“Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart.” — The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Ever since I started to write regularly, I realised that I became a different reader. I’m not just superficially leafing through the pages of a book, I don’t just enjoy the story or root for the heroes and villains, I don’t just read anymore: I absorb. And I absorb with a writer’s mind.

I still devour the characters and soak up the stories, I breathe in the air they breathe out…

It has been a tough year, 2020. Yes, we all know it. But in fairness, if you think about it it was just another year, where many many other things happened, not just the pandemic, the lockdowns, the restrictions and the loss.

Babies were born, people fell in love, weddings were celebrated, people still got divorced, people still started businesses and wrote books — if you think about it, pretty much business as usual, just slightly uphill.

But it has been a tough year, and the hardships, the loss, the frustration left marks on our collective psyche — even if…

I’m a huge fan of thought experiments and provocative questions that make you think and reconsider. I like musing about them and discuss them and I am ever so grateful that sometimes my kids come up with such absurd questions — with childish innocence and nonchalance — that I can’t but marvel at how their amazing brains work.

At the end of an exceptionally long day — which I have plenty of with a full-time job, a few extra projects and three kids — we got into an argument with my youngest daughter about staying up late. …

Time is always passing in a weird way. It’s the most constant thing we have in our lives yet it’s the most uncertain and the less measurable, regardless of the availabilities of clocks, calendars and 5-year plans. When you want it to pass quickly, it seems to slow down to the point of insanity; other times, you wish it stopped or slowed down yet it disappears like sand between your fingers, dripping away second after second.

I used to be in love — that crazy, all-consuming, insane love that you know from movies and literature. The kind that stops time…

“I have been stalking you on Facebook, I have to confess”. When he said it, with a coy smile, it sounded sweet and it didn’t sound intrusive. I took it as a sign of great interest, and I was happy about it. We have just started our soon-to-be-disastrous relationship, and at the time I was bouncing with joy from every sign of love. It should have been a red flag, just as many other things should have been.

He confessed he loved me way too soon — but I was over the moon about it. He requested all of my…

A year ago we all went into lockdown — and as much as it seemed impossible to endure, we were promised that it would last a few weeks, a few months tops. And then so it began. We had to relearn and adjust our lives to a normal that has been very far from any normalcy that we had been used to. We had to acquire new skills and coping mechanisms — from 3rd-grade maths, steering away from food-hoarding against our best instincts to managing our mental health in social isolation without close contact with friends and family.

Some broke…

Love is not like mathematics. It has rules but there are more exceptions than rules. It has scientific proofs, but it’s not something you can manufacture by mixing a few elements together using the right method. Yes, it might have the same biochemical effect as eating a whole lot of chocolate, but it’s clearly not the same, no matter how much you love chocolate. It can develop over time but in some cases, no time in the world is enough to create it between two people.

It seems that love is a force on its own and we can only…

If you need to improve your physical fitness experts will surely suggest you to start walking. Ten thousand steps a day — you must have heard of it many times. And it’s true. To combat a sedentary lifestyle, to get moving, to get some clarity — walking will help you in all of these. It’s free and easy, accessible to everyone.

But walking is not only good for your body, if you learn how to figuratively or literally walk away from people and situations that are harmful to you, you can do a lot for your mental and emotional well-being…