Reading Kokoro by Beth Kempton felt like being softly bonked on the head by somebody. So, here’s my tiny ramble about the things I learnt, felt, and awkwardly nodded at while reading this book. My belief of a neatly wrapped up life died somewhere between a pandemic and a quarter-life crisis. I knew it, but maybe didn’t accept it. Kokoro helped me grieve that belief and move on. Life isn’t a checklist. Sometimes, things fall apart even when you’re doing all the right things. And the sooner we let go of that illusion of control, the lighter we become. At some point during my reading journey, I also realised that…
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Don’t Scroll, Please Stay [Poetry – Note]
In this world wired to keep us connected, We’ve never felt more forgotten. Explore pages, reels, and feeds, Swiping right across stories, Leaving heart reactions in red, But so much still left unsaid. Once, eye contact used to mean something, Now, we look, we scroll, But we rarely see. We exist in grids, In captions, Ending conversations with laughing emojis, Even when nothing’s really funny. We’re in each other’s network, But not in each other’s lives. Our touch now replaced by a tap, Our eyes awaiting a ping, Some part of us still hoping, That someone will stop, will stay, will look. Will see more than an aesthetic feed. Walking…
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My Search for Soft-Hug Reads: TBR for my soul.
We can also call this blog post my personal plan to emotionally cuddle myself into books because the reality has started to become a little too real these days. **grunts** Hi. It’s me, again. Local introvert, socially awkward book human, reporting from my work-desk. As someone who hasn’t read a lot of “comfort” reads yet, I wanted to build a TBR list for the soul—a little collection of books I hope will hold me gently when I need it most. If you’re looking for the same kind of warmth, maybe these will find a place on your shelf too. Lately, I’ve been craving books that don’t make me feel heavy…
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Why I Researched on Beth Kempton After Reading 09 Chapters of Kokoro
Okay so… here’s a confession: I picked up Kokoro by Beth Kempton in February 2025 thinking it would be a calm, aesthetic, soul-soothing, finding my inner journey kinda read. Something like “let me sip my coffee and romanticize my life” vibe. And it is that book for sure — but also, somewhere between Chapter 1, Chapter 9 and my untimely afternoon existential crisis, I decided I had to know everything about the woman who wrote this book. And yes, I mean everything. I went full reader-stalker mode (and ended up calling it research). So, here’s something we should know about Beth Kempton. Beth is a Japanologist (which is a super…
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Must-Read Book Quotes: On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
You ever read something so beautiful it lowkey ruins your day because now you’re just sitting there… feeling things? Yeah. That was me after I read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous didn’t just give me beautiful lines, it gave me permission to pause. To reflect. To crumble a little. And maybe… rebuild softer. This wasn’t just a book. It was a long, quiet letter that turned into a mirror. It was one of those books where the stories are the life — messy, aching, and unspeakably gorgeous in their pain. Ocean Vuong’s words had a way of crawling under my skin and…
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Book Review: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
There are some books you pick up with intention, and then there are books that pick you. For me, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was a little bit of both. I found it sitting at my safe space — the Krishna Curve Crossword — a.k.a. my comfort place where caffeine, aesthetic books, and occasional emotional breakdowns come together for me. Back in October 2024, I bought the book for a book club meet (bless my social self for trying). But the universe had other plans. I got too caught up in another book I was reading and abandoned Vuong’s masterpiece for a few months. Fast forward to January 2025, I…
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Must-Read Quotes from The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Some books carve themselves onto your soul. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is one such book. It’s a multi-generational story set against the backdrop of Kerala, where the novel brings together themes of family and culture with an unparalleled depth of emotion and intellect. As I flipped through its 720-pages, I found myself pausing repeatedly to highlight passages that felt really poetic. And if you know me, you know that I love quotes and I love poetry. These quotes don’t just reflect back on the plot; they also highlight truths about our existence, our identity, and our shared human experiences. In this blog post, I’m sharing some of…
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Book Review | The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Can a book make you feel emotions that you’ve never experienced, and connect you to struggles that you’ve never faced? That’s exactly what Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water did for me. Spanning over three generations of a family and knit together by a mysterious “condition” of the water, this 720-page literary art is as huge as the waters from which it draws its inspiration. Meh, I know it’s a bad attempt at being metaphorical, but let’s ignore that and dive straight into the review: If you’re short on time, you can go through this 2-minute summary on the Book Review for The Covenant of Water on my Instagram handle…
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Must-Read Quotes from “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware
Blurb After too many years of unfulfilling work, Bronnie Ware began searching for a job with heart. Despite having no formal qualifications or experience, she found herself working in palliative care. Over the years she spent tending to the needs of those who were dying, Bronnie’s life was transformed. Later, she wrote an Internet blog about the most common regrets expressed to her by the people she had cared for. The article, also called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, gained so much momentum that it was read by more than three million people around the globe in its first year. At the requests of many, Bronnie now shares…
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The Gutenberg Paradox: Drowning in Information, Starving for Knowledge
Imagine being surrounded by an endless buffet of information but leaving the table still feeling hungry for real knowledge. That’s the Gutenberg Paradox in a nutshell—a contradiction where the abundance of information available today leaves us more overwhelmed than enlightened. The Historical Context on Gutenberg’s Revolution Back in the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg turned the world on its head with his printing press, making knowledge accessible like never before. Books went from being a rare luxury for the elite to something even commoners could enjoy. This paved the way for the Renaissance and Enlightenment movements, and a whole host of intellectual revolutions that changed human history. People read, people learned,…
