I love compiling this list every year as it gives me a glimpse into my thought processes, interests of the moment, and vignettes of specific seasons in the year that each book brought me through as a silent companion.

Ever since I was a teenager, I’d set idealistic reading goals (always writing ‘100 books’ in my new years resolutions) only to find myself never hitting that lofty number. In 2022, I came back down to earth a bit more and decided, against my impulses, to go for a realistic goal of 20 books. For once, I’m very satisfied that I managed to get close by completing 15 books.

I still have that irrational dream to live up to the label of ‘voracious reader’. As I type this in 2023, I’m happy that I’m in a place where I’m actually prioritising reading in my daily rhythms so much more (of course, at the expense of other things, like watching Netflix; but I’m not complaining).

On to the reads!

Best of the best:

Great for:

• The reader who doesn’t want to be tied down to one story

• The reader who wants to be introduced to fresh literary voices in a short and sweet manner

• The reader who is craving variety

• The reader who wants to go for an easy to easy-medium read

Get it here or borrow it through NLB.

Best of Sci-fi/Series:

Great for:

• The reader who loves to be sucked into a well-constructed universe, written with great detail

• The adrenaline junkie. This person should be all ready for an intense ride; this series is thrilling!

• The reader who wants to go for an easy-medium read

Take note:

• I thought I would struggle with Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem series because I didn’t understand much of the science concepts in the books. But that didn’t deter my comprehension at all. Pick it up if you were hesitant because of that!

• Very plot-driven, not so much character-driven

Get it here, here, and here, or borrow it from the library here, here, and here.

Asian Literature:

Great for:

• The person who desires to explore more Asian authors

• The person who enjoys historical fiction

• The reader who wants to go for an easy read

Take note:

• These books differ in their genres though they share many similarities (historical fiction and asian literature).

• The Night Tiger dips its toes into magical realism a lot more since Malayan/Singaporean myth and superstition are themes that feature heavily in the novel

• The Last Days of Cafe Leila fits squarely into realism

• When paired and read closely one after the other, though, the contrast helps the reader see how each novel establishes the theme of home

  • The Last Days of Cafe Leila does this by featuring the loss and political upheaval that affects the nation, and by extension, a family’s life

  • The Night Tiger sets the scene in colonial Malaya, with a cast of locals and British folk crossing paths. But it does not so much portray the changes in society that occur through the passage of time, as it does its cultural motifs that form the local consciousness.

Get these two books here and here. Or borrow them through NLB here and here.

Re-reads that age well like wine:

Great for:

• The reader who wants to challenge himself. This is a medium to medium-advanced read

Take note:

• The Great Gatsby is not an easy read for many because its portrayal of social life, reality, and romance, with an emphasis on disillusionment and tragedy. But I would argue that it’s precisely because of this that this is a worthy read.

Get this here. Or borrow it through NLB here.

Didn’t live up to the hype:

If you’re curious, get this here. Or borrow it through NLB here.

I didn’t have regular exposure to church traditions growing up, with sporadic attendance throughout my childhood and abandoning church-going altogether when I hit my early teens.

When I went back to church in early adulthood, I attended a Methodist church that had liturgies and followed a liturgical calendar on most Sundays. It was in my time there that I was first introduced to Lent by attending an Ash Wednesday service with my cell group. Year after year, I would occasionally attend these services, or observe Lent with a devotional. But I don’t remember much, apart from my efforts to adhere to a ‘good girl’ image or to check it perfectly off my list of to-dos. Of course it’s good to observe Lent, I’d say to others, having only a vague idea that it’ll contribute to my ‘growth’. I knew all the right things to say and all the right things to do.

There were some sincere attempts at observing Lent. One year I chose to fast from social media. Another year, most notably, Jon and I chose to spend Lent fasting (abstaining) from each other when we were getting to know each other. I grew much, much closer to God in the forced absence of that budding romance.

But as I grew more comfortable in my adulthood, with graduation, career changes, marriage, moving to another church, and managing home life, I lost touch with this rhythm. It was a ‘good to have,’ but not necessary.

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In the past couple of months, a lot of the things I have read and pursued pointed me to how a richer, more meaningful, and beautiful life lived on this side of eternity is within my grasp. The life I now live in Christ isn’t lacklustre and a set of rules and restrictions. It’s a deeper well that never runs dry. Its hues and tones brighter, more saturated than any man-made thing.

Because that’s true, because the life that I now have in Christ extends to all parts of my life, it matters how I live my days and my moments. The way I do my housework, my design work, or the way I set the table for dinner... A voracious hunger grew, and I questioned how I could begin to set my life up to help myself to be formed towards God in the every-day-ness of life?

That’s where I circled back to liturgy.

“A liturgy is a practice that teaches us how to love. Or to put it another way: a liturgy is something we do, and what we do does something to us.”

—Autumn Kern, Liturgia guide

The next thing I did was ask my father-in-law for the book titled Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God. I knew he introduced this book as a structure for my church to plan worship services around, and is teaching classes on it in his current church. Thankfully, he had a brand new copy, and I worked my way through it right before Lent started.

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To inhabit the Lenten season, I chose to fast from most foods (except for fruits and water) for Friday lunch, as well as social media for the day. In its place, I’d spend the hour praying, reading the Bible or an accompanying Christian book, and meditate on the theme for the week.

“Each year the season of Lent asks us to embrace a spiritual gravity, a downward movement of the soul, a turning from our self-sufficiency and sinfulness. In such quiet turning, we are humbled and thus made ready to receive from God a fresh and joyous grace.

Lent [is the] six-week season that leads up to Pascha (Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday). Dust and ashes… symbolize two themes at the heart of Lent: our creaturely mortality and our moral culpability.”

—Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year

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On the first Friday of my fast, I sat up in bed in the morning, thumbing my phone and scrolling a food delivery app, undecided if I should spend the money and get something hearty and convenient so I could get through the fasted lunch without issue. I agonised over a seemingly simple thing like breakfast. But flowing hidden beneath was fear and worry, because I wanted to amply prepare for the fast by eating a large breakfast. I really didn’t want to experience too much hunger.

I chose not to order in the big breakfast (literally, because I was considering McDonald’s) in the end. Here’s a confession, though: I just wanted to avoid spending the money.

As I approached lunch time I felt the hunger pangs and sat down on the couch to begin the hour proper. In pausing and in feeling the emptiness of my stomach, my impulse to plan ahead and control every circumstance’s iteration grew large in my mind as I reflected on my morning’s reaction to the day. I began to see my pride in wanting to get a meal through the Grabfood delivery platform—an expensive and delicious meal, full of fatty, rich foods, compared to just eating whatever’s at home and being contented with that. That unveiled a deeper realisation: when it came to meals, in general, a sense of entitlement dominated when I had a craving. I’d want it now. It is usually an annoyance to eat whatever I have in the home. I’d be dissatisfied with that — I just wanted a quick, fast and delicious meal from a restaurant, but instead, ate a sandwich.

Fasting humbled me even more.

To do so deliberately and face up to my hunger forced me to confront all the ways I automatically scramble to try to mitigate the cry of my human body through an app or through the most convenient way possible. That exposed my crutches. Shouldn’t I be living by every word that comes from the mouth of God?

“[The LORD] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna… in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD”

—Deuteronomy 8:3

Another confession: I used to scoff, all the time, at the Israelites’ whining in the wilderness during their journey between Egypt and the Promised Land. Especially at this part of their journey:

“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!’”

—Numbers 11:4-6

My scoffing stopped when I realised I’m the whiny Israelite during most of my days, unwilling to bring myself to be humbled to eat plain manna (maybe that’s just a sandwich, on most days, which is definitely more tasty than the manna the Israelites ate), unwilling to see the value of God’s word as my sustenance.

Hunger, according to God, is a good thing. It helps me realise my creatureliness: I am at the mercy of God. I am not self-sufficient, and I need to be reminded of that constantly.

Living in a modern time and place forms a dangerous amnesia to that fact because of the existence of convenience and abundance. My fear of hunger from not acting on my plans, and the impulse of constantly ensuring to provide for myself lends more evidence to that. If I keep living in autopilot in this manner, the reality of God being God—my provider, creator, king, will be an intellectual exercise more so than a lived reality.

I’m young in this, but already so enriched.

I hope to weave together theological liturgies in my life, for as long as I have breath.

Overall rating: 8/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Difficult

Length: Short-Medium

Themes: xenophobia, discrimination, homelessness, family, relationships, humanity, identity, history, memory, empathy, pride, loss, trauma, grief, conflict, classism, love

Time period: present

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We think we know someone until we get to know their stories.

The synopsis was beautifully written, aptly describing that this novel is about "the people who have somehow become invisible, and how their stories make them visible once more."

Sharon Duggal invites us into five characters' lives, surveying their present day and their memories. These characters vary in age, from young to old, and therefore have varied life experiences. Most of them are immigrants to Britain. Except one, who is homeless. All these characters are outcasts – whether due to their ethnicity, or their social standing.

Although there is a mystery that drives the plot forward, Duggal's work here is more of a character study: of how people appear to be on the surface, when society’s eye casts its gaze upon them and assigns labels upon them, and who they really are beneath that assumption.

Each individual story contains depth, texture, a deeper psychology and a shared experience of love, loss and trauma that connect all of them despite how different they are. It is then easy to understand how this informs their choices and behaviour in the present.

Although most of these characters have had their fair share of love and loss, the novel is hopeful in that they're not obstinately glued to their mindsets and situations. They grow and make small, simple steps to change and reach out in love.

This was a work of empathy and compassion that truly brought me deeper into myself as I was drawn to examine my own biases and prejudices, and instead, consider the humanity of another person.

Duggal's writing is easy to read. It was such a pleasant surprise to lift this off the shelves of my local library and finding such a gem of a book.

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Drawing a scene from the book + quotes

“Surrounding him in the room were Ouriana’s clothes: dresses, blouses and cardigans, slacks and nightdresses spread out across the furniture with outstretched arms and flattened skirts. Getting rid of them was not an option. the week after she died she came to him in a dream in the blackest part of the night, wearing the yellow dress he liked best, dancing around the fig tree in the summer sun, beckoning him. Within the clothes were minute traces of her life, not just imperceptible flecks of skin or hair but moments they had shared together: their laughter, their sadness, tiny particles of grief and joy.”

“She thought about the clothes in the mud and the man returning to find them and wondered when she’d become so hard; when the scowl across her face had become so rigid. Deep down she knew it was a build-up of layer upon layer of her life’s hardships: disappointment lain across rejection lain across grief, stacked up, one on top of the other, stuck fast so even when she laughed the scowl was there.”

“He realised part of it was the way he looked directly into his eyes when he spoke. People stopped to throw coins sometimes. Others asked if he was alright but rarely stayed long enough to hear the words behind the answer. Some left shop-bought sandwiches or hot coffee, a woolly hat or an old coat. He was grateful for it all, it kept him alive, but no-one really looked him in the eye.”

Overall rating: 6/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Difficult

Length: Short-medium

Themes: feminism, dystopia, freedom, autonomy, totalitarianism, libertarian versus ultra-conservative, conspiracy, rebellion, religiosity

Time period: the future

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Firstly, I do have to explain the lower rating despite my overall enjoyment of the book.

In short, I think Margaret Atwood's literary 'voice' in this book isn't as strong as that in The Handmaid's Tale (henceforth 'THT'). While both are action-driven, THT's pace is staccato-like, which Atwood employs cleverly, methodically and precisely. The Testaments doesn't contain much of that. Sentences read easily, simply and flow well, but don't have as much aesthetic merit as the first novel.

The Testaments is plot-heavy and the characters that appear (we follow three ladies, whose stories converge towards the climax of the book) vary in depth and complexity.

The Aunt character is the most complex character depicted of the three, with a backstory weaving neatly into Gilead's founding history (perhaps it is because of this that she has a depth that the other two characters don't possess). I find the other two girls and their stories flat and lacklustre at times.

I read from a Goodreads review that this seems to be Atwood's attempt to bridge the first novel to the Netflix series, as if to package it up neatly for the big screen. To me, it reads as a young adult novel. It was a fast and easy read, and I wanted more of the world of Gilead.

I understand the disappointment surrounding this sequel as it doesn't quite blow you away stylistically, plot-wise and the character-wise. The key to enjoying The Testaments is to forego comparing it to The Handmaid's Tale.

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Book Design Appreciation:

I have to give a big shout-out to the designer who created the graphics and icons on the section headings and the book cover. He/she cleverly weaved hidden figures into almost every design. You’ll have to pick up the book to understand what I mean. But one teaser is in the cover—there’s a pony-tailed female figure on the main woman’s hooded bodice.

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A WIP video: drawing characters from the novel

Overall rating: 10/10

Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Hard

Length: Medium

Genre: Historical fiction

Themes: War, nationalism, history, chaos, beginnings, loss, ethnic identity, national identity, fatalism, allegiances, the fall of empires, the rise of republics, individuals, personal autonomy, nation building

Time period: The end of the Ottoman Empire, World War I (early 1900s)

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When a novel is situated in an epochal transition, where historically significant events loom in the background against the characters, contrast is born: between capital 'H' History, and the ‘little histories’ of the ordinary villagers of Eskibahçe (a fictional village in Anatolia); between the ‘Big Story’, and their ‘little stories’.

Destiny/fate, then, is a central player here, although not obviously given a voice or personality traits. But it's often referenced, especially noticeable in the fatalism in the survivors' tone of voice and perspective on life. Leaders of nations or empires are on the side of destiny or fate, with ordinary folk as bit players in the historical force sweeping them up.

Birds Without Wings flits from the present-day formation of a new nation (Turkey) — born out of the conflicts that ended the Ottoman Empire as recounted to us by Iskander the Potter — to various survivors recounting their portion of memory, to the historical background of Eskibahçe, a 'sleepy' village under Ottoman rule, where Christians and Muslims live together in a kind of harmony, with little sub-character arcs, to transitioning into the threat of war, the Battle of Gallipolli and so on, until Mustafa Kemal Ataturk becomes the first president of Turkey.

It's as though the myriad of accounts reflect the double-edged sword of shattering and scattering that wars and nation-building leave in their wake. At the same time, the intermingling of the ‘ordinary’ accounts of the villagers in Eskibahçe and Mustafa Kemal’s story and point of view in the bigger story bears a sameness — in that — they all are human.

It's remarkable that a significant part of the story involves four children and their relationship with the rest of the villagers. I think it's because youth represents possibility, hope and innocence.

Karatavuk (a Muslim) and Mehmetçik (a Christian), the two best friends nicknamed after a blackbird and a robin respectively, carry around bird-whistles made for them out of clay. A part of their daily activities when they were kids include calling out to the other by blowing through these whistles. Everyone in the village instantly recognise the identity of these bird noises, and everything is as natural as can be.

When they grow up in the midst of war’s impending arrival, their innocence and hope for an uncomplicated future are met with the mammoth issues of religious allegiances, national identity, displacement, the brutality of war, which result in broken ideals and dreams of a life and home beyond their grasp. The bigger players of the historical drama have deemed it necessary to change everything that existed before, setting their plans in motion, agendas hidden till the fullness of time reveals itself.

Historically, Greeks/Christians and Turks/Muslims lived together in this region for a long time. It’s repeated in the novel too. But history is “turning and turning in the widening gyre,” and the end makes way for a beginning, just like W. B. Yeats’ gyre imagery in The Second Coming. The end of one historical era (Ottoman) brings with it another (Turkey as a republic). But it also brings an erasure of a common national identity (in this case, being part of the Ottoman Empire and all of the mixed-bag beauty). The erasure ensures that the new Turkish national identity holds, but at the cost of the dear relationships between the Christians and the Muslims in this village. The sentimentality and way of life between Karatavuk and Mehmetçik are ruptured as a result.

Karatavuk writes this letter to Mehmetcik at the end of the novel, when they're both aged. All Christians are forcefully deported to Greek, where they "belong", in a population exchange to receive rightfully Turkish people. Karatavuk has no idea where his best friend is.

“You and I once fancied ourselves as birds, and we were very happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings. You were a robin and I was a blackbird, and there were some who were eagles, or vultures, or pretty goldfinches, but none of us had wings.

For birds without wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.

But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea.”

Ending on what I think is a ‘soft minor key’, this thought rounds off the novel, leaving us to question: Are there bigger, more important birds, and lesser, smaller birds in this world? Are we, the smaller birds, grounded, all at the whim of History and its big players?

The richness in Eskibahce and the voices from that little village seem to represent the reality that each person, quirky and rough around the edges as they seem, were all throbbing with life. And their histories, stories and "small" worlds are significant, credible and important.