The other primary activities – travel and eating out – took a hit in 2020, but reading prospered! Not just in terms of number of books, but the quality too. That’s why this year has a larger set, and that’s after some painful culling. And the numbers are enough to warrant a group photo, unlike last year!
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism : Industrial capitalism thrived by exploiting nature, and surveillance capitalism is thriving by using human nature as a resource. If you watched Netflix’s The Social Dilemma, you might have caught Shoshana Zuboff. Later in the year, tech regulation became a talking point across the globe. The institutionalised invasion of private space by tech giants is something all of us should be cognisant about. And this book does a great job of giving us perspective. A Venn diagram with digital advertising and free will starts taking shape.
- Invisible Women : A book, I believe, men and women should read, for different reasons. For women, this is probably more validation than new information. Things they have talked about, attempted to change. For men, I hope this will be an eye opener. At the very least, Caroline Criado Pérez will make us conscious of our biases. From public transport to product design to medicine, there is an inherent slant in our thinking. In essence, “the lives of men have been taken to represent those of humans overall.” And the funny part is that, the world would be much better in all respects, if we just included the other 50% of its population in decision making! P.S. Thanks D, for picking this up! See!
- The Origins of Political Order + Political Order & Political Decay : Two volumes, each of which would individually merit a place too! The world is a complex place with an ever expanding list of variables, so I have a special love for books that can explain “the system of the world”. Francis Fukuyama does that brilliantly for politics. Beginning from the time we moved around as bands, we have now come to a stage where democracy is (almost) universally accepted as the best trade-off for all concerned. How did we get here, and why did the state, the rule of law, and accountable government – the three institutions that are required for democracy to succeed – develop differently across the world? Brilliantly framed, and articulated.
- The Sixth Extinction: What better year than 2020 to read about mass extinctions! What I really loved Elizabeth Kolbert for is the sense of scientific curiosity her narrative reignited. In the last 500 million years, there have been many extinctions, in isolation and in clusters, and mass extinctions have occurred every 26 -30 million years, but the short list contains only the “big five”. The ones which wiped out more than 75% of the species. The name of the book comes from the possibility of the sixth one, likely to be caused by the first species that found a way to go beyond only the genetic code to store and distribute information!
- The Moment of Lift: “When we invest in women and girls, we are investing in the people who invest in everyone else.” Hope arrives in the form of Melinda Gates. This is a compelling read, thanks to some excellent perspectives on the world’s problems, as well as marriage and empathy at the workplace. Despite her vast experience on the subjects, there is an intellectual honesty and humility with which she approaches them. The narrative is less about herself and more about the stories of other people who have made a difference. Another book that shows why women are best placed to heal the angst that the world experiences every day.
- Coromandel: One of those books that you must judge by the cover. It is exquisite, and the detailing is a great representation of how the book is going to turn out. Charles Allen provides a fantastic narrative of South India – historical, social, societal, cultural and political facets. From the hunter-gatherer populations that resided in this part of the world in the Mesolithic era, to the connections with Harappans and Aryans, and the origins of Vishnu and Shiva, the book covers a lot of ground (almost) literally. The title doesn’t do justice because it covers the other side of the peninsula fairly well too. One big takeaway for me was the degree to which Buddhism held sway. To the extent, where even Sabarimala, Ayyappa’s abode, has its origins in a Buddhist shrine. The systematic deconstruction of mythology into its historic components, with an amazing amount of detail makes this a wonderful way to travel, in time.
- Second-Hand time: A book full of stories that I wished were fiction. But Svetlana Alexievich has written about real people and their real lives, spent in ways that one could not even endure for days. Millions of citizens of the former USSR and current Russia, whose values and hopes went through multiple upheavals, and whose (different) generations have been moulded in the worldview of leaders from Stalin to Putin. Ideas and idealism both promised a “happily ever after” that is yet to happen. It is a brutal read, but it is important that these stories are told, and read.
- Logicomix – An Epic Search for Truth: This is uncharted territory for me. Not the search for truth, but a graphic novel. A narrative based on the life of Bertrand Russell by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, and brought to life by Alecos Papadatos (Illustrator), Annie Di Donna (Colorist). The search for truth requires a journey through paradoxes, and it becomes multi-meta because the book is also quite self-referential. The narrative of Russell’s own complicated path towards truth via mathematics goes in parallel to that of the creation of the book. The contents of the book were deeply personal because they addressed my own belief systems, including the affection for logic and rationality (sometimes at the cost of emotions), and the one that nailed it “Maybe what brings them to logic is a fear of ambiguity and emotion“. A wonderfully layered book that contains some profound thoughts.
- Exhalation: Ted Chiang! What a brilliant bloody mind! My love for speculative fiction owes a lot to his “Stories of Your Life and Others”. Exhalation has nine stories, and not only is each of them a work of art, but they are quite different in terms of the domain and the central thought. Ted Chiang’s magic has many layers – the imagination inherent in the ideas, the ability to frame it in a context that is accessible to the reader, and excellent articulation that makes it relatable and engaging. Parallel universes, free will, technology shifts and memory, entropy, time travel – there are dizzy scenarios that I can never get enough of. No stories are similar, but each enthrals.
- The Complete Calvin & Hobbes: I can safely say that I would not have touched it if not for 2020 and the few months of courier embargo. It was brought home more than a decade ago, and is treated more as a shrine in itself, with a place outside of the bookshelves. One day, I realised that despite my fascination for the subject, the endless chats with Mo and our plans to create a searchable database, I probably had not read every strip. What better time to get some profound spiritual consolation? And it really helped, right from the introduction which has the life, thoughts, and philosophy of Bill Watterson to the clearer contexts and narrative arcs that become evident when the strips are read in order. It also helped appreciate the nuances of Dad and Mom’s characters. The worlds of Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet, Stupendous Man, and Safari Al were indeed soothing, and the non-stop chuckles are proof! This never gets old.
And that’s that. Follow me on Goodreads for more frequent updates. 🙂
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