2019 - List of books

Here comes the annual year end list of books read which I have been doing for a while now. Every year I look at some impressive lists online and by my cousins who read quite a bit and always think I should try to get there. This year perhaps marks my first serious attempt at reading a lot more than I usual do. I just did a few simple hacks this year, first put a cap on social media time and then gave up twitter and Facebook altogether ( for most part). This did free up a lot of time for books and I should say made me more happy.  I also wanted to read more fiction than what I usually do ( very little) so those were the goals when I set out at the start of this year.  Another helpful factor was audiobooks, by now I had grown very comfortable with this format and this did help in covering a lot books. Lot of my morning walks or afternoon post lunch walks during spring and autumn were spent listening to books.  So have split the list into fiction and non-fiction and also called out with * if the book was an audiobook. Have not added any comments/thoughts on already popular books.

So without much further ado here is the list


1) Who is Michael Ovitz - by Michael Ovitz*

Autobiography of a Hollywood / TV power broker  and covers his rise from total outsider hailing from lower middle class family to rising to be one of the best agents in Hollywood and setting up Creative Artists Agency.

2)  American Wolf  by Nate Blakeslee*

One of the best ones I read so far this year, this is the story of the Wolves being reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park which like most American parks was without any major predator. It was a big effect on the whole ecosystem ( this part has been well documented by Nat Geo and several others), but this book focuses more on the actual wolves through the eyes of a dedicated Wolf watching community in Yellowstone who chronicle the every day activities of serveral wolf packs. There is also a ripple effect when the wolf numbers start rising as it leads to inevitable human-wolf conflicts as the wolf pack range increases outside the park boundaries. Its an emotion packed narrative, like one of those Nat Geo/BBC Earth features where you try to visualize the lives of Wolf packs while also examining what goes on around them.


3)  The Last days of August by Jon Ronson*

A journalist investigates the death of an adult film star who died after twitter spat with a few other stars/players in adult film industry over some comments she made which got interpreted as homophobic. Everyone ganged up on her and it got called out as cyber bullying and it was believed it drove her to taking her own life in the end. This is an in depth investigation of this real incident as the author examines various possibilities including murder, to cut long story short ( not mystery, this was news) it was suicide but driven by so many factors. Just highlights some of the terrible things that happen to these  vulnerable women at the hands of a powerful industry and deals with abuse. Pretty dark and disturbing.

4)  Americana by Bhu Srinivasan*

Really fascinating book, long but much recommended. Covers the history of America from the time of Pilgrim fathers to modern day through the lens of capitalism. This truly is a land built by business, investments, technology and above all capitalism as the author sets out to showcase with wonderful examples.

5)  Boomerang by Michael Lewis - Michael Lewis is  again someone I always want to read given that he covers a wide variety of topics, always a good read. This one is about 2008 financial crisis as he traces it across Europe and back to US. Truth is always stranger than fiction, this is one such tale.

6)  Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans* - On AI

7) Lean Startup by Eric Ries

8)  Zero to One by Peter Thiel

9) Moneyball by Michael Lewis

10) Airbnb Story by Leigh Gallagher - recommended by a good friend, who thought I will like this and it was indeed a great read.

11) The Sharing Economy by Arun Sundararajan* - This was referenced in airbnb book, so had to check this out.

12) Born a Crime by Trevor Noah* - Stories about his childhood in apartheid South Africa as a mixed race kid.

13) Rise and Fall of Nations by Ruchir Sharma*

14) The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

I joined a book club at work and this was the book of the month which we had to read and then discuss together. Turned out to be a pretty good read for all of us living in a consumption driven economy, the amount of choices while seemingly unlimited also pose the challenge of decision making and pressure to make optimal choices which make it so hard to pick from the myriad choices. Was a really good read on the science of decision making.

15) Eager - The  Surprising, Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb* - This was a delightful book on one of the most under appreciated super stars of North American ecology.

16) Becoming by Michelle Obama*


17) A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson*

I always try to read a Bill Bryson book every year. This is among his best I think. Truly awesome book and something everyone should read. He makes science so accessible and this book had a really vast/broad scope and he manages to keep us entertained and informed while moving across topics with typical ease. Lot of things we might have read in school science classes about various discoveries and inventions, it manages to be fascinating, informative and fluid as Bryson guides us across ages of scientific discovery. This one book I will read again and will still remain fascinated.
PS: Its super looong

18) 21 Lessons for 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari*

19)  It Happened in America by Lila Perl

This was a chance discovery in an AirBnb vacation home, I read a bit and then came home and borrowed this from library. Talks about the 50 states in US with some general description of the original of the state and its name and also contains an account of some person from that state to capture the essence of the state. Most of the stories are set in 1800s except for a few in mid 1900s for some states. Good way to know about American states!

20) The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Bogle*

21)  Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches - The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris

Why is Cow revered by Hindus, why do Muslims hate pigs, why do wars happen? This book comes up with logical, seemingly rational explanation for lot of these things. Very interesting stuff.

22)  Range by David Epstein*

Really fascinating book talking about generalists. I could connect a lot with this as I have felt a lot of times that I'm a jack of all trades without having in depth knowledge of anything. This book venerates such traits, so was a positive validation!

23) Educated - Tara Westover*

This was part of several year end lists and for good reason. Story of a girl from Utah who grew up in a self sustaining farm/scrap yard in rural Idaho under  crazy parents who did not believe in the 'system' and did not send kids to school and held outlandish beliefs about Government and society. Was disturbing at times but again a story of courage and determination pulling through and how she overcomes lack of schooling to make it to college by self study and get her PhD.

24)  Atomic Habits by James Clear*

This book and #27 below somewhat helped me in thinking further on what I can do to improve certain habits and get to my goals.

25) The case against Sugar* by Gary Taubes

Compelling argument against Sugar Industry and the product itself in the way it is consumed today.
PS: In 2019, I went sugar free in Coffee and Tea. So this book acted as validation of sorts.

26) Eating Tomorrow - Timothy A Wise

27) The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg*

28) Coromandel : A History of South India by Charles Allen - A much recommended book, this is again super informative and has a broad canvas and I learnt a lot of new things. I pick this up and read a chapter or two and then pick it up later and read a few chapters.

29) Creativity Inc by Ed Catamull

I had attended a Product Management workshop and the trainer had recommended this one. This is the story of how they get things done at Pixar. I'm a huge fan of Pixar movies and they have an incredible success rate in terms of delivering amazing movies and Ed Catamull who headed Pixar and later Disney Animation ( with Steve Jobs also around as Pixar boss) explains their secret sauce. Sort of guide on how good creative organization / teams are built. They just focused on removing obstacles and let people unleash their creativity and positive energy. Good read.

30) India Moving by Chimney Tumbe* - Heard about this through Amit Varma's Pragati podcast. Migration is a topic I'm really interested in for obvious reasons. This book traces history, patterns of migrations in India across last 3 centuries, covers migration heavy belts within India and goes over Indian diaspora spread across the world.

31) New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop - by  Fatima Bhutto

World for most part is driven by western cultural influences, this one covers the ones from East which has takers across the world - Bollywood movies/music/dance, Turkish soap operas ( Dizi) and K-POP of course. Driven by reporting from Middle East, Turkey and South America, was informative but very jumbled timelines. While some portions are from discussions with people on streets ( like in Peru, Lebanon) others are from interviews with execs, power players and perhaps personal circle ( for Bollywood) which makes the generalizations and sweeping statements a bit uneven and off putting at times.

32) The Social Leap by William von Hippel

This is an interesting tour through our evolutionary past from apes to modern humans and how our mind evolved. Core concept is that we are what we are because we are social and learnt to work with groups and grew to like and support fellow beings  and hate/oppose the 'others'.  The social group dynamics were fascinating and explains the echo bubble and the camps we see in social media these days perfectly well. As he puts it we love to exaggerate and we are good at believing each other's bullshit when it suits us as a group. That is how we survive and evolved!  Very good read.

Fiction :

33) Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Story of a slave girl from a Southern Plantation from hell making a run for it from oppressive masters to North where Slavery is abolished through underground railroad network operated by helpful whites. It is a powerful and gut wrenching narrative of the terrible life for slaves in that era. It is also a story of courage, hope and inherent good in human nature coming forward even in bleakest of times and helping. Highly recommended.

34)  The Third Man by Mani Sheriar

35)  Identity Thief by Rachel Rosenthal

36) Ninth and Nowhere  by Jeffery Deaver

37) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

38) Panchinko by Min Jin Lee*

Historic family saga spanning 4 generations of Korean family in early 20th century when Korea was occupied by Japan and continues in Japan where Koreans live as 2nd class citizens.  One of the first fiction audiobooks I tried and I found that reading fiction through audiobooks actually work. This was a book which shed light on lot of things I didn't know about - how the Japanese invasion and world war ravaged the life of Koreans and how they got treated subsequently in Japan. 

39) Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar*

This was a short audio book ( less than 2 hours) which really employed this format really well. The story is about a few months in the live of an Indian american girl with parents living in India. It is covered fully through phone conversations and voicemails. This starts as relationship one and quickly takes a dark turn into an occultist thriller.

40) The Tenth Island : Finding Joy, Beauty and Unexpected Love in the Azores by Diana Marcum

Stumbled upon this through Amazon Prime as this was among free books for the year, since I was anyway exploring themes like migration and sense of belonging this one slotted right in. Based on author's semi autobiographical take on her time in Azores.

41)  Bright by Duanwad Pimwana

Picked this up blindly from Library. Set in Thailand, this is an English translation. Story of an abandoned 5 year old boy who is left on city streets in the working class neighborhood where the family lived until now after the parents separate and go their own ways. The boy waits expecting someone to come for him and the neighborhood pitches in and helps the boy out. Each chapter is a story based on some incident/event in the neighborhood. Its tragic at one level but from boy's perspective its still fine as he still has friends and folks to look after him and world as viewed by him while still being unfair and harsh place is still fun and adventure as he feels he is more free and the book does pack its fair share of humor as well. It comes across as tragic and heartwarming at the same time.


42) The Fox and Dr.Shimamura by Christine Wunnicke

Its a sly little novel set in early 19th century Japan of a psychologist who both doctor and perhaps the patient as well. Several unreliable narratives with quirky characters, blend of orientalism set in Europe as well as Eastern mysticism in Japan. Picked this up from curated international section in Library, this way beyond what I read and made no sense until it sort of comes together in the end. I would say it was an unique and rewarding experience.

43) Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

Indukka had recommended this a lot and this was part of her list earlier, so wanted to try this and it was available in my library so picked this up and dived into it. This was a nice and comforting read which transports you to Shangai as we follow along Inspector Chen through various bylanes and the city itself is a character and comes alive in this series. This is an inspector who is also a poet and well read and is quite a foodie as well. I quite enjoyed the amount of attention paid to food the characters consume with vivid details. Overall a well crafted mystery with very well fleshed out characters and brings out the early 90s China truly alive. Can't recommend this enough to folks, such a delightful read.

44)  Loyal Character dancer by Qiu Xiaolong

45) When Red is Black by Qiu Xiaolong

46) Amazon collection of short stories* by Andy Weir, Paul Trembley, N.K Jemisin, Amor Towles

47) A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

48) Where the Crawdad Sings by Delia Owens

Recent  2019 best-seller fiction list topper which I snagged from library and got 7 days to read it. Finished it within 2 days. Was a good read.


So that was the list, it was challenge remembering and noting down the books read as I got it from various sources. Ended up at 48, while the cricket fan in me rues missing a half century milestone, it still is quite a remarkable journey for me. I feel like I have smashed some ceiling or wall in terms of ability to read. Its 4 books a month which seems quite a lot. I have been reading quite a few blogs or helpful articles about reading itself and forming better habits. So one advice I implemented is to not trudge through things, I think I must have dropped like 10 books after reading it for a while and only continued if I thought I liked it. Other of course was to get away from social media and channelize the time into reading books.

I'm also super thankful for having some good friends who talk about books and my cousins who post some incredible reads every year. Also big thanks to the Library system in US which is simply amazing in the amount of good books they stock and the ease of access in getting books from libraries or online or via Libby App. I visited the Libraries in my neighborhood often to pick up books for my daughter or with parents ( who read a lot when they visit), this gave some chance to browse a bit and pick up things on a whim. I feel I was doing a lot of planned reading and wanted to shake things up by picking up something random every once in a while outside my usual comfort zone and this year as well I picked a few like that and mostly they were good. Thanks also to Amazon for the amount of free books they offer to 'Prime' members and of late there are some really nice ones that come up in that list. There is also a feature to listen and read as well ( audible + kindle).
Also returned to reading dead tree  (paper) books ( the library ones mentioned above) though majority of what I read were e-books and audio books. So far I still don't see any difference in my reading no matter what format the content is delivered, if the book is good I get hooked and read it. I think I did improve the amount of fiction I read as well as I covered 16 fiction vs 32 non-fiction. The ratio was more lop-sided last 5-6 years.

So overall it was a good year as I met/crossed the goals, I do hope to sustain this pace next year and hopefully do 50 books. Of course its not the number that matters, just that setting such a goal and an effort to read a variety of books ensures you do end up reading a lot more rather spend time on something else which in reflection turns out to be not all that productive or satisfying.

The year that was 2019

Doing a quick bullet point version of 2019 what worked and did not. I'm hoping put it out there helps in driving the habits more effectively as I have tried improving my habits this year to do better and be a better version of myself.

- Resolved to cut down my smartphone addiction habit

There is a good reason to put this at the top as this was one of my biggest 'to tackle' item. I think I did fairly well in this one as can be seen in the next item. Apple had introduced Screen time  feature with ability to limit time for social media, using this feature helped me to a large extent. I had set small goals of cutting down the time and then gradually was able to walk away from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. I do maintain the accounts and check them occasionally but it did free up a lot of time.

- Aimed to read much more books than I usually do

This will count as a big success as I improved both in number and in terms of genres and overall satisfaction. I really did read a lot this year and the time for this came purely from freed up  smart phone time

- Work on fitness & health

Needs more work on this one, I did do lot of walking but did not do any running this year. One a positive note started doing Yoga, but again did it only for like 2 months ( around 12 sessions) before winter and laziness set in.  Also ticked off the learn something new box with Yoga

- Spend quality time with daughter

- Try to cut down on procrastination and do things more methodically

- Try to take up new challenges at work and be more bold

- Think and write down thoughts and refine them - this one I didn't do that often

- Floss teeth daily & better dental hygiene - Again didn't do well on this count but hopefully can improve this next year as dental issues are always a problem ( I blame my genes). Got an electric toothbrush this year and hopefully this is used unlike the water flosser I purchased more than a year ago which remains unused after first few weeks.

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