Words of August || Wrap-up

I thought July felt long but August felt longer.

Do I even remember everything that I did in August? It's a good thing I document bits of my life in different places (online and offline) so I can use them to piece together the month here.

Also, to be fair, I have fallen ill today and my head is a bit foggy so the memory issues might be due to that. I also just came back home after travelling across two other cities. Either this post will be a mess or a fun mess 😃

reading

I read! A bunch! I'm quite surprised by how much I read, actually. The book club I joined has helped keep my reading motivation up. StoryGraph says I read 11 books. I feel like I read more than July? Apparently not? I picked up a few hard books, though. Also I read almost every day of the month which is a big feat for me. I usually take every 3rd day off. I'm a binge-reader—I either don't read or I start and finish a book quickly.

Stats! I read 8 fiction books and 3 non-fiction books. THREE. In one month. That's a huge surprise. Did I really? Huh. 5 were ebooks, 4 were paperbacks, and 2 were audiobooks. Audiobooks showed up for the second month in a row.

You can tell that my new reading preferences are here to stay because this is the second (or third) month of lots of literary fiction, more classics, and less romance. What's that saying, 21 days of something becomes a habit? Does it apply to reading tastes too? I'm consistently surprised by the books I reach towards too. When I go to my (old?) usual sections in the library like fantasy and romance, nothing seems to call to me. Instead, I'm lingering a lot more in the literary fiction and classics sections, and even the philosophy section.

Oh also, I finished my monsoon TBR! I had 10 ambitious books on it. I read all of them and enjoyed most of them. I'm shocked that I stuck through it. Am I in a new era where TBRs work for me for the first time ever? Should I try making more? Maybe I can try a winter or -ber TBR? 🤔 The list genuinely helped me get to a handful of books that I may have otherwise procrastinated on. But actually, I have the challenge to focus on first.

I didn't make much progress on the 52 book club reading challenge in August, unfortunately. I focused on finishing the monsoon TBR and reading a few books for other reasons (yes yes I'll tell you all about them, give me a few minutes). However! I have a plan! I wrote a list in my Traveler's Notebook with the remaining prompts and some options for them. It is now Serious™. I have it all math-ed out. If I read for 3 prompts a month, I can finish it in December. I can aim for more but some of the prompts I've left for the last are hard, they'll take time. Wish me luck.

The first book of the month was the short story There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury because we crossed August 5th 2026. The story is only a few pages long and describes August 5th 2026 like how the author imagined it all those decades ago. We aren't as advanced as he imagined but we're also on the track to be exactly what he described pretty soon. I wonder if the author was secretly a time traveler who went back in time to publish such stories hoping that we'll come to our senses and choose another path. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do! It'll take maybe 30 minutes to read.

Then, I reread Remnants of a Separation by Aanchal Malhotra. Because I met the author!!!!!!!! This is one of my most favourite books and I can't believe that after proudly having it on my shelf for years and recommending it to many people, I got to meet and speak with the author! She is the first author I met. I was fortunate to be a part of a book club discussion with her and it was so lovely. She spoke so eloquently. Later, another attendee said that they liked how I spoke in the discussion too and it made my day. We had a discussion about objects and material memory so I reread the book the week before to refresh my memory. Of course, I got the book signed too. I didn't take the second book with me to get it signed because it's too heavy to carry lol. Oh and rereading was extra fun because my copy had annotations from a friend who borrowed it a while ago. I was having small conversations by responding to her annotations. It was nice 🙂

Note: I took meds and passed out after writing that. I feel much better now and my brain is clear. So the rest of the post will be more coherent. I also deleted a couple of facts above which I apparently hallucinated 😆

One of my monsoon TBR books, I read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. This is very popular and I already had some idea of the plot before reading it. It still managed to surprise me and it made me think. It could be a commentary about multiple things, not just one. I had a short discussion about it in the book club too where I heard other perspectives. It's a great book. Definitely a classic.

I loved the author's Wild Dark Shore so I picked up Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. I may have procrastinated picking it up but it fit one of the 52 book club challenge prompts (set in Arctic or Antarctica) because it is kind of set in both. It's about a journey from Arctic to Antarctic, the journey of a person, love, responsibility to nature, community, and hope. I BAWLED for 20 minutes at the end. I kept reading with blurry vision. I can't rememeber the last time a book made me SO emotional. What a gem of a book. What a brilliant book. I cannot recommend this enough. It is one of my best books of the year.

The last book from my monsoon TBR, I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang. When I joined the book club here, the members had just read this and brought it up so often outside of the dedicated discussion session that I became curious. I brought it up after reading it and we still had a 15 minute discussion about it. It made me think. It made me feel. It made me confused and disgusted and feel lost. It demanded my brain space while I read it and even afterwards. I can't say that I liked reading it because it's not meant to be a pleasant read. But it is a good book. It's worth the discussions.

Pivoting to a simpler read after multiple hard-hitting books, I read Don't Call It Art by Austin Kleon. I loved Show Your Work and Steal Like An Artist. This one is technically new—about learning to make art like kids by not labelling it art and adding pressure—but a lot of the sub-points felt like repeats from those books. It's a fairly good book on its own but I think I liked those better. It was okay. It did make me stop procrastinating to write the post on My Traveler's Notebook Setup, though, so I'll call it a win.

My friend listened to Anger Is Only a Shadow by Elizabeth Acevedo on Libro.fm and convinced me to give it a shot too. I loved a few of the author's books but I DNFed the last book I tried (Family Lore). I picked this up quickly on my friend's insistence and I'm so glad I did. I loved it. I didn't understand the main character for half the book but the author made me understand her as the book progressed, if that makes sense? There was this one scene which clinched it. There were other parts towards the end which were beautiful. The part which explained that anger is only a shadow? Wow. If I was reading it in paperback, I would have annotated all over it. But in audio, all I could do was close my eyes and feel it. It was great. I loved the inclusion of poetry narration throughout the story. The author's narration was on point. I initially rated it 4 and increased it to 4.5 then 5 later on. The more I thought about the book, the more I liked it. I spoke about it at length at the book club too. I meant to write a full review but life suddenly got busy 🙃 I highly recommend it.

The same friend had recommended 82, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff a long time ago. It came up in the book club too and I felt like reading something small so I picked it up. It's a nice book. It's a collection of a few surviving letters chronicling the relationship between a bookstore in London and a writer in the US. It was a feel-good read for me. The ending is supposed to make one sad but my bar for emotions had been crossed multiple times in the month so this didn't get close to reaching it and I didn't feel sad or cry. It was nice to read anyway.

I picked up Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab at the library. I couldn't find 2 other books that I'd been wanting to read and this caught my eye so I got it. A few friends and I were actually supposed to buddy read this last year but we never got to it lol. I liked the concept of the story when I figured it out in the beginning, but the book didn't actually do much after that. It felt like the author had an idea for a specific character so she started writing about her and built a book around her, simply to give her an ending. There isn't much of a plot. There isn't any point to the book. It was interesting to read only in the first half. The author tried using different writing styles for the different POVs but it made no impact on the story or reading experience. The ending was underwhelming. The story had potential but nothing much happened. I don't recommend this book.

I listened to Troy by Stephen Fry on Libro.fm. The 52 Book Club Challenge has a prompt "set in an ancient civilisation" and I had the Troy audiobook from a long time. It was just after I watched Odyssey (movie) so I was thinking about Greek myth and picked it up. It was a breeze to listen to. Stephen Fry narrated it. It was like listening to a British granddad telling it like a bedtime story. I listened to it in the gym, during breakfast, during commutes, and while knitting after work. It was so easy to listen to and my prior knowledge of Greek myth helped me keep up fairly easily. I highly enjoyed it. I think I finished it in 3 days. I'd love to listen to the other Stephen Fry Greek myth books some time.

Lastly, I started reading ஒரு மனிதன் ஒரு வீடு ஒரு உலகம் (One Man One House One World) by Jeyakanthan. I saw this one a couple of beginner's recommendation lists and it sounded good so I bought it before even reading Yaanai Doctor. After a week or so of break, I started this book to keep the Tamizh reading flow going. I'm reading a Tamizh paperback for the first time so it's come with new challenges—the font took me a long time to get used to and the writing is slightly different as it was written 50+ years ago. It's going pretty slow but that's alright. I'd love to finish it this year but it's not a goal, so I don't mind reading it super slowly. I'll share updates every month! By the end of August, I was around 10% done.

blogging

I wrote 4 posts in August! Wohoo! Considering that I'm only blogging when I feel like it, I'm surprised haha. Especially since it's been a handful of months since I posted this much.

In case you missed it, these were my August posts:

• Words of July || I read my first Tamizh book!
• Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years
• Reading My First Tamil Book: A Review of Jeyamohan’s ‘Yaanai Doctor’ / 'யானை டாக்டர்'
• My Traveler's Notebook Setup

I had a week of high blogging motivation during which I wrote the last 2 posts and felt like updating an older post to play around with SEO a bit. I updated my old post How to Annotate Books for fun which dropped significantly in SEO rankings in the past couple of years and gets much lesser traffic now. I had a lot to add anyway because of my annotation experience in the 5 years since I wrote it, so I did a major update to the post. Whether it helps the rankings is yet to be seen but I had fun updating it and taking photos of recently annotated pages to add to the post.

Hopefully my blogging motivation continues and I write a bunch in September. I want to write more full book reviews right after I read the books but it feels like so much effort, especially during the week because life is so busy. I have time for hobbies usually in the weekends and I actually don't read much in the weekends, preferring to do other things. So writing book reviews is not on the top of my mind, you know? Let's see!

media consumed

TV Shows & Movies

• Spiderman: Brand New Day. I watched it with a couple of new friends in this city. We watched it in 3D. I didn't find 3D worth it for most of the movie, and I didn't find the movie interesting enough as well, until THINGS started happening towards the end. That one fight scene at the end? BRILLIANT. 3D made it look so cool. It was so well written and shot and edited. That scene was the best part of the movie. I actually went "WOW. Oh my gosh. OH MY GOSH. That was so cool!" with the friend next to me.
• The Odyssey. The IMAX screen is far from where I stay so it took me a while to find people who would travel all the way to watch it with me. I finally went with a couple of teammates. I liked the movie. The cinematography and the acting were great. I liked how the story was told. Didn't like a few of the creative and storytelling choices but overall, solid movie.
• Hustle 5. This is a desi hip hop reality TV competition. I watched only 2 episodes, my friends introduced it to me. I'll talk more about this later.

I didn't watch any TV show on my own. Nothing on Netflix looked interesting the dozen times I opened it. I ended up cancelling my subscription at the end of the month.

YouTube Videos

• I liked this video with an update about the Ozone Hole. It was hopeful about what humanity can do if we band together.

Blog Posts

• I found a new blog Books and Other Pursuits and binge-read a bunch of their posts haha, here are some of my favourites - Romantasy Is More Than “Fairy Porn”: A Response to The Telegraph, Can You Read for Fun and Still Think Critically?, What We Lose When Adaptations Remove Difficult Storylines, Why Is the Online Book Community Becoming So Hostile?, The Responsibility of Having a Platform: When Online Accusations Go Too Far. (These made me motivated about writing more discussion posts myself for about 10 minutes until I realized that I am not on social media to even know about all these trends to discuss about them lol.)
• Lay @ Bookshelf Soliloquys returned to blogging!
• The Quiet Grief of Losing Girlhood
• The geology of ecology
• summer diaries #1: mauritius travel diary 🦤

music

I had quite a few musical obsessions in August! Remember when I praised Midnight Til Morning's music a few months ago? (I managed to make Clo a fan too 😇) They dropped THREE new songs out of nowhere in August! I loved Easy and listened to it almost on repeat for over a week. It's such a bop.

And then my #1 band from the Building the Band show (where I discovered MTM too), SZN4, dropped a WHOLE ALBUM. Finally! I'd been waiting for proper music from them for so long. I loved their vocals on BTB so I was excited to see what they'd do in the album. Admittedly, most of the album's music isn't my thing. I think R&B isn't my genre in general, sadly. However, I did love 2 songs from the album and listened to them on repeat for almost 2 weeks. Run and Ordinary Lover.

Then, right at the end of the month, my best friend and his group of guy friends introduced me to the Desi Hip Hop scene. I stayed over at his place during a weekend and joined their regular watch party for the latest Hustle 5 episodes. I am now hooked. Rap is usually not my thing—I like very few rap songs—so I never thought that I'd like Hindi rap. But I was missing out! Some of these artists are SO GOOD. The rap is rhythmic and poetic. On that weekend's episodes, the contestants were competing in the imagery theme and wow some of them brought brilliant music to the stage. I was impressed as heck. I continued to listen to the performance I loved the most offline and got hooked onto another of the artist's performances too. I've been listening to these 2 on repeat since then.

Chhota Ladka is brilliant poetry (👏 what meaning, what emotion, what lyrical play, what rhythm 👏) and Parv Man is such a bop. I'm obsessed. I'm not surprised that the Chhota Ladka performance got over 1 million in less than a week on YouTube. So many were mine 😆 I wish I could join the guys' watch party every weekend but I'll settle for watching on my own and discussing with my best friend via text haha.

hobbies & social life

Now that the temperatures have reduced a bit, I finally resumed knitting the scarf I was working on. I started knitting it in December, I think, and didn't make a lot of progress before I had to pause due to the weather being too hot. I couldn't work with wool haha. I started working on it again and hopefully I'll finish it soon. Depends on me finding good audiobooks to listen to while I do it too.

Another "hobby to try" on my list is to do a 1000 piece puzzle. A few of my new friends in this city were also interested so we got Van Gogh's Starry Night with 1000 pieces. Only 3 of us were able to make it that day. We were unsure about finishing it on the same day but, somehow, we did it! We started around 4pm and ended at 10pm. We worked for 6 hours non-stop (took tiny breaks to stretch etc. only but no real breaks, we ordered coffee too). We LOCKED. IN. It felt so satisfying to finish it haha. It was a good activity. Something different from the usual hangouts. I hope we do more activities like this.

While looking at more puzzles online, I came across diamond painting and remembered that it's another item on my list. After searching around, I found a pretty phoenix diamond painting set so I bought it and started it the next day itself. I meant to finish knitting the scarf before starting another project but I couldn't wait haha. So I now have the scarf and the diamond painting ongoing. Sticking the diamonds is much easier than I expected, I managed to do quite a lot in one evening. This will also help me read more audiobooks haha.

I had a great influencer month in August haha. I don't do a lot of online influencing now, of course, but I still do a lot of it offline. Whenever I love things, I convince others around me to try it. I like sharing my obsessions. I've turned several friends into matcha fans—1 more in August. One of the new reader friends I made picked up Fahrenheit 451 on my recommendation a while ago and finished it in August and loved it. I am happy 🙂

I convinced one of my teammates to visit the library I go to and he finally did and spent several hours there! He texted me later that he got kicked out at closing time. He complained that the library closes too soon, after 5 hours of already being there! 😂 I convinced another teammate who doesn't read much but wants to to go to the library with me and he loved it so much that he stayed for a couple of hours and got a membership, and even finished the book he borrowed within 2 weeks! He spoke about how time flew by for the last half of the book and I felt so proud listening to him haha.

I wanted to go to the bookstore in Bangalore in the last weekend and took my best friend with me, and told him to invite his friends too, so it turned into a huge group trip to my favourite bookstore. 6 of us! went. All of them bought books too. I love pushing the reading agenda 😇

As usual, I went to book talk meetups in the weekends. I went to 3 of the meetups and it was great. At the end of the month, seeing how September was going to be SUPER busy, I made an impromptu weekend trip to Bangalore to see my friends there. I had so much fun the three days I was there. As I mentioned earlier, I was introduced to desi hip hop. I hung out a ton with my best friend and his group—playing pickleball, going to the bookstore, and more. I hung out with 2 of my best girl friends for one entire day, and went to one of their homes to hang out with her family too, and had a great time. I also grabbed breakfast with some other friends that I'm not very close to but I hope to hang out with more. It was a good weekend trip.

It ended with me going on another impromptu short trip from there for something that came up suddenly. So I was basically travelling a bunch at the end of the month and my September began as hectic as I expected it to be. You've got to wait until my September wrap-up to hear about everything haha. Until then...

chat with me!

How was your August? What did you read/watch/do? Did you do any fun hobbies or activities? Did you influence anyone to pick up one of your passions in real life? Tell me in the comments!