Aditya鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

2,448

pages read

books read

Aditya

1 like Like

Shortest Book

171

pages

Longest Book

373

pages

Average book length in 2024

272

pages

Most Shelved

4,916,903

people also shelved

Least Shelved

people also shelved

Aditya鈥檚 average rating for 2024

3.8

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

4.42 average

Aditya鈥檚 first review of the year

liked it

3.5/5

A man is dead and the obvious suspect is in a different city at the time of the murder. It is the second book I have read in this series after The Devotion of Suspect X. I enjoyed Devotion a bit more. Both books reveal the murderer to the readers early and the challenge for the detectives is to figure out the how. It is a bold new approach and it works. From Agatha Christie鈥檚 whodunit to Tana French鈥檚 why-dun-it to Higashino鈥檚 how-dun-it, it ...more

础顿滨罢驰础鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

it was amazing

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Aditya鈥檚 last review of the year

really liked it

4/5

Bukowski鈥檚 first published novel is a collection of semi-autobiographical, irreverent anecdotes from his years spent working as a postal clerk, getting drunk and chasing women. Ham on Rye remains my favorite Bukowski book but he has already mastered his voice here. Some might consider Bukowski鈥檚 attitudes dated and file him under the umbrella banner of toxic masculinity but I find him undeniably modern. His writing reminds me of modern dramedi 4/5

Bukowski鈥檚 first published novel is a collection of semi-autobiographical, irreverent anecdotes from his years spent working as a postal clerk, getting drunk and chasing women. Ham on Rye remains my favorite Bukowski book but he has already mastered his voice here. Some might consider Bukowski鈥檚 attitudes dated and file him under the umbrella banner of toxic masculinity but I find him undeniably modern. His writing reminds me of modern dramedies, think Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, he makes personal disappointments funny. He mocks the absurdity of petty administrators trying to follow illogical, arbitrary rules like their lives depended on it and tedious jobs hollowing people out till they are a sack of bones without hopes, dreams and aspirations. Women including rich nymphos, drunken neighbors and feminist hippies end up disappointed with Chinaski, Bukowski鈥檚 author surrogate protagonist. Chinaski lives an unfulfilled life but he does not wallow in misery, he takes a zero fucks given approach to life. His self-awareness helps him cut through the bullshit which sinks most office grunts in the quicksand of middle age.

The writing is so effortless and easy. We all have experienced the same senselessness and stupidity in our daily life but we won鈥檛 be able to call it out in such an entertaining manner. Bukowski has a habit of calling out the uncomfortable truths the average Joe is thinking but is unable to verbalize. Example - What I am trying to say is, there is a certain game played in offices all over America. The people are bored, they don't know what to do, so they play the office-romance game. Most of the time it means nothing but the passing of time. Sometimes they do manage to work off a screw or two on the side. But even then, it is just an offhand past-time, like bowling or t.v. or a New Year's eye party. You've got to understand that it doesn't mean anything and then you won't get hurt.

I also connected to it personally. Someone calls out Chinaski Well, all geniuses are drunkards! Just a day or two later someone told me, 鈥楢ll artists are insane.鈥� Getting treated like Bukowski was not on my bingo card. Chinaski listens to classical music and reads about the composers. He remarks Most of these men's lives were so tortured that I enjoyed reading about them, thinking, well, I am in hell too and I can't even write music. I am reading Bukowski and thinking the same. I am in hell too and I can鈥檛 even write a novel. Chinaski imagines a conversation with a shrink. "you're not crazy for not wanting to study this. I'd be more apt to say that you were crazy if you wanted to study this. That'll be $25."
So I analyzed myself and kept the money. I feel I should have done the same after visiting a therapist once. ...more

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