Book haul in Dec and Jan

I did some more book shopping in the end of December and early January. I usually decide what books I am going to read even before the year starts. I like to plan what I am going to read early on, rather than pick random books to read. Sometimes, sales and discounts make me buy books which are not part of my plan.

My unread books count has reached almost 175 now and I am still buying new books. I like hoarding books, even more than reading them. 🙂 I want to have a library of my own and have already collected plenty of bookshelf ideas. I might make a new post out of them someday. Hopefully, I will get enough spare time to read all these books. It is part of my retirement plan, if not. 🙂

Anyway, coming to the books I bought recently –

I could not resist myself from buying the latest HONY book – Humans of New York : Stories by Brandon Stanton and I loved it! I already mentioned that in my best reads of 2015 post here. It is definitely one of the best books I own. Please please please buy this book. It is amazing!

Next buy of mine was Throne of glass by Sarah J. Maas. I have heard so much about this author recently. Every single favorite reads post of 2015 mentioned one of her books. I need to see what the hype is all about. Is she really that good? I am planning to read the first part of the series this year and then decide whether to grab her other books.

Next I bought Ronald Dahl’s box set of 15 books at a very nominal price because of some sale that was going on. I had no plans to buy this set, but when I saw it on sale I couldn’t resist myself. I have only read one book in the collection (before buying this collection). I am excited about reading the other stories.
My other buy in December was the much hyped book from Saga series – Saga volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan. I already finished reading this graphical novel and to be honest, I did not like it that much. It is not a bad book but it is not great as well. I am not planning to buy anymore books from this series. I might just borrow them from the library.I got a used copy of this book – Made in Japan : Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morito as I could not find a new copy anywhere from a long time. I heard about this book at one of my previous workplaces. A top executive in my previous company recommended this book to us at the new employee orientation. This book talks about the person who started Sony as a company in a garage. I have been on the lookout for this book for quite sometime. I found a 1995 Japanese(?) calendar inside this book, probably belonging to its last owner. Interesting find. 🙂

I already mentioned The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo as one of my favorite 2015 reads. So it is obvious that I would preorder her next book – Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up. I read it on the day it was released and loved it even more than the first one. I don’t own the first book so was excited to buy this book. I plan to apply some of the tips for cleaning our house this year as we are planning to move. So two books from Japanese, happy me. 😀

Every other day, I hear about someone either suffering or dying from cancer. Just in last one year, I heard about 3 people getting this terrible disease. This book was on my radar for a long time, but I finally decided to buy it this year so that I can learn more about this disease – The emperor of all maladies: A biography of cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Every single review I have read so far has been positive so I am sure I will like it.

Yet another famous book related to medicine – Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. I bought this book for my dad to read. He likes nonfiction and I am hoping he will like this book. I am also planning to read this book soon. It is supposed to be a great book about a grim topic but again it is good to be educated about such topics.It’s been few years since I read a sci-fi classic. Dune by Frank Herbert is one of the best sci-fi novels ever written and it was on my list for god-knows-how-long. Finally I gave in and bought it. Whether I hate it or like it, I want to own this epic book. And then I bought Starship troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, just because I had not read a single book by this author. He is a famous sci-fi writer and I want to read a book written by him. I am sure I will like these two books. I also went and created a sci-fi classics challenge for myself which I want to complete in the next few years. I added books written by these sci-fi authors that I wanted to read from an earlier post.

Have you read any of these books? What’s on your reading list this year?