Back in 2013, I started Stay Bookish hoping to hold on to my love of books. I had fallen in love with reading when I was in high school and I was starting my second year of college during that time. I was struggling a lot then and reading was my escape and my lifeline. I was beyond grateful that I had books to uplift me through the changes going on during that period and so I wanted to keep appreciating books and the authors who wrote them by sharing my reading journey online.

Since I created this website ten years ago, my life has transformed as I’ve kept following my bookish tendencies. My bookshelf for one has exploded into multiple bookshelves across two countries. I’ve visited a myriad of bookstores all over the world. Because I grew my passion for reading, I also grew a penchant for writing and storytelling and now have written multiple books/manuscripts and short stories, and I got my MFA in Creative Writing back in 2021. Life, of course, is not just fun and achievements, but also challenges and moments of doubt (especially about keeping this website, but fortunately I am stubborn about letting things go) but I’ve survived it all because I’ve managed to stay true to who I am: someone bookish.

And on that note, below this paragraph is the extremely long list of books I read around the time I started blogging and the ten years that lead up to our June 2023 decade-long anniversary. If you’re reading this, I am so thankful you’re here, and I’m equally grateful to each and everyone who was ever occasionally dropped by this website, read my posts, and supported me on social media and other various endeavors. Cheers to all the books we read, here are mine: