Here is a bunch of stuff I read and watched over the last two weeks:
Books:
Travelling around helped me get hold of and read a range of books, this is probably the most I have read in two weeks since I left college.
1. Tiya by Samarpan
This isn’t the kind of book I would pick of my own volition. But a friend’s mother gave it to me with a lot of love, and I thought I should definitely give it a shot. It’s a first person narrative of a parrot who leaves his nest in search of better lands, the trials and tribulations of the journey and the return home; it’s definitely a beautiful metaphor, but felt a little too simplistic, perhaps because a lot of the substance was lost in translation from Hindi.
2. Pelican Brief by John Grisham
I have read too much Grisham, I am an absolute fan. This isn’t Grisham’s best (nothing beats the Runaway Jury in my opinion), but has an interesting character arc for the protagonist Darby (although romantic involvement with the journalist towards the end was straight up unnecessary for the plot) and gives an interesting sneak peak into the environmental litigation in the US. Given that the book was originally published in 1992 before sustainability became a buzz word, it’s a book whose time has really come now.
3. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
It’s existential, philosophical, poetic, scientific and just hands-down gorgeous. It’s perhaps the first time that someone has attempted a piece of fiction about astronauts in space with such nuance, and grace (and not the ‘oh it’s the pinnacle of human achievement’ lens).
The last time I read such incredible writing was in Call me Esteban, the English translation of a Bosnian collection of stories by Lejla Kalamujic (forever grateful to Abu for introducing me to this one!). While both the books engage with the themes of love, loss and grief, especially in relation to the protagonist’s mother, Orbital is a mirror image of Call Me Esteban, in the sense that the former looks at everything a lens of generative hope while despair drips from the latter.
It’s hard not to fall into the narrative of despair when engaging with themes that make you feel so powerless in the grand scheme of the universe, and I think that’s where Samantha Harvey does a great job; she engages with the hardest of questions and emotions from a space of compassionate optimism. Towards the end of the book, we get to know the six astronauts in orbit so intimately that you can close your eyes and imagine Anton eating a Korovka, Chie running up a hill after her mother, Shaun looking at the postcard that his high-school sweetheart (and now wife) gave him 15 years ago, Nell lighting candles for dead astronauts as a 7 year old, Pietro at the fisherman’s place in Philippines, and Roman trying to cover up the bulge in his neck.
I can’t recommend this one enough.
Articles:
1. This article in The Point, writes about the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981 and how the shooter was thrown into the spotlight, and how that influenced American perception of shooters.
2. In this edition of her newsletter, Courtney Martin interviews Carla Fernandez who studies about and writes about grief. It’s an interesting interview, I hope to be able to pick up Carla’s book someday.
3. I stumbled upon this article with the beautiful title ‘Basking in the Grace of Others’ by chance on Twitter, and loved the theme. It got me thinking about how a sense of agency is crafted in relation with others, as much as it is an individual effort.
4. The previous article led me to another article on agency by Cate Hall, who has an interesting trajectory of being a Supreme Court lawyer in the US, then a number 1 poker player, and now the head of the non-profit Astera Institute pioneering breakthroughs in biotech. I love this blog called ‘Useful Fictions’, and have binged on a bunch of other articles here.
5. Asimov Press is a blog that I have the maximum number of bookmarks for. I somehow keep falling behind their rate of publishing (trying hard not to beat myself up for this), but the content is insane. Recently, I read this piece about scaling proteomics, which is basically the study of the structure, function and interactions of the proteins in an entire organism.
6. I came across this substack called Construction Physics on the Emergent Ventures group. I was blown away by the fact that someone had looked at construction so deeply, this is a subject I am thinking more and more of as I spend more time in the most urban parts of Bangalore, wondering why this city is built so inefficiently.
7. Started reading about Bell Labs on the Freaktakes blog and how their R&D was not all rosy serendipity. Now starting to think deeply about how these kinds of systems can be implemented at BioCompute.
I am wondering if there are any book clubs that meet regularly in Koramangala in Bangalore. If not, can we get one started? Do reach out to me if you want to get involved