Book Talk Reading Challenge April 2025 || RESULTS P.100|| - Page 98

Originally posted by: ThaneOfElsinore

Beautiful quotes, Shirsha! I am adding them to my diary. And the books suggestions seem interesting. I'd love to read these Japanese books. Thank you for the wonderful recommendations across international literature. ♥️

I'm glad you liked the quotes. Many Indians nowadays read Japanese books. I think this trend started with Haruki Murakami's books. Whenever I watch the videos of Indian Booktubers, most of them recommend Haruki Murakami's books. When I read The Cat Who Saved Books last year, it immediately became my favorite book of 2024. One day I watched a video of a booktuber and he recommended this book. I really liked the plot, so I decided to read it. And I'm so glad I did! I can't tell you how much I like this book! If you read the book, let me know. I would love to know your views about The Cat Who Saved Books.

My favorite quote from The Cat Who Saved Books:

"Reading a book is a lot like climbing a mountain.” “What do you mean?” His curiosity piqued, Rintaro had finally looked up from his book. His grandfather wafted his teacup slowly under his nose as if savoring the aroma of the tea. “Reading isn’t only for pleasure or entertainment. Sometimes you need to examine the same lines deeply, read the same sentences over again. Sometimes you sit there, head in hands, only progressing at a painstakingly slow pace. And the result of all this hard work and careful study is that suddenly you’re there and your field of vision expands. It’s like finding a great view at the end of a long climbing trail."

Other interesting quotes from the book:

"In the same way that music is made up of more than notes, books are more than just words."

"Books are filled with human thoughts and feelings. People suffering, people who are sad or happy, laughing with joy. By reading their words and their stories, by experiencing them together, we learn about the hearts and minds of other people besides ourselves. Thanks to books, it’s possible to learn not only about the people around us every day, but people living in totally different worlds."

"Books can give us knowledge, wisdom, values, a view of the world, and so much more. The joy of learning something you didn’t know before, and seeing things in a whole new way is exciting. But somehow I believed they gave us something more important than that."

"Books have souls,’ repeated the cat softly. ‘A cherished book will always have a soul. It will come to its reader’s aid in times of crisis."

Originally posted by: Moonstique

This month I have only read 4 books completely.

- The Selection series (1-3) which was basically a re-read so it's a given that I enjoyed these 3 books when i read them first time

- Cross My Heart by Roxy Sloane : very smutty (lives up to it's 'smutty dark romance' tag) but mildly entertaining. The FMC has basically enrolled into a super flashy college to uncover the mystery behind her sister's death and in book 1, all she does is basically sleep (with MMC), and travel in train to meet with the ex alumina(s) of the college to find 'clues'. This is the first book of the trilogy. I don't really like the extra smut but we cannot count this as a negative. It's a personal opinion and I was warned before. This book has more of female POV (with maybe just 3/4 chaps of male POV) and the way she keeps describing her 'feelings' for the MMC - objectification of men lmao . I am not sure if I would continue reading the other TWO books (like who's going to sit through 2 books just to know the actual killer?! very slow paced)

There's this one more book which I picked up and I instantly felt "trees were cut for this shit?!" and that's Run to Me by S. Wilson. I'll recommend this to my enemies to ensure that they waste their time . I usually know these published billionaire 'dark romance' books make 0 sense most of the times but this?! No words

BTW I forgot to mention:

I read around 4 chapters of the chinese novel "Journey To the West 81 Cases: Tang Dynasty's Nili Prison" by Cheng Jian. It's inspired by the og book "Journey To The West". I picked this solely because this is getting adapted into a drama (with one of my fav actors as the lead) but the drama's synopsis is very different from the book's. Apparently they are just taking minor inspirations from the book. However, the book is quite interesting. The main character is Monk Xuanzang (a real life personality who travelled to India to record Buddhism in India during Harsha Dynasty) and he travelled back to Tang Dynasty to find the whereabout of his brother, who is accused to be the reason behind the death of Master Cui Jiu. The subtle additions of Indian elements is the reason why I am still clinging to the book despite it being different from the drama. So far it's good but the chapters are long (around 23 pages with over 7k words) so I have decided to keep it on hold until May starts so that I can record more pages in May month's log.

I am hunting for another webnovel which I can finish within tomorrow's deadline. Let's see if I can find something short and sweet to read

Originally posted by: LizzieBennet

Shonali is sitting this one out!

I wouldn't be able to read much this May because I just got transferred to another branch of my company and from the past few days I have been busy packing

Originally posted by: missFiesty_69

I haven’t read Japanese books before. But I really like the psychological thriller recommendations very much! Maybe next month I’ll try those

Thank you for the recommendations!

If you want to read a Japanese psychological thriller, The Devotion Of Suspect X was really really good. In fact there was a Bollywood remake of it called Jaan e Jaan starring Kareena Kapoor on Netflix.

Done with my April's reading session with "The Wrong Bride" by Catharina Maura. I had read her previous work 'Bittersweet Memories' and had absolutely liked her writing style. This book is indeed a good billionaire romance. I like how she pulled off the angst along with the 'friends to lovers' trope with jealousy. This is a part of her 'Windors' series. Hopefully I'll be reading the other 3 books of this series for May (my TBR keeps increasing helppppppp)

Originally posted by: Moonstique

Done with my April's reading session with "The Wrong Bride" by Catharina Maura. I had read her previous work 'Bittersweet Memories' and had absolutely liked her writing style. This book is indeed a good billionaire romance. I like how she pulled off the angst along with the 'friends to lovers' trope with jealousy. This is a part of her 'Windors' series. Hopefully I'll be reading the other 3 books of this series for May (my TBR keeps increasing helppppppp)

Originally posted by: heavenlybliss

If you want to read a Japanese psychological thriller, The Devotion Of Suspect X was really really good. In fact there was a Bollywood remake of it called Jaan e Jaan starring Kareena Kapoor on Netflix.

yeh meine dekha!!! I liked it too!! thanks for the rec Hinna! May month log ka pehla book yeh hai

Originally posted by: itsShonali

I wouldn't be able to read much this May because I just got transferred to another branch of my company and from the past few days I have been busy packing

Congratulations ( I hope ) and happy journey!! I know how hectic shifting can be so strength to you!

Originally posted by: LizzieBennet

I've been meaning to read Catharina Maura! What kind of romances does she write?

her writing style is quite simple from what i've noticed. i've only read 2 of her books as of now and i think she writes more about clean men. there's angst but it's not too much. they are all billionaire romances but they don't barge about their money all the time. Bittersweet Memories' first half almost gave me itv vibes (in a pleasant way) with childhood friends to lovers to strangers to lovers trope. Also i guess her books are all connected. I found characters recurring. Tho i believe they can be read as standalones too

Originally posted by: missFiesty_69

Congratulations ( I hope ) and happy journey!! I know how hectic shifting can be so strength to you!