Years in review - Part One

I've missed blogging ever since I switched jobs. I've thought of many comeback posts but nothing seemed better than listing the books that have slowly changed me over the years. So here's a few books in no paticular order that I feel have made a mark on me. Here's hoping that part two will not take years :) 

1. The Three  Body Problem Series - It's kinda weird but conventional scifi wasn't really my cup of tea. This book really hammered the point that scifi isn't just lasers and ships, and universe isn't something to be saved. Liu Cixin just pushes you into the most conflicting and terrifying of plots, yet every character and perspective felt so easy to undestand.  I was always scared of growing out of my love of fantasy and it's so funny that a sci fi book told me that these genres are not escape, but confrontation and philosophy isn't answers, it's standing still and asking anyway. 
2. Butter by Asako Yuzuki - I'm so glad that this was kind of my start with "east asian literature" instead of something Murukami. I guess I would always prefer reading about a deranged woman than something subtly creepy, no matter how poetic it is.
3. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson - I didn’t expect to fold corners on a book that talks about money. But I did. Because somewhere between “wealth” and “happiness,” Naval started sounding like someone I should have met in college. No fluff. Just clarity. Sharp sentences that don’t try to impress —only to pierce. Like:

   “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”

   What do you even say to that?It felt less like reading, and more like cleaning out a drawer in my brain. Labels like “work,” “freedom,” “peace” rearranged, simplified.
   I didn’t agree with everything,but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t gospel. It was a toolkit.
4. Furies: An Anthology of Women Warriors: (edited by Margaret Atwood and Natalie Haynes) - I didn’t know how much I needed Furies until I started reading it. Each story was like being handed a shard of something ancient and sharp — anger, survival, resistance, but spun in so many different ways. It wasn’t just feminist rage. It was layered, mythic, defiant, sometimes funny, sometimes brutal. I’ve been wanting to read different narratives for so long. Not just new characters, but new ways of telling stories , new structures, new rhythms, new intentions. Furies felt like an answer key to that longing. It was like, “Hey, here’s the stuff you thought didn’t exist, but it does, and it's amazing!” What surprised me most was how much it boosted my fantasy reading spiral. I found so many lesser-known authors in this, names I’d never heard, stories with styles I didn’t know I’d love. From myth retellings to strange speculative worlds to grounded fury in everyday lives: each one felt like a new doorway. I thought I was just picking up a themed collection. Instead, it cracked open a whole new shelf in my collection. Also the cover is sooooooooo prettyy.
5. Daughters of the Sun by Ira Mukhtoy - I've always liked history, so idk why it took me so long to read this but I felt a different sense of comfort reading this :( 

Thanks Dear Reader for encouraging me to do this