Books Read in September 2022
Hello. It’s been a really long time since my last post. In fact, it’s been a good 7 months since I published Books Read in February 2022. Well, I could not keep up with the reading after February as my life changed a lot from a personal perspective :) Also, my mind got distracted by a lot of movies and TV shows that are a huge part of my world along with books.
Nevertheless, I’m back and I feel happy to share that I read two books in September. In fact, I had started reading them long back. In fact, I started back in February and finally got to finish them this month. So, which are these two books that I finished in September? Well, let’s find out below.
- Bose: The Untold Story of An Inconvenient Nationalist by Chandrachur Ghose.
Good book. The author has researched in depth and presented a comprehensive biography of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose — one of the greatest icons in modern Indian history. What I would have liked more is if the author covered more part of Netaji’s involvement with the INA rather than his involvement in the Congress Party. I felt that the coverage given to Netaji in Congress is far more and could have been truncated. That part seemed needlessly elaborate and a bit dry to read.
2. Hirohito And the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
When Clint Eastwood made a film on the Battle of Iwo Jima, he made it from both the Japanese and American perspectives. He ensured that the balance was maintained and handled a sensitive topic with excellent maturity and I really loved that! Actually, it was the movie Letters from Iwo Jima which prompted me to try and read more about Japan in WWII and how the nation emerged from the ashes of the war to become the world’s third-largest economy.
That’s why I picked this book but I found it to be a disappointment. The author lacked the balance that made Clint Eastwood stand out from the crowd. Overall book is pretty much biased to the American POV and there’s very little about “The Making of Modern Japan” in the book. I’m not surprised that this book won a Pulitzer. It is written by an American and caters to the American viewpoint. Not worth reading if you are trying to learn about Japan.
So, there you go. I completed reading two books in the month of September, putting together an end to the hiatus of 7 months. I’m back to reading and another interesting bit of news is that I’m trying an audiobook for the first time around. It’s quite interesting because I never thought audiobooks would be my cup of tea. However, I’m trying it out and if I finish it this month, you can read all about it in my next post :)
I’m also thinking of starting a series on the movies and TV shows that I watch. Also, Substack as a platform has caught my attention. Although Medium has been largely good to me, I may shift to Substack for the new series that I’m planning to start. Nevertheless, that’s still a long way to go :)