• Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the desi folktale edition

    Diwali is this weekend, and I thought it would be a nice way to honour my heritage to talk about some folktales I would love to see more of. It may be that I am looking in the wrong places, but I rarely – if ever – see retellings and reimaginings of desi folktales in media. Sometimes we get Bollywood movies, that is true. But books? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any and that is honestly such a shame because South Asia has a very rich and vibrant culture and history that should be taken advantage of*. *I am very glad to see so many South Asian authors using…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the sci-fi edition

    I generally enjoy science-fiction stories. Fantasy is my favourite, and a blend of sci-fi and fantasy even more so – but science-fiction is pretty high up on my list of ‘genres I like to read’. But while I was putting this list together, I realised there were fewer ‘instant’ buttons than ‘handle with care’ ones, so this post is going to be pretty short. Space, the final frontier*. Books set in space, with humanity spread among the stars is almost always a draw for me. Spaceships and traveling from planet to planet, with survival and life being the goal. Give them to me. Bonus points for any books involving space…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the fantasy edition

    I feel like some of this will have overlapped with things I have written in either the ‘instant to-read; the paranormal edition‘ or the ‘handle with care; the paranormal edition‘ blog posts, but I did say I feel like genres overlap a lot, right? Fantasy is probably my favourite genre of all time. Close behind is science-fiction, but even then I prefer less science and more fiction. The story must always be very strong for me to enjoy any book. Some of my automatic reads are things pointed out by some of my favourite bloggers so I usually do get a gist of these things from them before adding them…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the paranormal edition

    I am not 100% certain what the paranormal genre is. My research has given me conflicting information, and a lot of it just screams ‘fantasy’ to me. But I’m going to try, making this list with what I feel constitutes as paranormal, and what makes me pick up a book that falls under that umbrella. Genres these days overlap so much, so some of these might come up again in other lists. I think that sometimes makes for great stories, the overlap – it gives a lot of scope to work with – but it also depends on the writer and the plot. I haven’t written one of these in…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the romance edition

    I thought I was running out of ideas for this feature (which, um, there is so much scope, how did I think that?) but talking to a friend reminded me that I had not talked about genres! I thought I had, but apparently not? Which is probably a good thing, because a broad spectrum of what genres I read wouldn’t actually cover what I like about the genres. So instead, you get me breaking down the genres – like I’ve already done with the fairytale retelling editions. Romance is something I read when I need something a little lighter? I mean, of course, angst is well and good when it…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the greek mythology edition

    I think that I’ve only read maybe two things that are explicitly inspired by Greek mythology. Maybe a few more that take things from the myths, but honestly these myths have become so wide-spread that possibly a lot of things have some inspiration from them? Still, if we’re talking reimaginings and re-tellings, there are a few myths I would love to see more things of*. But also, less movies retreading on these myths unless it’s 100% more diverse, thanks Hollywood. *I don’t know so much about Greek mythology outside of a few things, but based on my loose understanding, these are what I would like more of. The Trojan War…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the austen edition

    I’ve read maybe two or three books that can be classified as reimaginings of Austen novels. I’ve watched many more. And guess what? I’m a nerd who loves Jane Austen retellings! This comes as a big surprise to absolutely nobody ever. There are some really well-done webseries based on Austen’s works. Like, would 10/10 recommend to everybody. I mean, could they be more diverse? Sure! But they were faithful and well-acted adaptations, and I stan. I can’t say I’ve ever come across a book re-telling of Northanger Abbey – and I can’t say I’ve ever read the source material – but there have been two webseries based on it that…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the shakespeare edition

    People in my life look at me weird when I say I enjoy Shakespeare. I haven’t read a lot of his plays, but what I have read, I’ve enjoyed. But to most people in my life, that is just Peak Geek and Too Much for them. I embrace the geekiness. Unfortunately, I will admit, I have not read a lot of adaptations. Loose ones, sure. Seen a few screen adaptations as well. And I have some favourites that I will always watch, and will definitely pick up to at the very least flip through. Don’t be surprised if there are a few webseries recommendations in here. There have been some…

  • Discussion Post,  Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the fairytale retelling edition

    If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I love fairytale-retellings. I love the Disney versions for most of them too, and the stories from which they are taken – or at least as far as I know them. But my one true weakness when it comes to books? Fairytale-retellings. If the back of the book – or the front! – boasts anything about the story being inspired by or a take on any fairytale ever, the likelihood of my reading it is Very High. Of course, there are some fairytales I veer towards more than others. I love them all, don’t get me…

  • Instant To-Read

    instant to-read; the tropes edition

    When I set up this blog, I made a note to myself that I was going to write a post about tropes in books. What exactly that post would be eludes me – my notes are scattered in various notebooks as this was the pre-bujo era – but finally, finally, I am sitting down to write a post on tropes. Because tropes, love them or hate them, exist. Tropes are fun. I tend to lean more towards loving them in some cases. There are certain tropes that I will pick up almost immediately when they are advertised in the blurb of the book. These are the tropes I search for…