The times they are a changin

So this November like any other November in North America we had that time change as day light savings time was removed and we went back to the regular time. Which is again odd as we are in Daylight savings time for more months in an year than the so called regular time. Like most people these days I'm no fan of this time changing stuff, its not only a pain to remember this on the day it happens and then go change time in so many places there is also the effect on your regular body clock with all activities shifting by an hour. I'm somewhat fastidious about eating on time and sticking to a routine and this just comes and this activity does not help at all with that. This happens twice an year and though I hate both times, of the lot the change in November is a little better as you actually gain an hour as we set the clocks back this time of the year. I'm an early riser and I prefer it that way and my goal is to get up by 5:30 AM before others and get some personal time before the hustle and bustle of the day takes over. So when the time changes in Nov first week, the previous 6 AM now becomes 5 AM, so that makes waking up early easy and once you maintain a habit over a couple of weeks I find it easier to sustain it. Its another matter that last couple of weeks of Dec which is a holiday season overall comes in and mostly disrupts the early waking habit but like most years I hope I can weather it this time and carry this forward. So lets see how that goes.

Another major irritant is the need to manually change so many clocks. The phones change quickly and with smart watches they take care of themselves but the wall clocks, the ones on Oven, microwave and in car are different. Most years I try to put up a mini rebellion against this forced time changed which I never really signed up for by refusing to change the clocks. After several rounds of prodding from my wife I eventually get around to it. She usually takes care of the ones in kitchen but for the wall clocks it is more effort as you need to climb up, pull it out of the hook/nail on which it precariously hangs and then change time and put it back on that nail which is easier said than done. The final holdout always is the clock in my car, I have always entertained this thought that it is possible to just keep the time unchanged in the clock and do mental math to figure out actual time and if I hold on till march then I can avoid another change back an hour. I think the longest I have pulled this off is till Jan end on one occassion.

This time again it was same story this year, after a couple of days all clocks were updated except the one in my car. But alas, we fall in line and thought rebellions all come to an end at some point, finally a few days back I set the clock to what 'they' say is the time.

Spell Check

Recieve

Seperate

Cronicled

gaurd

Vaccum

percieved

Occassionaly

So what connects these words or what is common thread here ?

No, its not a big mystery or anything major. All of these are typed wrongly by me during last one week in various conversations / emails. I have been noticing this for a while now, I realize I cannot spell certain words correctly at all. I of course turn to auto spell check which puts read squiggles under the word and if I right click on it, will prompt me with right spelling which I accept. After I while I think I have been conditioned to putting out likeness of words and expecting the machine to keep me straight. Pretty low effort you see for the man.

I do type lot of emails and do lot of chat / group chat conversations at work and occasionally create multi-page documents. So its not like I don't use these words and its not just me, I have noticed the same happening with several colleagues of various ages and ethnicity. Its just that spelling it exactly right is no longer essential as long as you get it somewhat right the software will do it for you. In fact iphone text message and whatsapp messenger both have smart type option where the word is provided as soon as you start typing and sometimes it guesses based on the context, so you don't even need to start typing the word. The word just appears for you to use. That sort of thing plus most common places where type like emails or other chat software have auto-correct which anyways helps you spell easily without a hassle so much so that our natural processing power has receded.

Not sure about the kids these days, but I wrote almost all my exams save my MBA ones in physical paper so spelling had to be right. But more than 15 years of relying on spell check has ruined my spelling sense. I do wonder if kids of these days or in the next decade will continue using paper and pen / pencil to write stuff and do things like spelling matter that much for them? I know Spelling Bee contest used to be really huge in US and lot of Indian kids used to win it and make news back in India.  Just a couple of months back multiple kids shared the honors as the competition ran out of words to test the remaining contestants. I was struck by how incredible it was that some of these kids are so advanced in spelling ability to beat the dictionary while personally I was struggling to spell some common words. That's quite something ...

Having said that, I also wonder if it really matters. What is the point in spelling bee and trying to get it right when all you do is type electronically with spelling assist always at your side. Going forward maybe we will just have tell your personal AI assist ( Siri / Alexa and likes) and voice to text typing will happen. Who knows really, but maybe not. Most likely we will manually type things and perhaps write physical letters which may in fact become super cool again.  As for me, I know I'm just being lazy and I really can spell those words if I put effort and my mind into it but I really don't need to. Perhaps that's the point. However that also brings up the thought that today my spelling is off by 1 missing letter or two letters jumbled in wrong order. If we stop caring about such mistakes maybe it
become so bad that you will next make bigger mistakes like getting 2-3 letters off. Then after a point even spell check cannot help as you no longer start making sense!  

And my watch(ing) ends!

So the last episode of Game of Thrones aired yesterday and just like that its over. It's been a journey of close to 9 years with Westeros legends, starting first with the books when I started reading "A Song of Fire & Ice" by George RR Martin back in early 2011 when the (as on date) last published book was coming out and then after an year  I started watching Game of Thrones. Along the way I became a huge fan, devoured the books and then the TV show had a great nostalgic value as it stayed somewhat faithful and turned out to be a really neat adaptation in the first few seasons.  Pretty soon, I started following various threads on Quora, Reddit and likes which just took me deep down the rabbit hole. Suffice to say I was fully hooked to this.

After 2011, GRMM failed to publish another book so the show became the main reason to stay connected to this fantasy world that Martin so masterfully fleshed out through his books with dozens of noble houses, 50-60 major characters. He had created a complex web of story lines playing out in so many different places / continents with actions and consequences echoing across and propelling the narrative. It was oddly satisfying to see a fantasy series which I picked up 9 years back become a cultural phenomenon and one of the grandest television spectacle of all time, never saw that happening! Still baffles me on how this got such a huge following  to make it a legit cultural event. But it did and I'm happy as this remains one of the few instances where I could experience and be part of a cultural phenomenon. It did start out as a nerdy stuff with complex and layered story telling and shocking twists which got folks hooked before becoming something massive. Have lot of thoughts on the actual show which I will cover in another post but for now will focus on something personal.

I moved to US in early 2013 and was a total outsider with some knowledge of popular culture through movies and odd tv shows. My work involved working with lot of Americans on the business/marketing side of things and Indians in the IT side. With Indians it was always easy to connect culturally but with Americans it was hard to form cultural connection as I did not ( and do not) watch American Football or Basketball which are huge conversation starters. I have watched Star Wars, Star trek and stuff so while I could follow conversations was not qualified enough to contribute anything significant. All that changed when my phone rang while at work a few times.

When I lived in India, my cousin Vaidya had the now famous GoT title track theme as his ring tone and I duly copied it from him. Now having moved to US, while at work my phone which I usually keep on silent mode rang while I was in corridor and the GoT theme was blaring loud. As soon as I finished my call and got back to my desk a young american colleague walked up to me and said he was thrilled to hear the GoT theme and said he simply loved the show. After that we used to catch up even after he moved to another floor in the same building, every monday he would drop by to chat about the Sunday night's episode. The same thing happened with 3 other guys over the next few years, even now I sync up with a some of these guys about the show on Mondays during the show run most of them figured I was a fan through that ringtone on my phone.  In most of these interactions folks used to reach out to me because I was the only one who read those books ( and read tons of articles and fan theories) so was well versed with the lore and possible conspiracy theories ( *Spoiler Alert*) like R+L=J and Jon Snow's fate etc. I was on higher pedestal as long as the series was following the books, but after about 4 years or so the books were covered and show had headed into unpublished material and unwritten material territory and there I got reduced to pleb again.

Sometimes at work when meetings are late to start during GoT season as we wait for folks to come in the talk will veer towards the recent episode and some theories on where it is headed and it was one of the rare moments for me to be part of a mainstream narrative with strong opinions! Another interesting incident was a few years back when we started working on a new transformation project at work ( we usually have geographically distributed teams) and they brought people to a single location to meet as we started the project. New teams were formed and all teams had to choose a cool team name. This was when season 7 was airing and I choose 'Lannisters' as team name and a motto based on that theme and then later that year when we created another team I had suggested 'Night's watch' in both a nod to GoT and to the fact that we were working extended hours at times. Both names were big hits!

This year some folks told me that they were planning to rewatch the entire 7 seasons to prepare for finale and for a while I thought I had better use for my time. Then I figured perhaps not, did not take me much once a couple of guys who were doing rewatch started discussing certain things they noticed, I got on to the bandwagon too. I used NYT's guide for rewatching where they picked key episodes ( 5 out 10 each season) to watch and I got ready for it this year that way. My employer owns the company producing/airing the show so for the last 5-6 months most of the web pages I work on had GoT based images on it and kept reading about some retail stories of our company which were decorated in GoT theme with actors who played some of the key characters visiting the store to pose with fans and stuff and it was a proper mania leading up to Season 8. I think once when I visited the Dallas downtown office ( the headquarters) I actually saw a replica Iron Throne kept in the lobby.
When season 7 ended I got the history of Westeros books that GRRM had co-authored to deal with withdrawal from the show and retain some connection with that universe. Finally today the watching is over, having watched the entire series from Season 1 to now Season 8 in a span of 3-4 months I have a feeling of satisfaction of being part of a spectacular tale. While internet has gone nuts as it generally does over any such phenomenon like this where fan expectation and media/marketing hype in age of social media takes things to a different level, I think that is par for the course. Oddly I'm happy with the way things ended and finally there is a closure to this fascinating story I first started reading in early 2011.  There is a sense of closure to an extent. While I do welcome any decently made spin-offs, I'm still looking forward to GRRM finally getting those damned books finished to fully wrap up this journey.

One thing I will really miss is the internet fan community abuzz with reviews, comments and various theories and takes. I mainly followed AV Club's expert version reviews of each episode and also NY Times episode reviews and additional nuggets. During season 8 I also started listening to some discussion podcasts but didn't really dig it. In a sense it was a group watch of a cultural phenomenon and that was oddly satisfying. So what next now?  I don't watch TV that much and watch very few shows, for most of last 3-4 months this was the only TV show I watched. Now I actually need to figure out what next on HBO. I had started 'Westworld' last year but did not continue so probably can finish it and Watchmen which should air this year looks interesting as well. There is also Veep which I had left off after 4 seasons which ended recently so probably that will be a much lighter watch.

Twitter detox - update

I think I’m doing just fine without twitter and all those silly banter over so many different issues bothering folks I think are worth following across all spectrums spanning Politics, global affairs, sports, technology, movies, latest trends.

I think I did save a lot of time from pursuing what I define as low value information and reactions to news events. The very nature of social media is such that it sucks you down the rabbit hole very quickly, I concluded that I have very little to gain from this. It occurred to me that I can perhaps try to fit in way more books that what I read nowadays. So that is what I set out to do

Last year with lot of effort towards the end I managed to hit 20 books. This year even though things are getting busier at work, I figured that I can do better simply by channelizing the time spent on twitter towards books.

So far by end of March I have finished 12 books. So I consider this as a win.

One of the main reasons for spending time on twitter and whatsapp and medium was to learn and discover stuff and the quest continues. The goal was to find information but the path to that was littered with banter which while it is fun and engaging at times does seem equally negative and pointless as well. I figured eventually I started spending more time in the banter than getting anything out of it.

For now I have opted to use email newsletters as the way to go for this. Since there is no social aspect and it is already curated it is pretty crisp

These are the ones I’m using on regularly now

Daily basis:

1. Morning Brew ( US centric) gives you a concise summary of what happened yday, it is like a news paper you can read in 5 mins. Plus it has good humor too.
2. Quartz Daily brief ( for evening time)
3. Abnormal Returns – some really awesome articles selected on daily basis
4. Axios AM

Once in a week or month

1. Benedict Evans newsletter on tech
2. REDEF newsletter
3. Brain Food ( by Shane Parish)
4. Om Malik’s newsletter

Winning at Oz

As a kid growing up in 90s while we played several sports only cricket stood out probably because that was the only sport where India had a competitive team. While we did watch football matches and tennis regularly on TV, cricket still had a special place above all of them.  In early 90s, I remember following some tournaments like one in Sharjah and when South Africa visited India for first time. But never really had any favorite cricketer and was still coming to terms with the rules and what the sport meant. My folks liked watching tennis matches on TV and Dad loved watching football. So I really don't remember watching cricket until the Australia tour of 1991/92. Late that year the Benson & Hedges cup ODI tri-series down under was broadcast on TV and that put cricket on top for me. I did reach scorecards and match reports by then in newspapers and used to read 'Sportstar' magazine.It was good to see and become familiar with some names like Kris Srikanth (with a familiar tamil name) the adventure seeking opener who would play some wild shots, the dour and defensive all-rounder Shastri, Azhar the captain, Kapil Dev the famous all rounder, Prabhakar the other new ball bowler and some young batsmen like Sanjay Manjrekar and one really young kid Sachin Tendulkar who I preferred over the more established names mainly because while grown-ups or older kids in the area knew about others and would talk about them the younger ones were just on the scene and not very known and everyone just knew he was special. Just after the tri-series where we got to final and got walloped was the 92 World Cup, the first one I followed. To an extent I still remember most of these matches ( youtube highlights videos and cricinfo articles and scorecards help as well I guess), like most kids I knew we all took great delight in beating Pak in the World Cup league match. The match that really broke my heart was the thrilling 1 run defeat to Australia in that World Cup.

So the morning routine in those months especially when there was no school and sometimes even when school was there was waking up early and switching on tv. I would ask my parents to wake me up much earlier than usual and they were amused as well. However what unfolded on TV was my favorite Indian team would get mauled even though we did put up some fight occasionally and gave glimmer of hope, the final result will be a resounding Aussie win presided over by what would eventually become familiar voices to kids who grew up watching cricket broadcast from Australia. While we all became life long die hard cricket fans, following action from wherever we are and that became one common thread for conversation with several friends and relatives who grew distant otherwise. In 90s the cable tv era truly arrived and we also got access to cricket matches played across the world, the ones from Australia always appeared better produced than anything else. There was something about cricket played in Australia that left a lasting impression, the way their players chewed gum, painted faces and strutted about, the commentators, the reverse score, the ducks walking across screen compounding humiliation often for a visiting batsman, the sledging, the crowd with their funny and cheeky slogans, everything ...

There was a clear belief that these Aussies were numero uno and beating them especially in their own backyard was extremely hard. In fact some friends of mine became huge Aussie fans even favoring them over India simply because of their winning / dominating habit, they might be pushed to a corner but still find a way to claw back and win. Even IPL's most famous and successful team picked Yellow jersey to resonate with Aussies who always win ( that line even made it to their team cheer song).  In early 90s we saw these guys at home were solid bunch and through 90s Aussies just showed they were top dogs in both ODIs and Tests and had several all-time greats in their lineup.

The next tour there was after 8 years or so and was even bigger flop, by then I was a die hard Sachin fan and felt terrible for him. Cut to 4 years later another Indian team was visiting down under led by Sourav Ganguly with Sachin, David, Very Very Special 281 Laxman and Sehwag as well around I felt a little more hopeful. I was staying in Mysore having started my professional career at Infosys and it turned out all 6 of us staying in that big house were cricket fans just like majority of the training batch. Our landlord lived opposite and he was also supplying us food, he was also cricket fan and did not mind us dropping by on cold early mornings to sip tea at his home while watching the telecast from Australia. He was really hopeful that we will win this time, which all of us admitted did not even cross our mind, we were just hoping we manage to compete especially since we did not have any experienced bowlers. Surprisingly on that tour we did compete  really well and when the Adelaide test was happening we were having an RDBMS concepts lecture in training classroom, but the instructor was young chap and eventually got persuaded to stop his slide show and replace it with rediff live score update feed as Dravid took us over the line in what to Indian teams of that era was a near impossible chase. Though we lost in Melbourne, during Sydney test a win loomed large but beating Aussies at home was not easy and thanks Steve Waugh and no thanks to Mr.Bucknor the series ended 1-1.

That series must have given a lot of hope for the team and for fans like me it was a big boost as my team had shown their mettle in what most of considered as the toughest stage in World cricket. The next tour was a bit of blur for me as I was doing my MBA from Singapore but cricinfo was around by then and following the game was easy even when attending classes. That series was heartbreaking as we felt a bit robbed though Aussies did what they did best, emerge successful from tough situations. In 2011 though we had a terrible defeat in England, I was somehow optimistic about chances in Australia and this time we had social media and several friends of mine had created an email group and during our day at work we would discuss cricket through emails. I remember camping somewhere in Karnataka with my cousins Vaidya and Sharad. It was a really cold morning and we had our tent set up in the  courtyard of our homestay and they had a TV kept just outside their home as that was the place they would set-up campfire and dinner for all guests. We parked our tents in such a way that if we roll it up we could see the TV and watch the test match early in the morning. There was lot of hope since Sachin and David were batting properly that day, then they both got out and then just like that it all came crashing down. Memories of 90s returned as Aussies just broke the team like they usually do to most touring sides and after a while the opposition just turns up to get pummeled. While MS was castigated and perhaps deservedly for not raising the morale and making the team compete, it was clear that his men did not have the goods to do anything there and the opposition was just a formidable wall or fort which could not be scaled and it was clear as day.

2014 was slightly different, as the tour started with a tragedy in Aussie domestic cricket and it sort of cast a pall of gloom over the entire atmosphere. There was a change of guard as Kohli took over as captain replacing an injured MS and made some left field ( some would say hare brained ) choices. All out aggression was the mantra and while Aussies clearly motivated to make a statement and dedicate a win to late Phil Hughes were playing extremely well, it was not that easy. Like it always happens India ended up chasing a huge total and the familiar script of trying to fight a bit and maybe a lone wolf waging battle while crashing to terrible defeat was expected. However Kohli and co just created some unbelievable magic the likes of which I had never seen as Vijay supported to an extent and the total surged past 300 and the possibility of an impossible win loomed large. It turned out to be Kohli's Chennai 99 moment as he finally fell and then the team collapsed. What seemed to be a golden chance to seize control and win the series was lost. These guys can never win down under we all agreed. Next match was just more of the same, they were in the running for most part and then a sudden collapse and boom the series was gone. Two draws that happened next did nothing, no one was saying at least its better than 0-4 defeat as in past, it was a feeling that there was a good chance to win and compete well and it had ended in another series defeat down under.

When 2018 tour started it was still hard to say, India having promised a lot but coming up short in SA and looking to be in running at least in the first half of England tour kept falling back towards the end as England always managed to land the knockout punch, so not so inspiring record outside India that year. On the other hand Aussies were without their talismanic captain Smith and prolific opener Warner out banned for an year for ball tampering controversy, but their bowling was still very good. We knew the Indian bowling lineup was good and could blow away the opposition and take those 20 wickets and set-up the game, the question was if batsmen will be able to linger long enough to seize the game. Living in US meant the matches are no longer early morning ones for me, this time I had not subscribed to any TV pack as we have become a no TV household.  So cricinfo was the place to be to follow the action, first day started and India started batting there was the familiar unease and dread. True to form the wickets started falling, the familiar story started repeating with less than 50 runs on board 4 wickets had fallen.

Not again was the general reaction among friends on my group and in social media as we all got used to that familiar sight of Indian team promising to cross a barrier fall to a poor start yet again and fall into a position of no return. It was 100 odd for 6 and then Pujara stood up and continued standing up for rest of the series. Slowly things turned normal and within a few days the tables were well and truly turned and despite some nervous tail wagging India won the first one. Then the familiar script returned as selection gamble backfired in the next one and India went down. This stage is usually the make or break stage in most series and India usually would miss seizing the chance after this. But not this team as the team crossed that barrier and won in Melbourne and almost had another big win in sight at Sydney before rains arrived to save Aussies further humiliation. 3-1 would have indicated the domination achieved, but 2-1 was good enough. After having watched India always struggle to win there even though they played well and competed a few times, this was ultimate abroad win for many like me who started watching in 90s. It felt very good to finally see that happen. It may not have been the best team Aussies assembled and it may not really be like India's wins in Eng and WI in 70s but still it feels Indian team has been able to break new ground. Of course future is a mystery and we the cricket fans are always hopeful but this is a great place to be right now for the team you passionately follow

Twitter detox

I have always been eager to consume as much meaningful information as possible and cover broad topics as well. I started reading newspaper pretty early as a kid and tried to follow affairs across the globe. This also led to reading books. After I started working, being in a globalized world interacting with folks across the country and the world meant more interest in getting myself interested in what was happening across my country and the world. I started following blogs and news sites gradually and it eventually led to subscribing to Economist Magazine to get a better picture of all the events across the world that week. In short I was always something of an information junkie.

Then toward end of 2010, I finally got a smartphone and started actively using twitter. This was an easy gateway to the world. Got to know about tons of useful stuff, life hacks, events across the world, got so many varied perspective reading concise thoughts of several influential folks. The difference between newspapers and magazines of yore and this platform was that it was really instant and quick snippets for most part ( though lot of it did lead to links/long reads) and character limit meant people expressed thought concisely  equally important was that it also meant you get sucked into conversations. To me my first few years of fully exploring this medium was really delightful and I picked up a lot of good stuff here. So much so that I declared to whoever would hear me out that era of  physical newspapers was over. I stopped reading them, I would get the news I want by simply scrolling across my timeline. I could keep tab of all the important things in India, US and rest of the world almost at real time by just glancing at my smartphone. Another interesting aspect of twitter unlike online newspaper or blogs was that, it was not just a concise post about an event/incident that happened, here it was a discussion of the event where people from various ends of the spectrum (with their own biases) weigh in with their take on the event.  As more and more people starting coming on the platform, what used to lot of quality conversations started getting mixed with just people fighting.  After a point, for me it was too much noise above any meaningful signal.

So while this happened, it was hard for me to figure out what was going on and twitter just became something that sucked up my available time. This happened for several years and I was truly addicted to the phone and this app. It was taking up way too much time and over the years the platform and by that I mean the content on it turned out to be mostly outrage or stuff fueling outrage by far.  In some time I was able to realize what was going on and in first attempt I culled my feed and removed such folks who were just outraging nonstop. Next attempt was in removing politics focused guys out, but turns out even folks I considered pretty smart and giving value addition by following did at times exhibit polarizing views on political issues and endorsed several articles espousing their preferred views, so next round was blocking certain key terms. I tried to put more focus on certain topics which I thought was more fun to follow and does not make you pick up an axe or sword and go swinging at all those evil guys who don’t agree with me/us.  It was possible, but that was tough as the noise level was high compared to signal. The key question was whether any of the stuff I was reading about or engaging with really mattered beyond a week's horizon. Was it worthy of the time spent, turned out most of the so called news and debates were either related to events no one will remember after a month or stuff no one can have any definite answer to or problems that will ever get solved in our lifetime which some geniuses were attempting to fix in 140 characters or less.

So after culling the number of folks to follow and limiting keywords, I made a deal some months back to limit my social media time in a day to just 1 hour. That way I will be forced to just focus on the important stuff coming in twitter feed and not get sidetracked. Tried this for a while and results while better are still not optimal. You always have this tendency to get pulled into some interesting at that time but ultimately meaningless hot issue. This does not go with my new found determination to focus more on info I care about in a slightly longer horizon.

So here we are, I stopped using the twitter app on my phone totally 4 days back. I think it has worked out ok, I did not delete the app. Maybe I can check it out once in a while during weekend or some specified time or start treating it more like facebook which while I was never addicted to was something I used fairly regularly until like 2013. After a while it stopped appealing that much and while I never deactivated my facebook account, I rarely ever used it. I certainly feel twitter does add more value than that, but have to figure out how to use it rather than the app using me. 

So I started this post with statement that I'm a bit of information junkie, so getting my fix of news and happenings in tech scene, little bit of hot issues in my  home country and my current country of residence and which way the wind is blowing in the tech industry where I make my living is still very vital for me. I had experimented with listening to Podcasts in the first half of 2018, but it was hard to find time. Now I think I can carve some space for some interesting podcasts every week. I also subscribe to some daily newsletters which I find incredibly useful as the curators trawl through enormous content and news coming up on daily basis and pick some must read content with links. I have also decided to channelize some of the previous social media time towards reading/listening to books. So current routine is morning time for news through the newsletters and after dinner for books. Looks like I moved from days of declaring newspapers as obsolete to reading something similar in another form early in the morning to start my day with coffee! 

2018 - List of Books

End of every year I put up a list of books I read that year, whether I write much on blog or not this one post that appears early January every year.  Finding time to read is always a challenge as reading is a solitary pursuit unlike watching movies or TV or playing some game. So at this stage of my life carving time out is always hard. Around 4-5 years back in order to get some more time to read I decided on trying out Kindle and from being a skeptic turned into a huge fan of e-books and Kindle. It did help me read a lot of books as I could turn waiting time at several places spent doing nothing into reading time.  So much so that from someone who believed only in actual book, I turned to reading only e-books until last year.

In 2017, I had started listening to podcasts and by early 2018 lot of my early morning walk time or commute time was dedicated to listening to podcasts. Many folks who read a lot had mentioned about trying Audio books and somewhere in Mid 2018 I decided that this was worth a shot. Though I did enjoy the convenience of e-books, since my day job was  spent staring at a laptop screen and I was fairly well addicted to my mobile screen rest of the day, I figured it was time to take some load of my eyes and put it on ears instead. I decided to test waters with non-fiction at first and quite liked the experience. So majority of books this year turned out to be Audio books on Audible or Kobo

Enough of that, here is the actual list:

1) A Champions Mind : Lessons from a life in tennis : By Pete Sampras & Peter Bodo

Last year I read Agassi's biography and after a tour of late 80s to early 2000s tennis through that book, I wanted to read about what Sampras had to say as well. I enjoyed this one as well and the book also matches with the player's personality.

2) TCS Story by S Ramadorai

Having spent most of career working for Indian IT companies, I was really keen on reading this book which covered  his life and the story of How Tata Consultancy Services got started and how they became a leading force in IT services world. This was strangely available only in Audio format on Amazon and that had kept me away until I decided to embrace Audio books this year. Its not a super entertaining read but folks who worked in these companies and are interested in the back story of TCS will certainly like this one. Its amazing how such companies succeeded despite our Government and bureaucrats who until mid 90s made things tough with archaic rules and regulations.  People  did wonder why India did not have great product companies ( several of my friends did in 2000s) and this book helps understand why it was super hard to succeed.


3) Bad Blood : Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-up by John Carrerou

This was actually the first book I heard and what a book it was. I had vaguely heard about Theranos scandal which was about silicon valley based well funded bio startup which basically operated on false promises, claims and by fudging key data and basically got tons of funding and a free pass by most until a determined journalist blew the lid off. This certainly was the best read ( or I should say listen) of the year for me

4) Homo Deus : Brief history of tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Several interesting ideas but did not really work for me as I was perhaps comparing this with his previous work.

5) Billionare Raj : A journey through India's new Gilded Age by James Crabtree

The author was an FT foreign correspondent who lived in India for a few years and this was his take on the growth of super rich in India and how it resembled the Gilded age in early 1900s America with Robber Barrons who control several industries and have good political connections to go unchallenged. He also examines how politics and business and corruption all co-exist and why that happens to be so.  As the nation is transforming at a rapid pace economically and politically perhaps and finding its feet on global stage, it seems to finding itself at a stage where there is pronounced inequality in its society. Really liked this one

6) AI Superpowers : China, Silicon Valley and the new World order by Kai Fu Lee

Was an interesting book, he talks about current state of AI and where it could lead us and compares how US has progressed and how far China has moved. With its vast troves of data available and Privacy not a major issue and with government backing, China is well positioned to leap frog Silicon Valley. There are thoughts about the impact AI adoption could cause in society and what could be done to make the impact less painful for the workforce.

7) Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman

I got through this partially and put it on hold to read the story behind the Author ( refer #15 below). So I'm still listening to this book at the moment.

8) The Coming Storm by Michael Lewis

This felt too short, it examined how efficient and well run National Weather Service is getting run over by appointees backed by powerful private lobbies who want to further their commercial interest.

9) Saudi America : The truth about fracking and how it is changing the world by Bethany McLean

10) The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

This was the only fiction I read this year, had noticed this in the year end lists of my cousins last year so wanted to give this a try. As young adult I had read JK Rowling and had loved her writing and though the genre was different I liked this one as well. Hope to get around to reading rest of the books in Cormoran Strike series soon.

11) Incarnations - A History of India in 50 Lives: Sunil Khilani

Author picks 50 Indians in the past couple of thousand years who mattered for the idea of India.

12) Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

In an era of sugar coated biographies and autobiograhies this one is a refreshing change as Isaacson tries to convey somewhat accurate portrait of one the visionary genius who was mercurial, arrogant and brash in dealings with other humans.

13) Everything Store : Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon by Brad Stone

14) Conspiracy : Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue  - Ryan Holiday

This is actually non-fiction, but as they say truth is stranger than fiction. In late 2016, Gawker media empire and its millionaire founder Nick Denton were brought to knees as a US court sided with Wrestler Hulk Hogan who had sued them for leaking a stolen sex-tape and Gawker went bankrupt. Later it emerged that Hulk Hogan who fought a hard to win costly litigation was actually backed covertly by Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel. This was his way of settling scores with Gawker who had outed him as gay and their founder Nick Denton himself had made several comments poking fun at Thiel and fanning flames online and putting Thiel firmly in their cross-hairs for a while. The response from a hurt Thiel was a secret multi-year  well funded conspiracy  to legally stop Gawker through litigation by supporting any worthy fight against Gawker. Ryan Holiday examines all sides of the case and also details how the conspiracy was hatched and executed and how no one really ended up winning in the end.

15) The Undoing Project - The friendship that changed our minds by Michael Lewis

This one is about the friendship between Israeli Psychologists Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky and how they collaborated to figure out how human mind makes decisions.

16)  HillBilly Elegy - JD Vance

Much talked about book last year for understanding the rust belt America. This was a very good read.

17) 281 and beyond - VVS Laxman

There is lot of highlights reel as Laxman recounts the cricketing encounters in his entire career but there are also some interesting anecdotes here and there. Laxman also reveals a bit more about himself, so all in all was a good read. Not super insightful or anything but a very pleasant read for cricket fans.

18) A Full Life : Reflections at ninety by Jimmy Carter

Carter at 90 takes this book as opportunity to recollect and recount his journey from humble roots as peanut farmer to public service to eventually ending up as President and then he also covers what happened afterwards including his humanitarian efforts  like building homes for poor/needy, which he incredibly does well into his late 80s as well.

19) African Diary by Bill Bryson

20) Silence : in the age of noise - Erling Kagge

This was fittingly the only book I read this year that was a physical / dead tree version. The author is an explorer who is perhaps the first to do North Pole, South Pole and climb Everest. He had done solo trek to South pole. This is a small but powerful read on the concept of silence and need to spend time without distractions and enjoying the silence and how it helps us.


Lot of reading was actually listening on Audible , Kobo , Libby apps. I started listening to books during lunch time and then if it was not a super busy day used to take a walk in the park nearby while listening. Plus tried listening during commute to work or during morning walks. Special word of thanks for the wonderful public library system in US. Several audiobooks and some e-books and the only physical book I read came from from Public Library.

20 is above the target I had for this year as things did get hectic from work perspective as anticipated, so really pleased with that. For 2019 I hope to match this, I really hope to cut down on time spent on twitter and channelize that to read some books instead so maybe just maybe I will do better.