Introducing a new blog: Madhulika Reads

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As some of you probably know, I am not just a writer, but an avid reader as well. On an average, I read more than a hundred books a year, and that too just about every genre, every style: crime and detective fiction, humour, romance, historical fiction, horror. History, popular science, food and food history. About nature and wildlife, about old cinema. And much more.

For the past ten years, I’ve been a member of the book reading and reviews site, Goodreads.com. There, I’ve reviewed more than a thousand books over the years. I also review books for several publications.

About time, I decided, that I began a blog on which I review books (no, don’t worry; Dustedoff isn’t going anywhere; I’m still going to be blogging about old cinema).

Therefore: Madhulika Reads. Here, my reviews are somewhat different, longer and more detailed, from what I post on Goodreads. You can click this link to learn more about this blog.

I began writing reviews on this a few weeks back, so now there are several (not many!) reviews on Madhulika Reads. You can explore further by clicking the Fiction Books Reviewed and Non-fiction Books Reviewed pages to see what I’ve reviewed so far. I read at a speed of at least one book a week, so you can expect frequent additions to these pages. If you’re as avid a reader as I am, do follow this blog to look out for (and offer) recommendations, compare notes, and generally chat about books.

29 thoughts on “Introducing a new blog: Madhulika Reads”

  2. All the best for the new venture!

    Nowadays I don’t read, actually don’t get time to read books at all. And I miss it a lot!
    It was just a few years back that I used to buy books and read at leisure. And I hate reading on phone. For me a hard copy is must! Now I just don’t get time.
    Someday I wish to return to my old schedule.

    Bit I’ll visit the new blog surely.
    :-)

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thank you so much, Anupji. I can totally understand about your reading habit falling by the wayside: my husband too used to read a lot, but now he just doesn’t get the time. Even when he does have some free time, he would rather unwind in other ways: mostly watching OTTs. ;-)

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  3. How thrilling, Madhu, that you’ve started “Madhulika Reads”. Books have always been my companion since childhood. And like you I read books in all genres . However while I hate reading books on philosophy (they make me puke ! ) , I can devour pulp fiction by the truckloads, the pulpier the better ! I still love the older authors like Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse, James Hadley Chase, Jim Corbett, Daphne du Maurier, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Sidney Sheldon, Mary Higgins Clarke, Mary Stewart , Shashi Tharoor etc. And I’ve also read a number of Hindi authors like Munshi Premchand, Maithili Sharan Gupt , and others. I’ve read huge tomes on Indian and British History and historical fiction. When we were in school in the 1960’s the British Council Library, London, used to send a huge carton of about 200 books every two months to our school in Bhopal, mainly children’s fiction and simplified British classics like, “Wuthering Heights”, “A tale of two cities” etc. I used to devour them all. I still read books nowadays at night, nut not many as I would like to. Looking forward to your new blog. Congratulations !

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    • Pradeep, your list of favourite authors mirrors mine in many respects! I cannot stomach philosophy either, and I have a soft spot for the older authors, the ones I grew up with. Or, among the newer authors, the ones who write historical fiction (or, better still, historical detective fiction, one of my favourite genres).

      How lucky your school was, to receive so many books from the British Council! That’s what I call a ‘good school’. Mine (I was in Kendriya Vidyalaya throughout, starting in Bhopal, coincidentally) had very boring libraries: apparently whoever chose books for those libraries had absolutely no taste or understanding of what might appeal to a child.

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      • I echo your reply, Madhulika. Dr Pradeep’s choice of authors also seems to mirror mine (most, not all). And, history and mystery are the best! As for Philosophy, I’ve been soldiering on with Marcus Aurelieus’ Meditations for months now.

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        • And, history and mystery are the best!

          Yay for that! :-)

          Talking of philosophy and ancient Romans., I remember a friend giving me a slim book containing the reflections of Seneca. For several months it sat on my bedside table – because every night, I’d begin reading it and (not joking here, really!) – I’d fall asleep after about two pages.

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  4. Yay! I dumped (not-very)Goodreads 7 years ago, now I can read your reviews with fewer ads and way lessa data suckage. I hope this new blog broadens your reader base too.

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  5. Great! Looking forward to reading your book reviews. Being much more of a reader than a watcher, I’m sure I’ll find more food for thought on M Reads than on Dustedoff. But then, I love listening to old songs, and I’ve really enjoyed Dustedoff’s commentary too.

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    • Thank you so much, Meena. Dustedoff will not be going anywhere; I will continue to be posting about films too. But since I read (and review books) so much, I thought it was about time I began posting those reviews on a blog too. Do come by there sometime and let’s compare notes on books.

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    • WordPress is very suspicious of you, it seems! I wonder what the problem is – it’s not even as if your comment had any URLs or anything. :-( Very odd, why it sent your comment into spam.

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  9. I will certainly check it out. I’m an avid reader too and I’m on Goodreads also. But I don’t find time to provide detailed reviews of the books I read. Best wishes for the blog.

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  10. Impressive stuff! All the best for the endeavour. It’s heartening that you have the enthusiasm to blog so frequently; I lost my puff a few years ago and haven’t regained it.

    Have you seen the recent slew of early detective fiction (“yellowbacks”) by Hachette? Hopefully you’ll review those when you get a chance.

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    • Thank you so much! I enjoy blogging, so I guess that counts… but who knows how long I’ll sustain this.

      I have seen Hachette’s yellowbacks: so delectable! There are lots of books there I want to read, but I have such piles of books still lying waiting to be read, I daren’t buy any more right now. Have you read any of those?

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      • yes indeed, i picked up the lady molly short stories by baroness orczy, the first miss silver novel by patricia wentworth, the first lupin stories, and Loveday Brooke, a pioneeering detective by c.l.pirkis. wentworth’s was a fairly dark theme, well-paced, while the other stories were lighter and more fun.

        i’m amazed by how readable they are more than a century after they were written, and surprisingly ‘modern’ in some sense. lady molly is generally given cases where ‘female intuition’ is required but that’s generally an excuse: she steps in whenever the men flail about, heh. loveday brooke, though, is a true competitor to holmes, and given the stories are from 1890, very forward-thinking.

        how goes it with your delhi series?

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        • Ooh, that sounds very good. I don’t think I’ve read any of these detectives, though I do recall reading short stories by Baroness Orczy in a collection my mother had inherited from her grandfather. Must get the Lady Molly and Loveday Brooke books, thanks for the recommendations.

          And thank you for asking about the Delhi series. The second book in the series is now in the final stages of being edited, so should probably get published around March 2024.

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