Miss Clueless

The room where I stayed in Hanoi wasn't good. As in, I wanted to leave as soon as I entered. Mold on the walls and ceiling. I'm okay the room wasn't new, but the furnishings didn't look tidy. The bathroom didn't look clean. I guess the owner is okay with how things are. Or he has other important things to worry about that he can't really be bothered by the state of the room. Who knows! Now, would I recommend the room to others? Absolutely not..  Checked out at 11:40 am. Booked a cab to Hoan Kiem Lake. Sat there next to the lake with my luggage. Gosh, the wind. Cool. But sitting for 3 hours with that breeze on your face while having your period!!... Nice view, though, and I got a shawl, a cap, and a face mask. Sat there with all that on and started Greek Lessons by Han Kang. All that time, several people came, sat next to me and went, one after the other. Ahem,  I'm officially someone who reads in public. At the cafe the day before, then at the lake. (I don...

 Took myself out on a solo trip. Boarded a morning flight from my home city, reached Kolkata airport for the connecting flight, went to the lounge and had lunch (thanks to my sister who got me a card with lounge access). I used to access the lounge in my travels before, but ever since I left my job, all my cards have no longer been accepted. Anyway, after lunch, I came out of the lounge and had some time before boarding the flight. I was sitting by myself, then two uncles came near me. One showed me his phone, indicating we had the same phone, and asked, "Can you charge my phone?" It was a little confusing. I asked him, "You want to borrow my charger?" He said, yes. He had left his in his checked-in baggage. Hmm, I didn't want to lie that I didn't have my charger, thought what harm is it? Let him borrow. I gave him my charger. He said, "You're also going to Hanoi, right?" I said yeah. He went to the charging point. I would have been happy if he...

 End-of-month blog check-in. I am very tired, and I'll keep this very short. I read these books this month. 1. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative by Mark Fisher Heard of Mark Fisher before, read this following a book rec on IG. Need a good understanding of American and British pop culture to better grasp the book. Still, it's worth reading.  "The relationship between capitalism and eco-disaster is neither coincidental nor accidental; capital's 'need of a constantly expanding market', its 'growth fetish', means that capitalism is by its very nature opposed to any notion of sustainability."  Truth! 2. All About Love by bell hooks I was searching for a book by bell hooks, following the same IG book rec from above, but found this instead. Again, worth the read.  "To truly love, we must learn to mix various ingredients- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication."  I think th...

Seventy-nine? Looks like this is the number of books I'll read this year. Why? Because I read fifty-nine books in 2024 and sixty-nine in 2025. I can do it. Not fretting, though. The number of books is not important. What's really important, real readers know. To summarise the books I read in Jan: 1. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 2. Human Acts by Han Kang 3. My Friends by Fredrik Backman 4. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa 5. James Baldwin, The Last Interview and Other Conversations 6. Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman 7. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin 8. The Day the World Stops Shopping by J.B. Mackinnon 1. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky About free will, rationalism, ego, and contradiction. This is a reread. This time, I am more empathetic to the underground man compared to last time. I guess I grew a little. I may not get the full depth and meaning of the book. But I got enough to find it interesting.  Also, Fyodor Dostoyevsky...

Sixty-nine, not bad! Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul Arrival/Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf 🙌🏻 Winter Recipes from the Collective by Louise Glück Dottie by Abdulrazak Gurnah 👍🏻 The Enigma of Arrival by V. S. Naipaul The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk 🩵 The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 👍🏻 Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan The Stranger by Albert Camus The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton Chekhov The Color Purple by Alice Walker Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin Beloved by Toni Morrison 🙌🏻 The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Kiki’s Delivery Service, Eiko Kadono The God of Small Thing...

Let's go straight to the books: 1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 2. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama 3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 4. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi 5. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 6. White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 7. Woke, Inc. by Vivek Ramaswamy Brave New World by Aldous Huxley A dystopian novel where society trades freedom, individuality, and deep emotion for comfort, pleasure, and stability. I've often seen this book being compared to 1984 by George Orwell, and I plan to read it sometime. Finally read this month. For me, 1984 is >, but this book also raised some chilling questions and gave food for thought.  "I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."  Yeah, this. I don't believe in God, though. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama A gentle, interconne...

End of the month today, here are the books I read. 1. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante 2. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante 3. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante 4. The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante 5. Oneness vs. the 1% by Vandana Shiva, Kartikey Shiva Yes, I read the Neapolitan novels, all four books by Elena Ferrante. Lina and Elena gave me company, the whole month, my head was full of what Lina did, what Elena said, etc, etc.  1. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante "I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence." The first novel follows the intense, complicated friendship between Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo as they grow up in a poor neighbourhood in postwar Naples. Amid violence, poverty, and rigid social expectations, the girls push each other intellectually and emotionally, shaping one another’s ambitions even as their paths begin to diverge. The novel explores how identity is formed through rivalry, admirat...