. The plot whisperer – Secrets of story structure any writer can master – Martha Alderson
6. How to write a poem – A beginner’s guide – Sean O’Neill
7. All the light we cannot see – Anthony Doerr
8. Normal People – Sally Rooney
9. Adi Shankara – Anant Pai
10. Introducing Hinduism – A Graphic Guide – Vinay Lal
11. How to write a novel – A beginner’s guide – Sean O Neill
12. The high priestess never marries – Sharanya Manivannan
13. The Bet- Anton Chekhov
14. Virgin Seductress- J.M Jeffries
15. Love in the time of quarantine – Siddharth Gigoo
16. Ringa Ringa Roses – Neil D Silva
17. Bitch Goddess for Dummies – Maya Sharma Sriram
18. More than a memory – Pragya Bhagat
19. Anxiety– Overcome it and live without fear- Sonali Gupta
20. House of light – Mary Oliver
21. Red Bird- Mary Oliver
22. HBB Micro-Fiction Anthology – Selected Top Entries – Anamika Mishra
23. Offer him all things – Charred, burned and cindered- Kala Krishnan Ramesh
24. Staying Strong – 365 days a year – Demi Lovato
25. An ode to the self- Darshana Suresh
26. Hinduism – A very short introduction- Kim Knott
27. The prophet- Kahlil Gibran
28. Thank God, it’s Caturday – Various authors
29. My NDTV days- Sanjay Pinto
30. Status Single – Sreemoyee Piu Kundu
31. Introducing Sartre – A graphic Guide – Philip Thody
32. One day in October – Sudesna Ghosh
33. Aapnu Gujarat – Sweta Papaiyawala
34. APJ Abdul Kalam – Tripti Nainwal
35. One night in November – Sudesna Ghosh
36. One evening in December – Sudesna Ghosh
37. How to be a writer- Ruskin Bond
38. I, The Writer- Various writers
39. When Push comes to Shove – Ushasi Sen Basu
40. Coping with Suffering – Tomichan Matheikal
41. Dots and Streaks – Ellora Mishra
42. The Soul Charmer – Richa Saxena
43. The Great Indian Anthology Express Edition Volume 2- Various Authors
44. Steal like an artist – 10 things nobody told you about being creative – Austin Kleon
45. The Gurukul Chronicles – Radhika Meghanathan
46. Romancing the beat – Story structure for romance novels( How to write kissing books – book 1) – Gwen Hayes
47. HBB Micro Fiction anthology – Selected Entries – Horror
48. Yesterday’s Ghosts – Nikhil Pradhan
49. Kintsugi – Anukrti Upadhyay
50. The Collected Schizophrenias– Esme Weijun Wang
51. City of Screams – Various Writers
52. Magical Women – Various authors
53. The travel gods must be crazy – Sudha Mahalingam
54. Hiraeth – Partition stories from 1947 – Dr. Shivani Salil
55. Resilience – Stories of Muslim Women – Shubha Menon

How many of these books have you read/enjoyed? What are your reading goals for 2021?