I have always been very fond of reading ever since I was a kid. I remember devouring a lot of mystery books from my school library. Having grown up in India, a lot of the reading was influenced by what came from English authors, translations in English or English language books by Indian authors. Enid Blyton was a staple with Secret Seven, Famous Five, Five Find-outers being some of the most popular books. Indian stories with Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle and Chandamama were a mainstay for many years. Later as I grew older, I spent a lot of time reading Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators and Nancy Drew. These books were my introduction to America outside of what I learnt in history and geography books in school.  There were not a whole lot of American TV shows with notable exceptions like Star Trek, Spiderman, Cosmos etc. We didn’t own a TV till I was almost 10 years old, and so I never gravitated a lot to TV when I was kid. Reading a book was always very interesting and stimulating. Between a large book collection at home and the school library, there was never a shortage of books to read. Once I discovered Sherlock Holmes, all other mystery books fell by the way side. I read most of the short stories multiple times.

Over the last couple of years, my reading has slowed down significantly. The mix of reading has totally shifted to non-fiction. As life became busy with work and kids, the reading activity went down. The iPhone has not helped either. My love for reading came back once again when I worked for Kindle in 2011-2012. With a new job over the last 3 months, I have started using public transport and spend an hour every week day on the Caltrain, which I invariably spend on reading on my Kindle (I have not tried reading a physical book yet while standing in a crowded train).

Naval Ravikant says that one should make a habit of reading about 1-2 hours a day. Both Naval and Seth Godin say that making a habit of reading and/or writing is very important. It really doesn’t matter how you make it habit. I am working on making reading and writing a habit. I will document my journey here and you are more than welcome to come along.