LOL: Life Of Leo

Image Source Following up on my previous post for the #TBRChallenge2020, here are the books I've chosen for the prompts. I normally do not plan out reading this systematically, but thanks to this reading challenge, I came up with the list. 24 prompts, 24 books. Of course, these are not the only books that I plan to read this year. I've planned to read a total of 50 books this year and this would cover 24 of it. The rest of the 26 will be my free choice. God knows that I have more than enough books to cover it.

Reading has been an integral part of my life since I laid my hands upon a book decades ago. Reading calms me down and gives me a sense of purpose at the same time. Reading takes me to so many worlds and teaches me so many things that I wouldn't have come across otherwise. Reading has taught me so much about life and people that I am a much better and a much calmer person today because of my reading habit. I'm a person who has varied interests and passions. But, if you ask me to choose just one, it would be reading.

Image Source After struggling to finish reading sixty books last year , this year I set myself a realistic target of 30 books. I thought this would be pretty easy, but then again life has this habit of showing you the middle finger when you least expect it. 2019 has been a very busy year for me with high-demand work, a lot of travel, moving-in to the new house and managing a lot of other expectations. It has been a good year no doubt, but I did not find enough time to read. I did pretty decent and was able to complete reading 31 books this year. Yes, one more than the challenge. That happened in November and then I took a break from reading in December. I'm doing a book challenge this month on Instagram on my book handle @she_booked_it , so that's keeping me pretty busy. Do check it out here if you haven't already.

Everyone here is aware of my love for reading and books. I have written enough posts about my love for books, so I'll not be getting into it again. Last month, I started an Instagram page to showcase my love for books. That page is solely dedicated to books and I share book reviews, book recommendations and just about anything that has to do with books out there. Thanks to that page, I'm finally giving some importance to photography and spend some time and effort in setting up a good layout for the books I want to talk about. I've been getting a lot of appreciation for the pictures and it makes me feel so good. Social media is a nice tool for encouragement and inspiration, if used right.

Image Source India is a country obsessed with bollywood and cricket, there is no denying that. While the whole country is waiting for the ICC World Cup to begin and support Virat and the boys, is there anyone out there anticipating a certain other World Cup that would be held in 2021? Does anyone recall that the Indian Women's Cricket Team were the runners-up in the Women's Cricket World Cup 2017? Can anyone name all the players in the Indian Women's Cricket Team? Before you answer these questions, let me get to the most basic question of all. How many of you were aware that there is a Indian Women's Cricket Team?

Image Source Holiday Golightly more famously known as Holly Golightly, born Lulamae Barnes, is the main protagonist from the novella ' Breakfast At Tiffany's ' written by Truman Capote. This character was then immortalized by Audrey Hepburn in a movie with the same name. The book is about an unnamed narrator who relates his memories of Holly Golightly, the people in her life, and his relationship with her. Holly is his downstairs neighbor and the center of attention of his memoirs. She is 18 years old when he first meets her. She is a creature unlike anyone he has ever known, simultaneously sophisticated, blunt, and unapologetic about her lifestyle. This is what drew me to her. Holly is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever read.

Image Source Touted to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, Gayatri Devi was unlike any other royal that we had heard about. She was the Princess of Cooch Behar (Koch Dynasty of Ancient Assam), presently West Bengal. While Princesses are usually thought the art of dance and embroidery, Gayatri Devi preferred hunting and riding. She shot her first panther when she was 13 and there was no looking back after that. Since she was primarily brought up by her mother and her grandmother, she grew up being fiercely independent and a feminist, which later became instrumental in her starting schools for girls and the women's empowerment movement.

Image Source One of the most happiest celebrity couples that I have seen is Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres. Ellen DeGeneres is someone who you cannot not like. Her personality is such that you are automatically attracted to her. For those who are unaware of who she is, Ellen DeGeneres is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, producer, and LGBT activist. She currently hosts her own TV talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Image Source Let me let out a secret here. I am truly, madly and deeply obsessed with the British Royals. I have followed them closely much before the era of social media. Now with the advent of social media, it gets more easier to know what they are up to. While Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are charming in their own way, neither of them hold a candle to their late mother-in-law, Diana.

Image Source Much before she came into the spotlight for marrying one of the most gorgeous and eligible bachelors of Hollywood, Amal Alamuddin, the barrister-at-law was doing a fantastic job in international law and human rights. Born in Lebanon, her name means hope and that is exactly what she is to her clients. Amal learned English by watching TV shows. Having highly educated and ambitious parents, Amal followed their footsteps, but chose law as a subject and graduated with a B.A degree. Today, she is qualified to practice as a lawyer in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Image Source Since I comfortably read 50 odd books last year , this year I decided to top it. When the year began, I set myself a target of 60 books and within the first four months of the year, I was already half-way through it. I was pretty happy with my success at reading and kept going book after book. By August I had finished reading around 40 books and I was looking to surpass my challenge easily. Then, September happened.

The first time I took up the A to Z challenge was in 2014, and since I was new to it then, I had no theme. I just wrote about what ever I felt like. The posts were decent enough but nothing great, still I managed to complete the challenge successfully. In 2015, I wanted to have good quality posts and went with my strength back then and chose ' Shades Of Love ' as my theme. Most of my posts included fiction and poetry which I seldom write now. Not too sure how and why the transition happened though. This time, the posts were good and I was enjoying the challenge much better. For 2016, I wanted to have more personalized posts, so the theme I went for was ' All About Me ', and although it sounds easier to talk about oneself, I wasn't too sure about what I wanted to share with the world and what to keep private. It wasn't an easy battle, but I managed to complete it successfully. By 2017, my writing had evolved a lot and so had my reading. I was doing quite a ...

Image Source 2017 hasn't been a very kind year. While it has been a year of emotional upheaval, three things did not suffer at all, thankfully. Professional success, travel and reading. At the beginning of the year when I set a reading challenge of 50 books on Goodreads, I thought I was being preposterous. I thought that it would be way too far fetched and that I might not even make it halfway. But once the year started, the challenge turned out to be such a motivation for me. Although I wasn't too keen on following up with the challenge closely, by the second month of the year, I was 3 books ahead in the challenge. This turned out to be track record that I maintained throughout the year. As of today, I stand at 53 books that was read in 2017. When you are emotionally taxed, reading somehow helps. It temporarily takes you away from the harsh reality of life and throws you into the world of words, twisted plots and interesting characters. Reading kept me sane throughout ...

This is the fourth consecutive year that I'll be participating in the A to Z blogging challenge for April . Last year, my theme was "All about me". I initially thought that it would be easy, but it got really difficult to talk about me so much. While I'm a pretty talkative person and narcissistic enough to talk a lot about myself, I did get bored after a point of time. Much before 2017 started, I had a topic in mind for the A to Z challenge for this year. Since the current times have been really trying, I thought a lot about taking up this challenge this year. You see, even if I have done this for three years earlier, doesn't make it any easy now. A to Z is a very tough challenge since you will be writing for 26 days in a month. Also, coming up with new content everyday is really hard. If your theme is random, you can just write something or even post a picture some day. But if you have a theme set, coming up with related content is quite a hard task. Choosi...

This was my third consecutive year of signing up for the A to Z challenge . It was really tough the previous two years as well, but somehow I managed to get past it and complete the challenge successfully. I thought it would be the same this year as well. I had my theme planned out by January, but I had no clue what post I would write for each alphabet. Towards the end of March, my work load tripled and I was left with zero time for anything else. By March 31st when others had most of their posts scheduled, I had no idea what I would write the next day for 'A'! I panicked so much that I barely slept that night. I woke up in the morning with the same thought. While I was doing my daily browsing of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, I saw that a friend of mine had checked in to an airport. And that's when the idea came. None of my posts were scheduled. Every topic was thought of at the last minute (No, I'm not very proud of it) and almost every post was posted at the ...

Image Source Parul has nominated me for the 3-Day Quote Challenge and here is my third and final quote as part of this challenge. This quote resonates in my ear every single day. Especially over the past few months where I have been hearing wonderful things about me, that I myself did not know about. You know, at times I feel like Poonam Pandey. Yes, our very own bikini bombshell. Not because I show case my "assets", but because she never stops being in the news. Well, maybe Smriti Irani would have been a better comparison. Anyway, I digress. What I'm saying is that people are making up so many stories behind my back that there must be a series of my biographies written until now. Every day it is a new story, making me seem like Mogambo and Gabbar. Does it upset me? No, not at all. Didn't these movies become big hits only because of these characters? I love it. And because these characters are fictional. Infact it makes me feel very nice that I am omnipresent...

Image Source Parul  has nominated me for the 3-Day Quote Challenge and here is my second favorite. I never knew that I had the writing bone in me until I fell in love. I started with poetry first and then moved to fiction and other things. Poetry now comes as naturally to me as breathing. And I can only thank love for it. Nothing like love and its shades to invoke poetry. Although rhymed poetry is a must for me when I write, I do enjoy some unrhymed poetry. It takes more effort than rhymed verses and I'm not too sure if I can pull it off. I love writing poetry more than anything else and this quote is a top favorite when it comes to love. And poetry. A blank mind is a blank canvas Paint it with myriad colors of love Close your eyes and invoke poetry For it is a gift sent from above Today I nominate the bloggers who nurture love in their words as much as I do; Aathira , Reema and Priyanka . Thank you  Parul  for nominating me for this wonderful challe...

Image Source I have a new obsession oflate. I post atleast one quote on Instagram everyday. It somehow makes me feel good. Quotes are something that rule my life. Just like love. I am totally obsessed with quotes and I tend to annoy people by quoting some during serious discussions. But isn't that why quotes exist? Although most of the quotes I like are the sarcastic ones, my favorites remain the ones that I have read from some books. And the one book that has given me more than half of the quotes of my personal collection is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult . There are way too many to choose from, but this one is my favorite. Parul has nominated me for the 3-Day Quote Challenge and this is my first favorite. Nineteen Minutes is such a wonderful book that I shall re-read it as many times as I can. It talks about human emotions and psychology in a way that was never explored before. The journey of Peter Houghton and the bullying that he faces is something that I can never ...

While the online market is swiftly growing and offers us a world of mass produced goods, there is hardly any scope to personalise these products, which could really make them unique and offbeat. Imagine a website that allows you to customise products and add a special touch, the way you want. This is the next wave of e-commerce. Say Hello to “icustommadeit”! In August 2013 an online marketplace called ' icustommadeit.com ' was launched, which connects buyers who wish for one-of-a-kind creations with passionate and professional creators of those goods, from around the country. icustommadeit was established on the belief that customization is the core of any merchandise today. The buyers connect with specialized creators by submitting a description or photo of what they want to customize for themselves. Creators, who are interested get in touch with ideas and send out their proposals to start the project. icustommadeit is a wonderful platform were buyers get to virtua...

Image Source I know I'm a little late in writing the reflections post, but better late than never right? April has been a wonderful month in more ways than one and this A to Z challenge sure made it a memorable one. When I took up the challenge last year, my theme was random and hence it was easy to write about everything that I wanted. But this time I decided to pep it up a little and challenge myself more. I chose a theme and me being me it had to revolve around love. Shades of love was revealed as my theme for the A to Z challenge 2015 . When I decided on the theme, I thought that it would be easy to write about love and its various shades. But as the challenge progressed, I began to run out of ideas. The worst part was that I was neck deep in work and hardly had any time to write or schedule posts. Every post was written on the same day and published immediately. I started off well. Awakening came out good as a stand alone piece, but it left lots to imagination in the...