Reading is a privileged hobby

It was a beautiful morning in Dec 2019, I was sitting on my balcony in Quito, Ecuador with a cup of coffee and a book in my hand. My friend called and we started discussing one book. During our conversation, he told me that he is planning to set a target of reading 20 books in the year 2020. My sudden reaction was

wow! 20 books in one year? Should I also give it a try? What if I can't complete?

He replied,

Why not? give it a try and see how many you can complete. I am sure you can.

I do read a lot but I have never set any goal like this before. We kept on talking about books that morning. And that evening I decided to set a goal of 20 books in 2020 (which I could complete on 27th Dec 2020)

I’m just really happy to have read so many inspiring books this year. Reading really helped me get through this difficult year, which still affects my well-being. So what exactly did I read? There are some best reads I can share!

• THINK STRAIGHT: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Darius Foroux
• Krishna's Secret by Devdutt Pattanaik
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority by Clay Scroggins
• Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Francesc Miralles
• Free Your Mind by M.P. Neary
• Bhagavad Gita - Pure: A Comprehensive Study without Sectarian Contamination by Swami Saurabhnath
• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder

In addition to having the goal of reading 20 books or maybe more this year I also want to read more books by authors, I hadn’t read before. Also, I want to read more in Hindi, which is my native language. Over the recent years, I have mostly read books in English, and reading in Hindi actually started to feel clumsy which felt weird.

“Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out.” – Pam Allyn

The people who read can see the beauty in every little thing. They consume thoughts voraciously. There’s a never-ending process of learning for them. They are never boring, they always have a story to tell. Last but not least, they just don’t be in a conversation, they make them.

So now you know why we should have friends who read a lot :)