19-year-old Pragya Mallick has been reading for as long as she can remember. Mallick, who is currently in her third semester of Bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Kathmandu University, claims that she spends a good chunk of her free time reading novels and when she isn’t doing that, she is browsing through the stack of novels at her college library. Mallick names sci-fi, fantasy and historical fiction as her favorite genres and admits that she is pretty picky about the book she reads. Here, she lists five of her favorite books and explains why she recommends everyone to read these books at least once.

Consider growing up in a household and surrounding where as a young person you must do nothing but excel in your studies because when you grow up, you have to become a salaryman with a good stable job. There is no time for “distractions” like art, music, sports or anything even remotely different from the definitions, theorems in books and the syllabus.

We all take photos but have you ever wondered why a professional photographer’s photos are always a bit better? It’s most probably because of their editing skills. By knowing how to edit a photo, one can truly bring out the best aspects of a certain shot and give it that extra dimension.

Although it isn’t used to treat cold as much as other spices like ginger and cinnamon, garlic also works wonders to fight off cold. You can actually use it as a supplement for ginger in any recipe–although it is a tad bit bitter and unpleasant than ginger.

You might think working from home means you don’t have to bother yourself with getting ready and looking proper. But you might not be able to get away with wearing pajamas all the time when you’re working from home. Besides being a little too casual for important meetings that happen over video calls, wearing pajamas (when you’re working) might trick your brain to become lazy and unproductive. Here are some ways you can dress up to work from home while still being comfortable and without it taking too much time and effort.

Now that the whole world has gone on lockdown and self-isolation mode, many of us have started working from home. But working from home, as comfortable and enticing as it sounds, isn’t always easy. There are so many things that can distract and demotivate you. Here, some people tell us how they keep themselves motivated and stay productive while working from home.

Once upon a time, there was so much we wanted to do but not enough time to do it all. Now most of us are in a quandary as to what to do with all the free time on our hands. Life went from one extreme to another. When she first heard the news about the nationwide lockdown, Shrija Shres- tha was horrified that she would have to spend all her time at home. She feared she would become anxious and bored with absolutely nothing to do for the next few weeks. Now, almost two weeks into self-isolation, Shrestha has found ways to fill her free time with a few activities she enjoys. She has taken up a couple of online courses—one on marketing and another on fashion designing, is practicing abstract art and drawing/ painting something new every day, and as the founder and sole operator of the formal wear hub Ambassador, she spends the rest of her free time connecting and communicating with her customers through the brand’s Insta- gram account.

Like many Nepali children, I grew up watching Bollywood flicks. As a child, I used to come home from school and flick through the channels and there would always be some film or the other would running on TV. And all the films had the same old premise: A morally good guy (the hero), the pretty subdued heroine, the over-the-top villain and, sometimes, a comic sidekick. At the time, I never found anything wrong with it. Almost all films were made this way (and even continue to be made to this day) and so there was never a way to compare and decide whether or not this was an accurate representation of life. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to notice how films have gone on to shape our ideas of masculinity and femininity.

Most stories are highly imaginative and thus able to conjure things that are beyond the natural world. And that, of course, is much more interesting than reading about world politics or economics. However, to brand non-fiction as bland would be wrong. In the recent years (some may argue since the beginning of literature itself), many works of non-fiction have been as powerful and creative as many fictional books out there, making readers realize that understanding world issues or people’s experiences is important too. Here are five of what we consider to be the best non-fiction books of the 21st century.

Losing weight can be tricky especially since everyone you meet and the internet seem to have so many suggestions as to what you should and shouldn't do. However, when starting out there are a few things that most of us often get wrong which prevents us from shedding the extra kilos. Here we bring to you the top five mistakes that we all make when trying to drop a size or two.