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.

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.

2017 - List of books

So its that time of the year when I come back to my much neglected blog and put up my reading list of previous year. Something I have been doing throughout this decade along with my cousins who have a much bigger and super interesting  year end book lists put up on their blogs here & here.

Well back to the list, this year all my reading was done on Kindle ebooks which has been a conscious decision and over the last 2-3 years I migrated to mostly ebooks and this is the first year it has been exclusively ebooks. I don't think its the future ( it may well be), but I think this makes it much easier to read as I do read using my laptop and even Mobile phone. So makes it much easier and reading on phone is one of the reasons I have been able to progress with my reading this year.

Enough of analysis, without further ado here is the list and some thoughts on a few books

1.Open - Andre Agassi

Really enjoyed this one. Like several books in this list, this was a book I wanted to read for a long time having seen most of the matches/tournaments described in the books during my childhood days. I was a huge Sampras fan but towards the later stages of his career I did not mind Agassi winning. The book is like its title, really open and was an entertaining read. I hope to read the one from Sampras this year to see how things stack up the other end of the court. I don't think anyone can match the colorful narration from Agassi though!

2.Things Fall Apart: African Trilogy, Book 1 by Chinua Achebe

Recommended by my friend Ramki, this was an excellent read and is a classic I guess. Story of clash of traditional/animist culture with Colonialism & christianity

3.Ghachar Ghochar  by Vivek Shaunbag & Srinath Perur

4.NW: A Novel by Zadie Smith

5. Moonglow: A Novel by Michael Chabon

6.A Farewell to Walmart by Carly J Hallman

I decided to try something different from usual fare and picked some Kindle singles - which is books from new/upcoming authors and this being set in rural Texas not very far from where I live made me pick it up. Was about growing up in small town America and the impact of Walmart on the local economy and life of folks there.

7.Paper or Plastic? : The grocery store chronicles by Ricky Bylina

Kindle pitched this to be based on the one above - its diary account of a person who recently retired and decided to work an year as night shift checkout clerk at a local big brand grocery store

8.Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Had heard a lot about this one and it really was a page turner! Filmy yes but readable as well and glimpse into world of nouveau riche from Asia

9.Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike - by Phil Knight


10.Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier - by Edward Glaeser

11.River of Gods by Ian McDonald

Dystopian sci-fi set in future with AI out loose trying to escape humans and running amok, might seem standard stuff but what made this interesting for was this being set in India of 2047 ( a century after independence) which has split into several nations at war/conflict with each other over water. AI has progressed to attain consciousness and there is a squad to catch rogue AI called Krishna cops. The story is mainly set in Varanasi on the banks of river Ganga. He also introduces a new neutral gender ( nutes) and the story is a mismash of several characters and how their lives intersect which is standard potboiler stuff, but having this set in India  and incorporating some Indianness in the concept made it a really good read for me

12.A Walk in the woods - Bill Bryson

I read one book from Bill Bryson every year and this one was about his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail . Interesting and hilarious with loads and loads of trivia and information tossed in as usual was a good read for me.

13.Consider Phlebas: Culture Series, Book 1 - by Iain M. Banks

Among the best stuff in science fiction perhaps, really liked this intro to culture series which I heard several times earlier and finally decided to start this year. Enjoyed this one and hope to read more of this series in 2018. Excellent stuff!

14.Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations - by Thomas L. Friedman

15.Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment - by Michael D. Smith

16. The second machine age - by Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee

17. Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money - by  Nathaniel Popper

Good accessible primer on origins and history of the most discussed term of the year perhaps - Bitcoin. I thought it gave a good idea of how bitcoin originated and looked at its evolution and adoption through the people behind it from libertarians to cyberpunks and tech geeks to dark web pioneers to astute businessmen and silicon valley VCs who were able to see the future. The concept of bitcoin and 'blockchain' piqued my interest sometime in the middle of this year and I quickly realized learning about the fundamentals is more important that the price action and this was one the first books I read to learn more.

18. The Ivory Throne  by Manu S Pillai

Last year I read a book on Vijayanagar empire and decided to try and read at least one book every year related to South India. So it was Kerala this year and this book by Manu S Pillai on travancore royal family through last few centuries with focus on the ruling queen Sethu Lakshmi Bai. Very well researched and narrated and a good read for anyone interested in Kerala's history. Covers this mostly from ruler's perspective from 1500s onwards but also spends time covering the customs and practices as well especially the matrilineal system and how women had much better rights in the medieval society than modern one! Highly recommend this one

19. Fifty Inventions that shaped the modern economy by Tim Harford

Fascinating stuff, the only book from 2017 in this list. I had listened to Tim Harford on BBC podcasts talking about this and was sufficiently intrigued to pre-order this book. Was a good read

20. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything - by Chris Hadfield

I had attended some training session in office and a guy played some cool videos and this was one the books the guy in the cool video suggested.

21. Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan

Having lived for 6 months in Dubai and having interacted with folks there I have heard about the life there first hand. By now most folks know that life in desert paradise is not easy for the immigrant worker with minimum rights and how they get fleeced and are 'kept in their place' even though they do end up earning several times what they make back home in Indian subcontinent. This book covers all that and explores what these identity-less/powerless temporary migrants to gulf nations (who are in fact majority of the population in those nations) go through but is told with inventive prose with dash of magical realism thrown liberally. Just like gleaming immaculate cities in desert nations which look fantastic at surface but you really peer closer you see all the inequalities, injustice and stuff. The book I think is not everyone's cup of tea, there is not a single straight forward story, but most of them are metaphorical takes. I think through the surreal stories he conveys the rigid hierarchical and racist society and the precarious world of a lowly migrant worker and covers some instances when these worlds clash and disastrous consequences. Knowledge of Malayalam was a big plus while reading

So that's the list, 21 this time. 

Did I say 21 books, may not be much but 20 was the lofty target I had set for myself for 2017 and glad I actually crossed it. I covered a lot of ground middle of the year when I was working from home and had relatively light work load between projects. I wanted to read a little more fiction this year as I was moving towards reading non-fiction by default and wanted to break that habit. So this time it was 8 fiction and 13 non-fiction which seems to be good ratio, since I don't get time to sit down and read mostly and get disturbed often. Except for 4 books, all the rest were borrowed from library for free so big thanks to US library system and their Kindle integration which made it really easy for me to put 'holds' get notified via email and click a link and add it to my Kindle effortlessly.

I'm hoping to read more varied list of books in 2018, I'm positive I may not make it to 20 with all the learning targets I have set for myself. Last year I spent a lot of time trying to reequip myself with more skills to succeed careeer-wise and enrolled in a few programs in Coursera. I hope to spend lot more time on those things this year and so setting myself a target of 15 books and also hoping to use Goodreads at least this year. At least it will make putting this list up easy!

2016 - List of Books

This is the annual list of books post that I have been putting up for 5-6 years now. Someone did ask me earlier this year what was the point of counting books, thats a good question. I love reading but unlike in past there are several other things to occupy your time and sometimes setting targets is what helps us do even things we like.  Putting up this sort of list does motivate me to spend some more time reading rather than watching tv or some other activity and does give an opportunity to talk about it with others and hopefully get to know about some more good books.Was not hoping to read too many books this year with all that excitement in life and was pleasantly surprised that I did read 16 books. Not bad at all!

Massively helped by Kindle, I'm so happy I decided to switch to e-books a few years back that has certainly helped me read quite a bit. Now lunch time at office or waiting for car to be serviced etc has been transformed easily into reading time. Sure it is not like a holding a physical book, but a good book is a good book it makes you forget the quality of print or if it is electronic and just transports you into a different universe

Again another year with minimal fiction, just read 2 I think and all others have been non-fiction. That phase of life I guess :)  Also the list below does not cover several baby and parenting books I read

So without much ado the list for 2016 :

1.Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

Bryson has become of my favorite authors for his style of narration and this was a delight as Bryson revisits Britain. Great combination of humor and interesting insight and trivia, read this book on and off and books like this are ideal for reading this way.

2.City of Victory: The Rise and Fall of Vijayanagara - Ratnakar Sadasyula

This is about Vijayanagara empire, how it rose to glory and how it faded away. This is written by someone I know, the author is an IT professional who I had interacted with on social media. He is an avid quizzer and trivia buff and it is wonderful to see someone successfully move from writing code to writing books as well!  This was a good read and also hoping to read more on other South Indian kingdoms

3.One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment - Mei Fong

Chinese growth and policies were always object of wonder for folks like me from a chaotic democracy where consensus evolves over time and radical decisions are very rare. As with any system there is always something that is wrong even if things look well. The book is solid reporting at ground level of the damage wrecked by one-child policy imposed by the rulers on China. Author believes this was the most damaging policy decisions taken ever in the world and explores various facets of this decision and the impact on the country. It is equally tragic and horrific, the tales that emerge of parents who have are forced into late term abortions or kids snatched away. Almost like the cultural revolution but this time accepted better by people who believed this was for the good of the nation. I was more looking for people stories and how a whole generation of kids without any siblings are coping, how a two single kid families support their parents and Fong does cover that but not in detail. The scope is pretty vast as she makes her case against this policy which the govt of China eventually relaxed recently

4.Playing It My Way: My Autobiography - Sachin Tendulkar

Written by Boria actually, it was truly bore ya!

I perked up when I read passages related to Multan test, when Dravid declared with Sachin at 194. Sachin was upset then and he still is at being denied a shot at double hundred, he truly believes the landmarks count as well and does not see this a purely individual thing! Mumbai thing I guess. Guru Greg is slammed as well with some stories of how bad he was and there is some personal anecdotes but otherwise was a snoozefest. It was readable for sure, but no one reads the autobiography of India's most popular cricketer and most famous sportsperson to get highlights reel with scorecard ( yes they actually had it in the book) of most of the matches. Instead of free spirited Sachin of 90s, it was a painful accumulator on view. Expected a bit more from my most favorite cricketer


5.The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts - Joshua Hamme

'Timbuktu' in the title caught my attention, this is an incredible true story of how some ordinary folks waged an extraordinary resistance against Islamic terror reign of Al Qaeda in Mali to save huge trove of precious centuries old manuscripts. Good story it was, thriller as the title seems to suggest it was not. Also led me to read up quite a bit on rise of Islamic terror in Africa and also covered Islamic world in Africa with its own culture of music and various traditions and laws before Wahhabi ideology spread


6.When to Rob a Bank: ... And 131 more Warped Suggestions and Well Intended Rants - Steven D Levitt

7. The World of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin

When season 6 of Game of thrones ended, after a few weeks I started missing the world of Westeros and then found this companion book in my library and borrowed it on my kindle. This was written by GRRM along with some other assistants to give fans something to read while he takes eternity to write the next book. This was lightweight stuff, history of Westeros and covered some good background to the whole story was a fun read. The book is not Martin or any author narrating events straight forward, rather interestingly this is shaped like a modern history book which pieces together events from various sources or narrators some of which even contradict each other and the book writer deduces what might have happened and presents it to us

8.The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories - Ken Liu

9.Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide (Kindle Single) (Pottermore Presents) -J.K. Rowling

10.Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* - John Tiffany, JK Rowling,

Having lived through the mass frenzy that accompanied a Potter book release since book 4, it was a chance to relive those days. I did wait a few days for reviews and it was poor as expected, was tempted to give it a miss but then saw this at Costco one day and just did an impulse just like several others I end up buying at that store! Thought my mom or sis will like to read it but they didn't seem all that impressed. HP series seemed to have a good run and a perfect ending which satisfied almost everyone which is hard task indeed. Having achieved that any such attempts at trying to revive the series is fraught with danger and Rowling wisely avoided that by setting this as a stage play and handled it over to someone else but is closely involved and is credited with story. Personally I thought it was a decent read and a return to familiar surroundings but it was just like Peter Jackson's Hobbit series. Not quite the real thing, maybe the stage play format made it more weird, but it did appear to be a half hearted attempt to revive the story carefully without altering anything significantly


11.Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built  - Duncan Clark

Story of Jack Ma the famous founder of Chinese internet giant Alibaba written by someone who is a good friend and a trusted advisor to the man himself. This is a bit of hagiographic portrait  as it glosses over or just avoids any mention of Ma's shortcomings and sort of presents his side of his growth story. But not to say that it makes it any less interesting read as Ma's story is a fascinating journey from being an English school teacher  in a far away province in China to building from scratch a Chinese internet company which went on to have the largest IPO ever in the world!


12.Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk was in news most of 2016 with most of his crazy bets paying off. This book was very different from the one mentioned above in the sense though author did get access to Musk for writing this book he claims to have maintained his independence and not shared any draft with Musk. It shows as he showcases the good and bad of the person well. Musk is an extremely interesting character and perhaps the most significant inventor ( if that's the word) of this era. If things go according to plan he would have the most impact on planet earth and surrounding planets as well in this century

13.Serendipity : Accidental Discoveries in Science* - Royston M Roberts

Was a library book I got for my mom and since it was lying around ended up reading it. Explored the role of sheer chance and luck in many big scientific discoveries. Was an interesting selection, but narration was not very interesting and I did struggle to finish it

14. Ready Player One* - Ernest Cline

Was a gift from my sis, this was a rare fiction book this year. It was pretty good and made me wonder why I did not read similar books. One of the few books that I literally raced through and finished. Worked very well for me as it was a delightful combination of Video game culture and 80s pop culture set in future

15. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

Was an excellent follow up to Guns, Germs and Steel I read last year. This book traces the journey of Homo Sapiens to identify what is is that made us the most dominant race and the factors and various ages we passed through and he identifies what is it that made us succeed ( if that is what we call this ;) )

16. Lab Girl - Hope Jahren

Ms.Jahren is a biologist in Hawaii, this memoir is both a story of her love for plants and what is takes to be a research scientist and the challenges faced in doing research especially for a woman in this field. Traces her journey from being a little kid in remote midwest town to how she became interested in science with alternate chapters covering the lifecyle of trees/plants and her own story


So that was the list, now target for 2017 is to do 20 books which again is a tall challenge with a very active baby girl and also hope to start using Goodreads more actively and engage with friends through that to find out what they learn and share book reccos as well as that was the main purpose behind putting up the book list blogs. Since I hardly ever blog, assume no one really reads these except for those who I ask to read by sending link this post. So if you come across this and want to suggest any book to me please drop a comment, likewise for any question of books I have read

Also hopefully as part of a tradition we established for a few years, my more well read cousins will be putting up their lists as well   - Here & here


All books read unless called out are Kindle e-books
* denotes this is a Dead Tree Edition ( aka paper book)

2015 - List of Books

This started a few years back and  year end list of books has become an annual tradition of sorts with my cousins - @Vaidya and @Indhu. For almost a month now Vaidya has been hounding me to put up this list and I have been doing a GRRM on him by giving and missing deadlines frequently! Its usually hard trying to remember what you read and to put some meaningful notes for some books you really liked or did not like at all . Considering most of these were read a while back it takes a lot of effort to put it all together

Since last year most of my reading moved to Kindle and this year it was almost entirely on Kindle.  I know its not like actual books etc, but for me it is more about convenience and being able to read the book I wanted to read whenever I wanted. I tried to squeeze some extra reading time by carrying the Kindle around whenever I had to go to any place where there might be some wait time involved and managed to get a little more reading than usual. Some meaningless meetings at work could also be salvaged by reading through Kindle online on my browser! Plus it was easy to make this list as well :)

I notice that of late I read a lot more non-fiction than fiction, 4-5 years back I read only fiction and was reluctant to try anything else. Some things change with age I guess!  My target for the year just like previous years was to reach 15 books and if possible cross it and when I tallied it up I'm surprised that I have not only crossed it but crossed it comfortably and clocked 22 this time

So without much further ado the list

1. Dalai Lama's Cat  by David Miche

Pretty cute concept, covers some of the buddhist philosophies in a very light and easy to read way

2. If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai: A Conduted Tour of India  by Srinath Perur

Had read a few articles by this author earlier, so picked this up. The author goes on 10 conducted tours over an year covering really diverse places Indian tourists travel and what makes them travel.Covers such a wide variety of conducted tours available, ranging from the usual sightseeing, religious ones to really exotic ones. It was like he was sampling various different set of folks all of whom are called Indians but each travel group is totally unlike other ones.  More than the places visited, the writing focuses on the quirks of the groups he travels and people you encounter on the travel. Was a really interesting read!

3. Yatrik by Arnab Ray

Arnab is a very popular blogger who goes by the name GreatBong, had read another non-fiction book of his earlier which I didnt like but this one is fiction set in Kolkata and is pretty much a social commentary of Bengalis and the city and was a decent read

4. The Man in High Castle by Philip K Dick

5. Korma, Kheer & Kismet: Five Seasons in Old Delhi by Pamela Timms

Wonderful exploration of the foods and flavours of Old Delhi, the writing literally transports you and makes you appreciate the flavors. Quite a lot of interesting stories about various street food preparations across seasons and the people behind it.

6.The Sixth Extinction : An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Picked this up from Vaidya's 2014 list. Scary, super scary stuff as you read about how we are slowly destroying the environment we will in and our impact on flora and fauna

7. Hot Tea Across India by Rishad Mehta

The premise was interesting but didn't quite live up. This is mostly a set of blogs about his travel across India and some anecdotes turned into a book

8. Ten Kings  by Ashok Banker

Battle of Thermopylae ( comic/film 300) type story based on an incident mentioned in Rig Veda
A battle of disproportionate numbers set in ancient India. Works if you keep your expectations accordingly!

9.The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

10.The Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjaya Baru

For most middle class Indians 2004 elections and its aftermath was totally unexpected. NDA unexpectedly lost power and out of nowhere congress pulled out a neat trick scored another huge moral victory by picking Mr.Singh the economist turned FM as the Prime Minister. Irrespective of our political preferences I think everyone was delighted to have Mr.Singh as PM. Brilliant economist or FM he might be but as a politician or as leader of the country he was a big disappointment and the book written by his Media advisor  during UPA-1 Sanjaya Baru covers what went on behind the scenes. There are no big reveals or nothing major which we dint know but with deep sympathies and utmost respect for the PM, the author through various events and how decision making happened and how various events unfolded in PMO in the early years of Mr.Singh's tenure. The quagmire in which the PM found himself was partly because of his demure personality and tendency to avoid conflict and tricky decisions but also because of compulsions of coalition politics and lack of power within the set-up to make decisions without checking with Madam. The book very quickly establishes how hard it was for the PM to do what he really wanted to but after a point it seem to labour on and on establishing the same point and at times it felt like the author was blowing his own trumpet a bit. Bit of laborious read after you get the general idea on what happens in the corridors of power as author tries his best to defend hapless Mr.Singh and blame the power brokers of ruling regime for derailing all the good things the PM wanted. Mr.Singh's 10 years as man running such a huge country with zero political base is certainly a unique one and should remain so and as he himself remarked history will certainly judge him more kindly. This book gives a good view of his days as PM from an insider's perspective

11.A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power by Paul Fischer

This was a recco from Book reads in Economist Magazine and for a change was affordable as well. Read the description of this one and immediately ordered it on Kindle! North Korea is a country that has fascinated most of us and this book is about  an extremely bizzare real life story  of a South Korean filmmaker and his ex-wife ( a top actress) kidnapped by N Korean dictator to ensure North Korea is also able to make high quality movies. Sometimes truth is really stranger than fiction, the book covering the life the duo led in North Korea initially getting educated/brain washed and then as filmmakers aiming to put N.Korea on the map in International Cinema also sheds some light on how the country is run and chilling account of  what people go through. It will be really hard for any fiction writer to top this for sure and this was by far the best thing I read this year!

12.A Life Of Spice: Stories of food, culture and life by Monica Bhide

13. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Amazon constantly recommends certain books based on past purchase ( Gone Girl), I usually ignore these as I try not to read similar stuff  too soon. For a change decided to try a recommendation. This was something exactly on the same lines as Gone Girl with unreliable narrator though was not as taut  but certainly a solid thriller

14. Out of the Blue by Aakash Chopra

The cricket book of the year, this about Rajastan's successful Ranji trophy campaign and its good to learn about the life of domestic cricketers way outside the limelight and the big money giving it all for the game

15. Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair

Was a book recommended by lot of folks, finally read it and totally understand why this was recommended

16. Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry

In 2000s the Blackberry was associated with 'Managers' and top folks in our offices and end of last decade it was a cool gadget thanks to the BBM. Even more spectacular than its rise was its fall, the book covers how a two young Canadian entrepreneurs ( a tech wizard and Sales/Marketing genius) managed to create a new product line and changed the industry within a short time with almost no backing. It was their ability to guess what business users want and prioritizing functionality and ensuring security and reliability which made them such a valuable brand. But the very same values made them obsolete within 4-5 years of their success, the same folks who could guess what the markets wanted got it so dead wrong within a few years leading to their spectacular fall. The book was a fascinating read to understand what made them succeed and how the very same traits led to their total downfall as well. During my MBA days I had read many such business stories but to read and rise and fall of something which happened so recently and something that had been part of our life made this a really good read

17. Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Wanted to read this for a long time as I had seen a documentary based on this earlier. Took this from Kindle Owner's library. I can safely say this should be a Must read on anyone's list

18. Tea time for Traditionally built : No:1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The usual one, I read the series after a long time and perhaps the first book I read after watching the delightful HBO adaptation of the series which unfortunately had only covered the first 2-3 books. But the TV series changed my mental image of the characters and their surroundings. Also this was the only physical book I read this year!

19. At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

This was a good follow-up to earlier book by Jared Diamond. It covered some of those same topics about how we evolved to where we are today but this book was more focused on our homes and various everyday common things which we take for granted. Bryson basically takes on a tour of a Victorian era home in England and each chapter is about various various rooms/kitchen/garden came to be. Bryson is a delightful raconteur and we dont always stay on topic and cover a lot of related things but its such an engrossing read. I'm huge trivia buff and this book was a big collection of interesting fats about everyday things in human life and covers how society changed over last 150 years. One of my favorite reads of the year!

20. The Hair Dresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

About life of a single mother in Zimbabwe, the story aside getting to know how people carry on with their life in a country with hyper-inflation and high unemployment. I like reading books like this which give us a slice of life of someone in a society we have no idea about

21. 2014 The Election that Changed India by Rajdeep Sardesai

The 2014 elections was perhaps one of the most landmark events in the country or atleast that is what it appeared to be. After many years of relative inertia caused by fractured mandate the elections gave a decisive majority to a single party. The book takes us through last few years of UPA where the author contends they clearly lost the plot and pretty much gave up and it also covers how Mr.Modi's campaign was crafted and how efficiently it was run bringing BJP back to power riding on a 'Modi Wave'. The book is certainly a brisk read and chronicles all the events that happened to Modi campaign and Rahul campaign and compares and contrasts both the main candidates for the election. Of course there is that expected bias that you would expect but it is not hard to mute that out and read. To his credit the author has tried his best to tone down judgement to a great extent in the book but it creeps up every now and then though. This is more like a collection of various events that influenced the main event, written from the beginning with the eventual result in mind without doing any in-depth analysis

22. The Tusk that did the Damage by Tania James

A multiple person narrative covering events through eyes of a poacher, western researcher and the Elephant covering Ivory trade and human-animal conflict. This is such a complex issue and well written, it will take me some time to gather my thoughts on this one. Thanks for the gift @Vaidya!


I think I read much more than what I expected at start of the year and I certainly had a fair bit of time on hand at the start of the year and towards year with things totally slowing down at workplace. Target for this year is again 15 books and also hopefully cover all those pending books I have on my bookshelves which I have been putting off to read later for 3-4 years now!

2014 - List of books

Again yet another year when finding time to read was very hard but still managed to still carry on at least read enough to put up a list of sorts. No excuses this time as it was plain laziness and lack of time management. I started using the wonderful county library here and also got a Kindle towards the end of the year ( more on that in another post ) which considerably bumped up the number of books read.

As its such a short list have added some comments on some of the books

So without much ado the list

1. Leela's book by Alice Albinia : I really loved the previous non-fiction work by this author ( Empires of Indus) and picked this up with high expectation. That could be perhaps be the reason why I was very dissapointed with this one. This is a fictional tale set in modern India but its a sprawling epic threading so many different worlds with Ganesha as narrator and themes from Indian epics, re-incarnation, religious and class divide in modern India, homo sexuality and so many more things. Somehow the narrative lost steam very early for me and despite some good writing in certain stretches it was just not convincing enough for me.

2. Around India in 80 trains by Monisha Rajesh :  Indian railway stories is something I really love and I have devoured lot of documentaries related to Indian trains. But there is really no good book on train journeys across India. Thats a statement from this book from Monisha Rajesh an NRI from UK who comes to India to discover the country through trains. After finishing the book thats the one statement I agree completely with the author. The book is not without its merits there are few stray gems about how Indian trains and system works but its mostly average stuff with choppy narrative and mostly personal experience of a 2nd gen NRI and might appeal more to foreign readers than Indians I guess

3.The Messenger by Markus Zusak : Had started reading and then misplaced the book and recently found out, technically not fully read but planning to do very soon so will have it on this list :)

4. Myth = Mithya by Devdutt Patnaik :  This was a book I wanted to read for long and finally got around to reading this year. Hindu mythology and cultural practices and reasons behind it is a fascinating read. It was good to read about and understand so many things that are all around us as part of culture but to understand the possible origins to all these in such an easy to follow manner was what impressed me about this book

5. Skeptical Patriot : Exploring the Truths behind the Zero and Other Indian Glories by Sidin Vadakkut : Exploration of myth/history behind most email forwards with lots of humor thrown in

6. Seven secrets of Shiva by Devdutt Patnaik  - really enjoyed this one and looking forward to reading more such books

7.Goat Days ( aatu jeevitham) by Benyamin : This was translation of a malayalam book recommended by Vaidya. Downloaded the book on Kindle and finished it in 2 days. Its story of 'gelf' dream gone horribly wrong for a poor young man from Kerala. Having lived for a while in the 'gulf' and with so many of my college batchmates living there and interacting with folks there I was aware that it was not really all that rosy and so many folks have it really tough especially those doing blue collar jobs. But this was something else, similar in some sense to the book 'What is the What' ... its about story of dashed hopes and survival and ultimately its a great story about survival of human spirit. Even in presence of most adverse conditions the ability to pick oneself up and somehow survive the ordeal was really inspiring in a sense

8. The Devil in Us by Monica Bhide : Stories with Indian diaspora in east coast US, pretty dark ones involving guilt, loss and alienation

9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn : guess everyone must have seen the movie by now, I wanted to read the book first!

10. The Martian by Andy Weir : Robinson Crusoe experience / Gravity movie type experience set in Mars, again thats just the gist but this was a fascinating read for the science involved and the general geekiness . Also a great story of survival and triumph of human spirit in face of gravest of grave dangers. Can't recommend enough!

11. Sachin - Genius unplugged by Suresh Menon : There was lot of hype around the SRT bio which seemed overpriced and possibly banal as Sachin is so non-controversial, so in spirit of things picked up this book which was compilation of articles/essays on SRT by lot of cricket writers

12. What if ? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Questions  by Randall Munroe - This author is creator of xkcd - enuff said!


So thats the list , 12 ... not bad considering I had read only 3 books by Dec 2nd week, so there was lot of activity  towards the end of the year like Dhoni - ODI innings!

As part of our annual tradition looking forward to the lists from my more well read cousins : @Vaidya  and @Indu .. over to you guys!

2013 - List of Books

Not a good year for reading, sort of gave up reading for while  after relocating to US at the start of year. Netflix, Amazon Prime instant videos, reading The Economist magazine every week and having an ipad with insanely addictive games are some of the excuses.

With the necessary disclaimer issued, let me proceed to the business of revealing the List

1.Indianomix : Making Sense of Modern India -Vivek Dahejia & Rupa Subramanya

Picked this up as I had followed the writers on twitter, turned out be something on lines of Freakonomics set in India

2.Labyrinth : Short Stories

This was part of my conscious effort to read some Indian writing esp short stories. Some interesting stories, but at the end of the year don't remember much about this!

3. The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino

This was a Japanese book and was a cerebral murder mystery. It is different from conventional murder mystery as the focus is on how the deed is hidden from cops and was a good light read.

4.Oath of Vayuputras - Amish

I actually liked the first book in the series as I picked it up before all the hype around these books and felt the guy was on to something even though the language was very ordinary. But it has been steadily heading downhill after that. Used this book to read during long flight journey and while reading kept feeling why does he write like this! What a waste of such a good premise. I always felt we had so much good material in our mythology and history and lot of stories were there waiting to be written. But this was a colossal waste

5.Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Two awesome authors getting together to write about Angels , Demons and apocalypse and all that can go wrong. Hilarious stuff, enjoyed it totally!

6.Going Postal - Terry Pratchett

My first Terry Pratchett novel, picked it up after strong recco from my sis who has a huge collection

7. Irresistible Inheritance of Wilburforce - Paul Torday

My fav book of the year, delightful read. Unravels slowly but sucks you in!

8.Food in History - Reay Tannahill

Picked this on whim, but turned out to be a terrific read. The book explores the role of food in  human life as civilization progressed from early hunter gatherer days through various ages till the modern era. In spite of this being such an obvious thing the role played by food is not very well understood or known. The book was packed with a lot interesting insights into various historical events and how food influenced it. Focus is more on Europe but effort is made to cover the entire world, learnt so many interesting things while reading this

9.The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht

Set in Eastern Europe during Balkan war and covers the present and past as a girl remembers about her relationship with her grandfather and some of the stories he used to tell her.I'm yet to finish this at the end of the year, hope to finish this in a week

10.The Illicit Happiness of Other People - Manu Joseph

Thanks @vaidya for this gift. Book set in Madras of later 80s and is a story of  loss but is written by a satirist.


Finishing 10 books this year was a surprise for me given the slow start. But then I actually read 3 books in Dec when I got reminded that I need to blog about my reading list. Hope to get a Kindle in 2014 and switch to reading more e-books finally.

2012 - List of Books

Finally I return to update the blog, had been struggling to put thoughts together since Twitter made it very easy to express things to the world. Anyway had started putting the year end list last year and cousin of mine prompted to do the same this year too and compare lists. So here goes...


Listing the books from Jan to Dec in the order of when i finished reading it

1.Dance with Dragons ( Song of Fire and Ice series  / also known as Game of Thrones series for those who follow the HBO TV series version) - George RR Martin

The book was just brilliant and this was the last of the series that is published as on today and with this begins the long wait for the next one from Martin in this series.

2.Boy Who Harnessed Wind - William Kamkwamba

True story of a boy from Africa who managed to overcome poverty, absence of formal education to become a successful rural inventor

3.Indian Summers by John Wright - Must read for any Indian cricket fan as Wright covers the early days of what was a Golden era for Indian cricket.

4. Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh - Thanks for the recco Vaidya, enjoyed this totally. Mind was blown :)

5. Amul's India : Based on 50 years of Amul advertising

Good fun to go through all those Amul Ads gave a sense of India as they touched upon almost all major issues/events

6.Burning Rubber by Charles Jennings

Solid book on Formula One, good read for all racing buffs

7. Rahul Dravid : Timeless Steel , a collection of articles of Rahul Dravid put together by ESPN Cricinfo

8.Adventures of an intrepid film critic - Anna Vetticad

Story of Bollywood in its entirety as a film critic decides to watch all hindi movies releasing in NCR in 2011. Not  really as interesting read as i hoped as the insights and conclusions were something most of us sort of knew :(

9.Stories by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

Collection of short stories, yet to complete!

10.Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo

Easily the best book i have read this year and for quite a while, Katherino Boo brilliantly captures poverty and struggle in Urban India, hopes, aspirations and challenges along with how the system really works.

11.Cut Like Wound by Anita Nair

Pleasant Surprise this one, really enjoyed it part of the reason could be that this was set in Bangalore :)

12.Pundits from Pakistan by Rahul Bhattacharya

Thanks Vaidya for the B'day gift, very good read as the author covers not only cricket but opening up of border and hearts between two estranged nations for a brief period. Sights and sounds of Pakistan was an added bonus to the experience of reliving our best tour to Pakistan



My target at start of year was the usual 25 books, but with lot of things happening on personal front I expected the numbers to be much lower... but till i put this together didnt realise it was this low!

Hoping to do at least 20 in 2013 :)

My tryst with "Indian Summers"

Seems apt for the season, but this one is actually a book review of "Indian Summers" by John Wright. Before I get to the book, let me cover why I wanted to pick this one and how i picked this one up as that is also a good tale. I remember reading somewhere many years back that  during his coaching days John Wright was of the opinion that Anil Kumble would make a very good captain. Its another matter that Kumble eventually took over the reins and did pretty well and justified the observation of former coach who had watched him from close quarters. Also I heard from somewhere about this book which is basically made of stuff from a diary Wright kept during his coaching days so I was very intrigued to know what went on behind the scenes during a huge transformation period when India went from being an also ran team to a force to be reckoned with in turn leading to creation of a strong vibrant team, fan following and a huge cricket market that is there today.

But the search for this book turned out to be an arduous challenge in itself as most stores didn't seem to stock it, I had tried at small bookstore in Navi Mumbai ( where I was based then) where the owner was friendly and used to be give discounts, but no luck with this one. Tried  Crossword and Landmark bookstore, again no luck. I had started buying off flipkart by then and any book I wanted was there waiting with a generous discount but this one proved elusive. I wasn't daunted put a request to notify me when it becomes available and then forgot all about it. After a few months in a new city I happened to take part and win a quiz competition at my workplace and got Odeyssey bookstore voucher and the first thing I went and checked was this book. Again no luck, the guy was friendly and offered to write it down, he even recognized John Wright as our old coach and promised to talk to someone and get back to me. He never did, still I checked a couple of times but it was leading nowhere and after several futile online purchase searches I slowly forgot all about the book.

This IPL V season started and while discussing cricket with friends the usual who was the best captain ( the usual Dhoni Vs Ganguly) debate started and interesting this time during IPL there was a chance for face-off of several men who had led India and who wanted to lead India. While debating this I again wished if I had access to that book of Mr.John Wright where I hoped he would have shed some light on what really went on and how did Indian team team transform itself was it because of an aggressive skipper who managed to give it back to 'them' ( By backing his mates, giving more chances to people as some believe or by coming late for tosses, whirling shirt from Lord's balcony as some others believe). During one of those chats with Vaidya about cricket and captaincy a couple of weeks back I mentioned that I was looking for this elusive book for a long time. "Try flipkart" was the reply, I was pretty exasperated and wanted to start a lengthy drivel on my search for this book when tht was accompanied by a Flipkart link to the book which claimed it was indeed available. After quickly erasing all that i was typing I typed a quick thank you and promptly placed an order. But the order snagged somehow, towards the end the page went blank and order status was incomplete. Only then I noticed the book was priced at Rs.84 ... surely something was wrong, not again! But then I decided I will try again and ordered another book along with this and this time it went through. Vaidya did warn there must be some error somewhere as no one sells a hardcover for Rs.84 and they might ask for money during delivery. So called up my mom and explained this and told her to give me a call when book comes in case they ask for extra money. The book took some time to arrive and strangely nothing extra was charged. When I got home next weekend, this fantastic hardcover edition with a cover price of 18 Pounds was mine for just Rs.84. Surely there is some cricketing God somewhere!

Now onto the book, it was a pretty breezy read Mr.Wright sure has a good sense of humor and his whole India 'experience' thats what it actually is about is narrated pretty warmly. You cant help smiling when you read through many incidents which would bizarre/unbelievable for those unacquainted with India or Indian cricket. But Wright soaks it all up, learns how things move and slowly but surely changes the course towards something positive. He claims he was not all that soft as media believed and he did give players an earful and had picked up fights with high and mighty in the system but still its hard to shake off the image of the genial Kiwi quietly working behind the scenes and getting things done. However the book doesn't contain anything controversial and Wright is quite measured in his criticism. He is aware of the enormous responsibilities entrusted to him, the expectations from a nation of billion plus with very little sporting success. He is frustrated with the way things work and how an ineffective system is preventing a nation with so much talent from reaching its full potential.

Wright takes through all the major events during his term as coach and for an Indian cricket fan it is guided tour ( Like Directors commentary in Movie DVDs where lot of behind the scenes stuff is revealed) of  Team India's major campaigns which resulted in a lot of wins we are proud of. But Wright steers away from all controversial topics and takes care not to put up names or reveal who did what and instead subtly hints at lot of things. Some of things I liked was his narration of how he landed up in India to take up this job with no contract and not even an Indian visa! Lot of hilarious incidents like culture of players sitting in chairs and sipping tea during nets and munching sandwiches in gym while opposition players sweat it out! Concept of different team managers for every tour and getting people who had no clue as managers and how the concept of having selectors from a  Zonal system is turning the whole thing into a farce is well captured.
How he changed that culture with rudimentary support equipment and not much support from board is a story to read. There are lot of info that most people don't know like how Laxman was almost on verge of dropping out of the famous Kolkata test of 2001 because of a fitness issue and he also does cover the incident that became a 'hot potato' - Dravid declaring with Sachin batting on 194! The way he lost his cool and almost manhandled Sehwag ( just like every Indian fan would have) when he threw his wicket with a reckless shot, the book is replete with many such moments. But the relationship with Ganguly and other major players isn't covered in detail, Wright does point out quite a few things though. I thought he managed to strike a right balance between covering various issues while keeping lid on certain private behind the scenes stuff. Even though he doesn't give out much he leaves enough hints for a careful reader which is why I really liked this book.

Like my post - the book is also more on the overall experience and not just the cricket , the frustration and anguish and the talent and hope that is India for him. How it all comes together to make a great journey made a good reading experience as well. Highly recommended for fans of Indian cricket   

2011 - List of books

2011 has been the worst year of blogging for me as I somehow couldn't sit down and write on anything that mattered to me, I had taken to twitter at the start of the year and found it tough to go beyond 140 characters after that!

To make amends thought I will atleast try to salvage something out of 2011, a year I managed to spend a lot of time reading. So thought of listing down books I read; I had a very lofty goal at start of the year - 25 books something couple of my friends warned me I will not reach.

So let me see how I fared, here goes my list

1.Temple Goers - Aatish Taseer

2.Have Space Suit , Will Travel - Robert Heinlein

3.Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan - Zac O'Yeah

4.Smoke & Mirrors by Neil Gainman - Brilliant collection of bizarre short stories

5.Chinese Whiskers - Pallavi Aiyar

6.Arthur C Clarke's The Collected Stories - (Still not finished) this is a huge collection of his short stories right from 1930s to 90s. Its been a fantastic read, I usually read 2-3 stories once in a while. As I write about it I feel guilty of having neglected the book for last 4 months. But more on that later in the list

7.India After Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha - A must read to get an idea of how our nation evolved after independence ( good read atleast till 80s )

8.Room - Emma Donoghue

9. A Concise Chinese English Dictionary for Lovers - Xialou Gou : Story of a Chinese girl who goes to England to learn the language learning much more about the strange land and an unusual love story. One big diff was the way story is narrated, its from the perspective of this girl and the English in the book is her English - Badly formed sentences, wrong words etc! and it gradually improves as her language and understanding of culture improves ...

10.The Artist of Disappearance - Anita Desai

11.Transforming India - Atanu Dey

12.Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka - Thanks Vaidya for the recco, delightful read!

13.Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction ( still reading this, slowly one story at a time)

14.Batman : The Killing Joke - Alan Moore (ofcourse- just had to get this :)

15.The Hotel At the End of the World - Parismita Singh

16.Wide Angle - Anil Kumble ( its a photo album/coffee table book)

17. The Eight Guest and other Muzzafar Jang mysteries - Madhulika Liddle

18. Ambani and Sons - Hamish McDonald ( had to get this after 3 years of working for Ambani! )

19. The Secret of Nagas - Amish

20. Tea time for Traditionally Built - Alexander McCall Smit ( yet another book from the delightful No:1 Ladies detective agency series! )

Then towards the end of the year I got lost in the world of Westeros and other continents created by George RR Martin, easily the best stuff in world of fantasy. Guess the Songs of Fire and Ice series deserves a separate post, but this is what i covered last year

21. Book One : Game of Thrones

22. Book Two : A Clash of Kings

23. Book Three : A Storm of Swords

24. Book Four : A Feast for Crows

25. Salt - A World History by Mark Kurlansky

25 incidentally was my target at start of the year and until i started on George RR Martin's heavy tomes, I was well set to go past that number. And as you could probably notice there are 3-4 books in various stages of completion in that 25 ;)

Hoping I will touch 25 books in 2012 as well :)

Books I read - Nov/Dec

Just happened to read these two books which tread on the same territory - Afterlife . They almost validate Prof Dumbledore's line from Harry Potter-6 "To the well organised mind , death is but the next great adventure"

"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold

Had heard a lot about this a while back and wanted to pick this up and read ... there was even a movie recently based on this book ... that reminded me to get this one . But the theme somehow put me off after buying the book and took a lot of effort to finally get started. However once I started it was a pretty neat read especially because of unique plot device - narration by a dead central character. This is story of Susie Salmon, a young girl who gets gruesomely raped and murdered in her neighborhood and her body is disposed off where no one can find her. The story is narrated by her spirit watching over her parents , school friends , neighbors and also her killer over a period of time . Susie Salmon watches her family/friends slowly come to grips with reality that their missing daughter/friend may never come back again . As Susie watches from above the once picture perfect family struggles to recover from the loss and move in different directions affecting each others lives and bonds of family get stretched. Its about relationships and coping with loss and its also about love and its power to heal wounds. Everyone affected by this loss deals with it in their own way , but in someway or other they heal and get back.

Young Susie is not sad or bitter but hopeful and optimistic and eager to know how people are doing and progressing in life and wishes they all move on , even though she herself will never be able to experience things people down below are experiencing. Inspite of a little surprising and a tad romantic ending this was a nice read. A significant departure from the kind of books I usually read , but this was worth it !

"Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger

I picked this one up as I had simply loved this author's previous book "The Time Traveller's Wife" which was a great read as was a about a character which took on the concept of time. Here once again Niffenegger is on similar territory as concept of life and death is re-examined/challenged this time.

Valentine and Julia Poole are 20 year old symmetric twins , they are identical and are in fact mirror images of each other .They suddenly inherit a big house in England overlooking Highland Cemetery from their recently deceased Aunt Elspeth who is buried in the same cemetery. But the condition for twins getting the house is that they should live for 1 year in the house and their mother (Aunt Elspeth's identical twin sister) and their father should not set foot in the house. As twins move from US to Britain , they enter a world of mysteries and dark secrets.They also meet a few eccentric neighbors including the enigmatic Robert who is working on his thesis on Highland cemetery and also happens to be their late Aunt's young lover. As one twin falls for Robert against the wishes of the other , cracks start appearing between the 'perfect' symmetric twins . In addition to all this Elspeth manages to return as ghost to her house and makes contact with her nieces . There is a delightful subplot involving another neighbor - Martin , who sets crossword puzzles for newspaper but whose life itself is a puzzle as he suffers from OCD and cannot leave his house and hence struggles to get in touch with world outside the house where the love of his life resides . Meanwhile Elspeth's ghost also goes through the same problem as she is bound to the house where the twins nows reside while she desires to move on and get close to Robert , who was the love of her life .Overall it seems a good place to lose one's mind and thats exactly what happens . What unravels is a shocking tale of love turning into obsession and degenerating into madness as the boundaries between life and death blur. The Highland Cemetery provides a great setting for this nice ghost story and it is described very well and almost feels like a character in the plot !

Books I read - Sep/Oct

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - by Paul Torday

This is a brilliant political satire about a ludicrous idea of a sheik from Middle East to introduce Salmon fishing as a sport in the wadis of his desert nation. When international politics , government departments , inept bureaucrats and even British prime minister's office get on board the insanity reaches epic proportions and a dazed fisheries scientist finds himself in the middle of this ! This delightful novel pokes fun at British society , TV/news , the spin-meisters and politicians superbly.

Book begins with this idea of a Middle east billionaire to introduce salmon fishing in his country and interestingly uses letters and office memos , diary entries , report from House of commons , interrogation tapes and hilariously even intercepted Al Qaeda mails being used to move the story forward. The idea which began through correspondence through letters (and internal memos) from a firm representing the Sheik and fisheries dept and this scientist moves forward quickly and reaches the highest office in the country and the ridiculous idea catches the fancy of a few and becomes an order from dept and project of huge national importance ! The Sheik and the scientist bond well and he starts admiring and respecting the sheik and his vision and the idea actually seems to take off and the entire team starts "believing" Sheik's vision until absurdities of life catch up in the end. This is a really wonderful read. Somewhere along the line there is a lesson for some real world nations who too believe in such improbable ideas !

Ps : There is a movie being made on this book

A Short History of tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka

I picked up this book because of the title , the book is again a humorous account of how life changes for a middle aged Ukrainian immigrant in Britain when her mother dies and her extremely old father decides to marry a young Ukrainian woman who is clearly marrying only for her father's money and to get citizenship. The daughters plot and plan and fight to save the old man from clutches of "the evil painted Russian tart" and in process try to discover a family bond which never seemed to have existed. The story is narrated in a very light tone , but it does touch a lot of real serious stuff about relationships , loneliness , ageing , sibling rivalry , life in the communist nations , World war 2 , the hardships faced by these immigrants before and in UK. The title comes from the book this old father is writing about innovation in farm equipment and machinery in Ukraine , he notes how innovation which could have helped cultivate the world and create food got changed into wrong direction. Instead of tractors the focus moved to machines for war like tanks and instead of machines which tilled , machines which killed were created.

Book Review : What is the What ?

Honestly , it was the title which prompted me to pick up this book from Crossword bookstore ... Never judge a book by a cover they say , but most of the books i pick are based on hunch that they could be good by looking at their cover and what they say at the back of the cover !

What is the What - is an awe-inspiring story of struggles faced by a young orphaned boy named Achak from Sudan , who had to wade through a civil war affected homeland , walk for several months through difficult terrain , living on next to nothing , move through refugee camps across three countries to find a life of peace only to have it shattered and begin the journey all over again !

What makes this boy/man's story so special is because it is full of struggles against forces which have consistently tried to knock him out , shatter his spirit. But every single time he falls down , he still manages to pick up the pieces and get back on his feet and continue his journey. The story begins with young Achak living in his peaceful village as tensions slowly rise between Arabs and Christians in his land. It covers the journey of group of boys called 'Lost boys' who walk flee from the slaughter in their homelands to refugee camp in Ethiopia and later to Kenya . Before finally managing to reach USA . As it is told from point of view of young boy there are no political overtones and this is purely the story of how hatred/communal violence affects common men.

This real-life story of Achak Deng is truly inspirational stuff and is well worth a read for the courage it gives to every reader to face the challenges of life bravely and do whatever you can to improve your life and that of people around you. I picked up this book when I was going through slightly rough phase in my life , but my troubles seemed very trivial compared to challenges this boy had faced and reading this book improved my spirits considerably and made me look at myself differently and acknowledge how privileged we are growing up in a relatively secure environment. This is a book which tells us how follies of a few have damaged the lives of millions irreparably , but also offers hope that despite all the challenges where there is a will to succeed there is always a way

Wolf Totem - Book review

Wolf - is an animal with which humans had a very long and old connection right from stone ages where men were supposed to scavenge from Wolf kills. Their strength,agility, teamwork - hunting packs with defined territories and communicating through howls makes them one of the best predators in any condition and hence most feared opponents for men ; precisely the reason they have been ruthlessly hunted and pushed to wilderness. But these qualities also make them an enemy men revere , right from Native Americans to Grasslanders in Mongolia , wolf is a much respected foe and part of their traditions. It is said that in Europe as men began settle down and clear forests for large scale farming wolf was a big scourge attacking livestock , this led to tales connecting Wolf with Satan , leading to massive hunts to wipe out wolf population. Our perception of wolf is likely to be influenced by the biased view of farmers who saw them as enemies and much of popular literature (tales of werewolves) and culture backs this view.

Jiang Rong's 'Wolf Totem' offers a radically different view of this animal , the book is set somewhere in 1960s in Inner Mongolia during Cultural revolution in China. This book is tale of a young Beijing student sent to live in harsh countryside as punishment . Book describes life of nomadic Mongolians , their traditions and rituals and paints a fascinating picture of wolf , which is feared , hunted yet highly respected by the local mongol grasslanders. For them Wolf is their biggest enemy , but they also understand the crucial role wolf plays in maintaining the balance of Eco-system by keeping the population of other inhabitants of grassland in control and ensuring that land remains green and natural balance is maintained. Those men understood their role in their tug of war with wolves which ensured that Mongols and their animals remained very tough and combative and they in turn by hunting wolves , without wiping them out maintained this balance. The book beautifully describes some fascinating battles between wolves and men , where lot of strategy is employed by both parties and paints wolves as a very sharp thinkers , who carefully assess the situation , plan and execute their attacks to perfection.

The protagonists (Chinese students) wholeheartedly adopt the customs and practices of traditional mongols , earning respect of locals and gaining acceptance. But their relations take a turn when the students adopt and try to raise wolf cub in captivity wanting to understand more about nature of wolves and understand the Wolf totem. The students form a great bond with the cub , but realize gradually that it can never be raised in confinement , the fate of the once wild wolf cub raised under chains in a way is a metaphor for how man has taken control of nature.

A beautiful and serene pastureland which sustains wide variety of flora and fauna has managed to maintain itself and to provide for people living there for ten thousand years. But ever increasing of population of China means farmers from plains have to look elsewhere for food leading to a battle of traditional nomadic herders with modern agrarian society seeking to get more out of the land . At the same time the clashes between man vs nature led by their finest guardians - the Wolves keep happening , the arrival of increasing numbers of men from plains of China along with arrival of modern weapons threatens to totally tilt this delicate balance and send things spiraling out of control. This book describes the cost nature has to bear to support the progress and advance of human race , through the lives of these herdsmen it proposes how we could have lived in harmony with nature. The consequences of human progress on the whole eco-system of Inner Mongolia is a great read and it is something people anywhere in the world should be able to relate to.