My Year in Books: 2015

2015 has passed and now we're in the beautiful, exciting 2016! Whoo! I mean by the looks of it, it the world is nearly apocalyptic (Daesh, Donald Trump, global warming, economy slowing down) but hey, that's what they say in 2000 and 2012 and look where we're at now!

So, I would like to chronicle my year in books, compiled from my Goodreads account:

Number of books I read: 71

Books by female authors: 47 (66%)
Books by male authors: 24 (34%)

Books by white male authors: 22 (31%)
Books by non-white male authors: 2 (3%)
Books by white female authors: 40 (56%)
Books by non-white female authors: 7 (10%)

Fiction books: 63 (88%)
Non-fiction books: 8 (12%)

Novels/novellas: 48 (68%)
Short stories: 6 (9%)
Comics: 5 (7%)
Plays: 4 (5%)
Essays: 4 (5%)
Biographies/Memoirs: 1 (2%)
Other non-fiction books: 3 (4%)

Looking at the stats above, I see that I have fulfilled my 2015 New Year's resolution of reading more books, particularly by women. But the number of books that I read by people of color is sadly very lacking. In response to that, my New Year's resolution for 2016 is to read more books by non-white authors. I have already started that by going in 70% into Eka Kurniawan's book, Beauty is a Wound, but because I have finals, I may not be able to finish it for another week or so.

Thanks for sticking by with me in 2015, and I hope we'll have lots of fun again in 2016! Happy New Year!

Back Again

Hey, I'm sorry to have been MIA for the past couple of weeks. Finals are really stressful (looking at you, Criminal Law!) and reading hundreds of pages of scholars and judges rambling on and on about Da Law really puts me off from books for quite some time, even for pleasure-reading. So I'm trying to get in the groove back by reading short novels and novellas. But it'll probably a while before I post a book review.

Exam Time

Hey everyone. Since I will be having exams in two weeks time, I will be updating my blog less until I'm done with my them. I'm currently reading Dorothy Parker's Complete Stories and A Midsummer's Night Dream so expect a review soon.

Reading More Women Writers

One of my New Year's resolution this year is to read more books, however as the year progress, it's become harder as I simply do not have time, what with law school and moot courts and all that legal texts I have to read. Insufficient time is also the reason why my blog has been dormant for four months. However, if you noticed, I seem to become more active these past few days, posting three book reviews in as many days, which I'm extremely happy about. I sometimes have trouble getting through a book, but yesterday I finished a 274-page book in less than a day and now I'm halfway to a Discworld novel which I start yesterday, so I'm going to take this as a good sign.

One of my other goals this year is to read more books by women writers. It does not mean that I will stop reading male writers altogether, indeed in my TBR pile there're books by Michael Chabon, Terry Pratchett, and Anthony Doerr, so I'm not abandoning male authors altogether. It's just apparent to me that in the previous years, a significant chunk of my book reading time is spent reading books by male authors. At the start of the year, I thoroughly enjoyed Alice Munro and Malala Yousafzai's books, so I know that it's not a matter of quality. After all, there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

Late, Late, Late Post

Hey, everyone. Sorry that I've been MIA for almost three months now - my last post in this blog is in June the 25th and now it's already mid-September.

Yeah. It's funny how time flies, isn't it?

I don't have any excuse or explanation other than that I've been sidetracked by life, basically. As some of you might know, I'm a law student now (hehehehe) and am fortunate enough to be able to study in one of the best universities in my country. It's been a hectic three months, with Lebaran and my own laziness preventing me to update my blog in July. August was a complete mess with the ensuing preparation for orientation week, the grueling orientation week itself, and all the anxiety and agitation new students have when they enter university for the very first time. September was a blur, since it was the first weeks of class and I've to familiarize myself with new surroundings, new friends, new ways of learning, new teachers.

But other than that, university is exciting! I get to move to a sprawling big city with lots of culture and meeting with lots of new people and doing exciting things that weren't available in my tiny town. You might think studying law is tedious and boring, and while there are some classes where I almost fell asleep in class, it's more because of the lecturer rather than the material. Studying law requires critical thinking and advanced problem-solving skills alongside a broad knowledge and it's fun to discuss legal scenarios with friends and trying to solve all the legal problems that arise with it. Being an international lawyer/diplomat is also my life-long dream and that's an incentive for me to study hard.

Exploring a metropolitan is also very exciting. Yogyakarta has everything I want in a city: a close-knit sense of community, friendly people, a vibrant cultural scene, lots of libraries and bookshops, and a diverse range of food. I get to learn French and eat chocolate macarons with Twinings' tea in the afternoon and eat roadside ayam geprek at night. I love it.

Of course, since I'm now living alone completely independent of my parents and relatives, I have to be careful. I have to be careful when I'm going out and I have to be careful not to blow my monthly allowance money on useless things. Sometimes I get stuck in traffic in Jogja and I found myself missing my little town where there's no traffic at all except for exceptional circumstances. Sometimes as I eat my dinner alone, I found myself missing my aunt's cooking and nasi pecel. Sometimes when I'm tired after a day in class, I found myself missing my mother and the high-speed wifi we have in our home.

But over the time I'm learning to manage living on my own. It's both a exhausting and a scary experience, but it's also fun and exhilarating, don't you think? Eventually we all have to learn to be adults, even though most of us can't quite get the hang of it, we'll try anyway.

Happy Days Indeed!

I got accepted to my dream university in my dream major! Yay! I can't stop smiling, even as I typed this I was smiling and laughing. I will be taking a couple of weeks off to sort out my admission and university-related stuff, but I won't be too busy since I don't have to prepare for the university entrance exam. The reason why I didn't update the blog much was because I was preoccupied with preparations for the university entrance exam, but since I got accepted, I won't be the exam anymore and I could update the blog more. Also, I ordered a copy of Robert Galbraith's the Silkworm, so expect a review as soon as it got here!

Coming Back Again

Hello. It is very relieving to say that I have finished all of my exams, albeit to what degree of success I do not know. But this means I can update the blog more regularly. Yay!

Of course, I'm not planning on doing it right away--I need some time off to unwind after a stressful month--but I am determine to do more. I have ordered some books to review, and I'm planning on adding a regular Music of the Week feature. Of course, I will still write essays and fiction analysis, but maybe I will shorten that to once-a-week or twice-a-week, since I notice that my hastily-written essays do not have a good quality.

It's good to be back.

Hiatus

Hey everyone. I have an announcement to make.

Since my Big Life-Changing Exam (tm) is only two weeks away, I have to study hard, leaving no time to update or work on the blog. So, it is with great sadness that I announce this blog's hiatus at least until the exam is done for and I can finally breathe again.

I'll be back in roughly three weeks time, so don't worry about me abandoning this blog forever.

Cheers.