Websites to download Free E-books to read during Quarantine

"The first thing that reading teaches us is how to be alone" - Jonathan Franzen

Photo by James Tarbotton on Unsplash

Books have always been the expressions of a human mind, connecting with the reader then and for all the future generations and the deepest emotions, of empathy in the form of a creative gift. It is a human intellect at its finest, showing how these logical abilities are only a blessing in these times of distress and COVID-19 lockdown. They may have only been pages, and only ink from a press, but now it is how we are keeping ourselves connected to the world and a ray of hope that we can indulge in our reading interests. 

I have always been a voracious reader and I love to read a lot since they always have had a way of showing a beautiful perspective of the world. Many of us are out there who love to read books or always hoped to improve our reading habits or incorporate them into our daily lives, but failed because of lack of time. 

In the times of the pandemic where most of us are locked away behind four walls, maybe it is time we bring this long lost hobby to life by reading. 

I am sharing a list of links, which can help get your hands on the finest books through the websites. I'd love it if I could help you read during these quadrant-times and help you with your reading. 

Links to Download PDFs Books to Keep you company!

1. PDF Drive
2. Library Genesis
3. Book Boon
4. PDF World Books
5. CALAMEO
6. National Emergency Library   
7. Google Books
8. Children's Digital Library
9. Feed Books
10. Open Library  
11. Internet Archive

(I tried to make a list of ten, exceeded it by one, could not help so it is 11 now! )

Additionally, Amazon recently cancelled the subscription of books and audio stories for children and students of all ages, people anywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories across different languages, that will help them continue learning, dreaming and just exploring some new genres. 

All these are free to stream on your desktop, mobile devices using the following link - https://stories.audible.com/start-listen 

Let me know if you come across more links, it would be helpful. 

Stay home. Stay Safe.

Happy Reading Folks!

"It is always better to have too much to read than not enough" - Ann Patchett

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Stay, one way or another - A Short Story

Photo by Ilona Panych on Unsplash

Nylah is seriously beginning to have edgy moments around her husband. He was unfaithful to her. Piling reproach after reproach upon himself, he added aggressiveness to his adultery. She knew this was the beginning of the end.

She was more than upset: he began to grow silent, unresponsive, grim as the dark starless night as if he did not hear her cry each night when they slept at the end of the bed they still shared. He was unfaithful to her: and oh, in such a trivial way. Oh, and also he was gradually turning into a narcissist, isolating himself from responsibility, she failed to see deeply hidden beneath his charming aura in their 8 years of marriage. Such shame, such shame! She pitied herself. But he only smiled wickedly now, which he so carelessly denied to hide and asked her what she wanted.

She said, “ A Divorce”

He quickly said — “Sure”, without giving it a second thought, or without thinking about their daughter, who still did not know what was happening between her parents.

It pained Nylah, to think now that her daughter will be soon feel abandoned, and alone.

As she thought of her husband’s betrayal, her lips curled and nostrils flared. Her head a great deal of throbbing with the blood gushing into the veins. Her once sunny and loving happy family memory, now felt tarred and disfigured. She kept her gaze off him because she did not want to make eye contact with him, she was still so heartbroken by his behaviour, his betrayal, wondering how he could walk out of his family, with a blink of an eye.

She bitterly stifled and made herself comfortable on the doormat spread across the floor after he left slamming the door, right across the room, with an unsympathetic shrug. They say a bad parent was a traumatized child, maybe Dev was caught in the fires of his suffering, thoughts more like a hurricane than poetry. I guess!

Deep down, she believed that there exists a road to forgive, a way to see the bigger picture and move on without having to break this family, without abandoning their daughter, head held high. When we identify it, we can learn to heal, learn to work on the relationship, learn to love anew and approve of each other in a way that is deep and calm. Then they could become good parents and start a new cycle that is loving and healthy, plant a good seed in the rotten wood and watch the new spring grow without drifting apart.

Nylah had lived without her mother, lonely, starved of warmth, little Nylah often stared into the blank wall as she grew up as she did now, looking for answers. She was drowning in the sorrow of her childhood and how her marriage slipping right through her fingers, yet a spark of strength within let her stay strong for a few moments, for her daughter. Then a stream of tears emerged from her eyes along with bitter sobs and screams. What had she done to deserve this dejection? Outcast by her family and frightened by society, all alone she had nowhere to call home if Dev left her. Even though no words came back from the stillness and emptiness in the house, she could hear the sounds of nature, tickling the tip of her ear, keeping her company, giving her strength, to attempt to give her daughter Lily, a normal childhood she deserves.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Live Through This with Hope…An age of pandemic

 Requiem for a dream

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

In the current scheme of things, hope is like a bead tied by the thread to every heartbeat. It radiates a soothing calmness into me, same the blood flows into my veins, bringing the mind to repose. Each bead perfect, each one like a tiny world of its own. I can’t know for sure that today will be better than yesterday for everybody with the spreading pandemic across the world taking so many lives, or if this is time, nature, Mother Earth is calling it her “win”.

Honestly, I am trying to be optimistic, as much as I can. Perhaps, it is the time, you can turn off all the lights and still see my soul shining bright, always burning with joy, love, always ready to start a new blaze. That’s why I feel optimistic, hearing a flock of pigeons, parrots and other birds in my balcony singing with joy, cooing and flapping away tree to tree, rejoicing the newfound silence, clean air and utter stillness around them, which they have missed for generations. Each slow chirping echoes through my mind, reverberating off a realization that this is teaching us to respect what we all took for granted — our resources, our blessings, our privileges, our environment which is now finally laying down to rest.

I sit down to meditate, close my eyes and feel the positive energy flow, recharging my myself, refuelling my energy, enthusiasm, and sparkle. So call it a little bird constantly chirping while on my shoulder, whispering “This can’t be the end!”; my hope will never be doused before my time on earth is done, not until I have lived to my heart’s content, my fullest, I have lived only a few years over two decades.

In a world of pandemic sickness, where blinding greed and cruelty is the cause and love and kindness is the antidote, the patients will soon start to declare themselves doctors and seal the fate of the world!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally Published on The Spiritual Tree

On Writing — Stories that escape from your heart

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” —Ernest Hemingway

Photo by Calum MacAulay on Unsplash

Always write from your heart, anytime you feel strongly, write down what you feel, scribble it anywhere tissues, piece of paper or go straight to your phone at tap into it. Pour your heart out when you are crying at 1 am, or you are feeling overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions clouding your head whenever your emotions are heightened.

Writing comes out best when it is pure and raw, genuine coming straight from the heart, helping you connect with the reader. Don’t filter or skip what you write, write everything, everything you feel, everything you want to share, just let your soul flow, like an endless river, a waterfall, onto the page.

At first, there is nothing.

Then, all at once, there is everything in front of you, the flow of words making sense.

Thoughts erupting from the feelings, in the line of thinking each one better than the last. Disorganized thoughts cloud your head, filling minds with crazy and amazing thoughts. This is a true inspiration. It feels being alive, each time you make your intangible thoughts tangible by writing. It makes you awake. More awake than ever before.

Your writing waits to speak their words with their reader, the ink on the paper or the screen will always stay. Your writing is an invitation to readers, making conversation with your thoughts, often unspoken.

In a way, it is a legacy of the writer’s thoughts, preserving ideas that would otherwise be as fleeting as the chirping of a bird, connecting with the reader in their deep subconsciousness, making a lasting connection.

We write to make things right, that is what writers do!

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart”

― William Wordsworth

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published in a Few Words

The Turning Point - A Short Story

Photo by Soroush Karimi on Unsplash

In the twilight, her skin shines like honey. Veins run like connected tributaries beneath her skin. She holds the colour of the bark of a tree, dry like a parched field of land. She has flaky abrasions anyone could not help but notice, causing irritable itchiness, redness, and then breaks out into a bump on her honeydew skin with her almost brown eyes.

She believes she has a disagreeable pigment and skin, looking at all the models and advertisements on all the billboards around her city, making her insecure and lower self-esteem. As she approaches with a polite gaze to people surrounding her, she reads not quite right, off the balance, awkward stares, and wants to hide by the hem of her cotton dress and never be visible to the world.

She tries all the remedies to get rid of the pimples and the scars they leave behind as they fade away, with different creams, lotions, fruit peels, flour, everything she could get her hands on, which promised to give clearer skin off the blemishes. Finally, makeup, her pet peeve, was what she turned towards since nothing seemed to work. She was exhausted trying. She started to spend hours in front of the mirror to apply the desired make up, which helped her look her best, in her eyes.

When she looks in the mirror she sees the new confident, appealing and attractive person, boosting up her confidence. When other people look at her all they see is her, her reflection. But that’s because they don’t see her true self, as she hides it from the world, under layers of concealer and creams, afraid of what they would think of her. She did this painful exercise, for years, and started resenting.

One day, something changed. She woke up feeling different. She looked at herself in the mirror, she had sensed self-respect knocking at her door, a long time coming her way. Perhaps she was waiting for the world to grant it to her, to be respected for who she is, so she could mirror it back.

A realization struck her like a lightning, the respect she gained from others is settled at the superficial level, at the cost of coping with society, where she was sending across the message to a great many people — I am just flesh and bones instead of a person with a mind, emotions, and soul to meet.

For without full trust, how can we accept the love of others, when we fail to love ourselves?

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published in The Weekly Knob

Anniversary! - A Short Story

Photo by Hutomo Abrianto on Unsplash

Forever, it has been a count of firsts! The first kiss, first hugs, first gifts, first purchases, first frosty winters, first unseen & unending fight — a quarter-century.

Finally, as they took a walk down the memory lane, marking their first glorious anniversary discussing how life went past grappling.

Here & now, it was time for another year of firsts — first night in unshared bedspreads, the first vacation without each other, first celebration alone, the first anniversary by themselves.

It was a glorious first anniversary, which was cut out of their marriage as a sign of separation as they did not feel belonged.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Tea for Two - A poem

Photo by 五玄土 ORIENTO on Unsplash

A ray of sunlight shaping up to my feet

At the dawn of an early hour

Boiling leaves within the dark of a kettle

Making way for us to settle

Across a tiny table

seeing the gleaming eyes

and the echoing giggle

A cup of tea for you and me

Dipping a cookie melted in love

of the sweetness of the tea

Finding bliss and harmony

engaging in pure and creamy

a taste that was rhythm in the symphony!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally Published in Blue Insights

A Witness of Time! - A poem

Photo by Felipe Bustillo on Unsplash

Young and true, once upon a time

Love in the heart, mine and thine!

Beauty and youth, innocent and wild

Tied up in the mind making her blind!

As time passes by, a reason to bewail

The agony of life sinks in making her fail!

Wilting the flowery heart

A bitter symphony to impart!

With callous memories, ruined with malice

Sinking deeply into her veins!

Making her bones go brittle

And leaving scars on her soul!

Slowly withered in nature like a dead flower

With cruel claws that capture and rupture!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published on A Cornered Gurl 

Days of Future Past - A Short Story

Photo by Marin Barisic on Unsplash

It was a normal day and I was bored beyond belief. I was waiting for the package of spray paint to come in since I love experimenting with different colours and medium. Finally, I heard the doorbell go off and I sprinted to the door. When I opened the door, the package was delivered by the agent. I shrug and take it inside. As I open the packed carton box, I realize it is not the right set of spray cans I was waiting for. Irked, I put it on the carpet spread across the hall and sat on the couch, pondering what to do.

I was annoyed with the spray cans muddle. They weren’t even what I ordered! In discontent, I sat across the room thinking. I thought to myself, why not go around the city, to study street art, to get some inspiration, before I get to explore my creative side, this time with jumbled up paint can spray art.

Street art has been a whining baby, crying for attention every time I set my eyes on it, not seeking for a passing change, but for a permanent shift in the heart of our culture and belief system. It was time, I dive in deeper into this notion I have about street art.

I lock the house and set myself for a long walk. I go walking down to the inner city. It grew out of the cracked sidewalk like the jagged gap-toothed grin of an old junkie. The only splash of colour amidst the grime streets was coming from the lurid graffiti, alongside the littered sidewalks. The images I see, bleed right from the canister, emotions too vivid for words, too harsh to hear and too cruel to accept. These graphics imprinted on the walls of the streets, remind me of the book — History of American Grafitti, by Caleb Neelon and Roger Gastman, which spills out a definitive story behind the most influential art form of from the last century. It traces the evolution of this medium from its early freight-train days to its city boom on the streets and the modernization.

As I continue to make my way into the grime shady streets walking, I savvy, the graffiti is talking to every level of the brain, inviting deeper thoughts and realizations, shouting in the truest language of mankind. I see the light, there is a soul in the graffiti art, the pictures depicting troubles and hope, anguish the people living in this world are enduring. It was just depressing and melancholy.

I continued with my incessant walking and observe the spray paint dim in the setting sun, it occurred to me, graffiti didn’t have to be cynical, anti, dismissive, corrosive or detrimental, it could be creative too, by giving it an artistic angle or promote ideas, on social issues and concerns. If only the people could get a real artist to use spray cans, to do something like that on the street walls then maybe the vandals and the protesters would leave the walls alone, respect it even. I think it was worth a try. Certainly, better than supplying another clean canvas for the rebels, racists and the communists to spread terror.

That aerosol filled with spray paint, invented by a paint salesman from northern Illinois could neither control nor predict the impact of his innovations. Who knew would be with a blow-back, used in a manner, which rebels and protesters use to express themselves on the street art?

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published in The Weekly Knob

Don't have to wait - A poem

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

You wonder where you are
with the heaviness in your heart
and nothing to say
feeling you have lost yourself!

Wild thoughts clouding your head
caught up in the surface than deep down
when you know are strong to survive this
by not letting dark control you!

Don’t let hope fade, slip through your fingers
Life is what we make it now
Don’t have to wait for the right time
We are all blind, we can’t see the end of future
Love what you have now
Do what you love now
Be alive again
Come to life
letting your heart glow!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Originally published on The Cotton Thread.

Benefits Beyond the Mat — Power of Yoga

Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within

Photo by Carl Barcelo on Unsplash

I am certain you have heard of yoga some time or other in your lifetime! Let me tell you a few interesting facts about yoga and its inception.

Yoga is over 5000 years old practice of ancient India which is a combination of holding postures, breathing, relaxing and meditating. India’s ancient religious texts, in the language of Vedas, Sanskrit, gave birth to both the literature and the technique of yoga. The idea of doing yoga is not losing weight and increasing heart rate. In the older times, it was not a part of a fitness goal, it was more to do with expanding your inner awareness, increase focus and mental stability and ultimately expand one’s spiritual energy.

Yoga is a light, which once lit will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter your flame.― B.K.S Iyengar

It was widely practised by the sages of ancient India, who believed the yoga is a kind of magnificent tapestry woven together by the inner spirit and the universe. The word yoga is derived from the word “yuj” which means bind and is often a method of discipline one follows. Yoga helps to gain balance, inner peace, coordination as well as physical and overall well being.

Yoga is gaining popularity in today's chaotic and busy lifestyle like never before. The goal and benefit revolves around the central fact of “awareness”

There are a top 5 benefits of practising yoga regularly.

1. Feel the energy flowing inside you, soothes tension and anxiety in the mind and body
2. Yoga helps to calm disturbed and stressed mind, letting you enjoy inner peace
3. Yoga detoxifies the body and improves immunity
4. Yoga and pranayama (mindful breathing) help create awareness and bring the mind back to the present and focused instead of swinging from the past to the future.
5. With the regular practice of yoga, you feel more content and relaxed and at peace with yourself and others. You will notice, you do not get agitated with small things around you and are more patient with your loved ones, improving your relationships.

Begin your journey to a better life with Peace, Love, and Happiness!

Start practising yoga and see the difference it makes in life. I have been practising yoga since 2016 and I have experienced my body becoming more flexible and developed a great sense of self-discipline and self-awareness. It has improved my well-being and given me mental clarity and peace.

Start yoga today, even it is it for 15–20 minutes, sit down and relax your mind and body. Your mind and body will thank you for that.

Namaste!

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Originally published on a Few Words. 

5 Works of Eco-Fiction You must Read

An exploration of the world of the relationship between nature and the human communities that dwell in it

Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash

When I visited Seychelles January 2019, I was not aware the land is inhabited by humans about 300 years ago, with untouched flora and fauna, thousands of species lived on this beautiful turquoise waters and lush green land. And I didn’t know to what extent this remarkable view and experience of nature so close, would inspire my reading and writing over the coming years.

As a writer, I find myself curious to read about environmental issues captured into stories and characters and words written through an eco-focused lens, from how a story unfolds, and characters adapt and survive through the changes.

There’s no shortage of nonfiction about the environment, and the way humans are degrading it with every passing day and additionally animal extinction and protection, but fiction has the power to open eyes and hearts in completely unexpected ways. If you don’t believe the oceans are in trouble or farmlands are eroding, for example, you’re not likely to pick up a nonfiction book that outlines exactly that.

Fiction personifies the world around us, by contextualizing life into the story in the same way that it did to me, as I saw nature through a different angle when I visited a place with rich nature.

I’m inspired by the writers on this list, who have woven environmental themes into their fictional stories, raising important issues while they also show how the characters are dealing with the issues. These authors also see the untold ways in which everything is connected — humans, animals, land, dignity, power — and subtly and seamlessly allow readers to connect the dots as well.

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

This is one of the best books on eco-fictions ever written, dated back to 1939.

The book is set during the Great Depression which was followed by Dustbowl. The novel focuses on Oklahoma capturing the economic hardship, drought, and changes in the agricultural industry from 1920 through 1930. The situation puts the tenant farmers out of work since the farmlands were severely affected by wind erosion. This made thousands of farmers move from their home to different places in seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a brighter future.

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare him — he has known a fear beyond every other

 The book is a portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, and a man’s fierce reaction to injustice. The novel captures the terrors and panic of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in the world.

2. The Drowned World by JG Ballard

This book was first published in 1962, a classic book on climactic fiction, 

which has mesmerizing descriptive narrative style making the reader envision going into a petrified future in which solar radiation and global warming have melted the polar ice caps. The book depicts the chaotic breakdown of the world, giving a perceptive of deep implications of time, space, the evolution of humans and the psychology of people going through the catastrophe. Writing during such an era most of perhaps fervently believed the world was ours to shape and module. Sadly, we see now in 2020, it wasn’t true.

3. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

The book is muscled with poverty, helplessness, and reality. Set during hurricane Katrina, building over the Gulf of Mexico, highlights the tragic turn of events of the people living in the Mississippi during the 12-day hurricane and aftermath of the storm. The writer draws a vivid link between personal trauma and climatic disaster.

Suddenly there is a great split between now and then, and I wonder where the world where that day has happened has one, because we are not in it

The writer lived through Katrina and wrote this book after being very dissatisfied with the way Katrina had receded from the world’s attention and people’s consciousness. The book also depicts the Southern life of Afro — American people and culture and their hardships.

4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a profoundly moving book on an unplanned journey of a father and his young son over several months, blasted by an unknown cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization on earth, intervening life on it for years. It depicts a future of no hope, dignity or a simple livelihood, but is sustained by love for each other. It gives a vivid imagination into the world of catastrophe we humans are capable of bringing into this world causing ultimate destruction, making the survivors witness complete devastation.

5. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

The book is set in rural Tennessee during a period of unseasonable rain when a young woman tempted to attempt adultery out of marriage witnesses hundreds of monarch butterflies in a field near her house. As the news reaches the experts, it comes as a warning of a disturbing event due to global warming, although they look beautiful in the farmland in Tennessee, displaced from their natural habitat in Mexico.

The book captures the reader leading us to one of the most crucial topics of our time — climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy, the writer dissects the motives of humans of this precarious world.

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So there you have it!

I realized how impactfully these books have captured my empathy and giving a glimpse of ultimate destruction, we humans are causing to the world. I hope this article motivates you to pick up at least one of these books.

I hope this list helps you add some books to your reading list. If anyone has any other books I would love to hear them.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Downhill

Photo by Tyler Mullins on Unsplash

I sat there in silence, dwelling on my thoughts, zoned out, staring into the black tunnel, willing to see the lights blinking at me, growing closer, declaring I am on my way closer. The quiet chills me, suddenly adrenaline flows through, hushing me, crashing my courage, as I go downhill. 

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published on The Friday Fix.