Siddharth > Recent Status Updates

Very good! Solid non-fiction, and seems to be backed by a lot of research.

I really like sleep anyway, and I’ve been disciplined about it for a while now. Delving into the research out there should be fun!

Very nice! This book really got me out of my slumber, into doing the research required to find the lowest cost, traditional index fund.

So good! The ending was apt. (Also, this was my first audiobook completion. It works; I wonder how much I will retain over the long term though.)

I’m listening the audiobook. Quite good. I hoped that it wouldn’t be boring because of the “master computer” trope, and it most certainly isn’t.

Well-researched, with a great narrative. This will be the "narrative" history of India that I will recommend to others in the future.

An incredibly funny novel. Jack (the protagonist) is very funny; I don't think he intends to be funny all the time but the way he keeps repeating the sentence "that is not the point of Babette," "Babette does not keep secrets" to his wife *Babette* is hilariously absurd.

There is a critique of Capitalism too, but it is approached obliquely: Jack's sprees of buying and discarding being the most overt signs of it.

Very good! Two things that I want to think about further: (1) the Cartesian separation between mind and body, which was made because we could not understand the mind / consciousness, and we simply avoided the problem for the time being (2) Arendt's quote at the very end that it is OK to make things in our image, but it is not OK to give them Transcendent power: a definitive way to understand the recent AI hype.

Postman recommends this book as one of the three essential dystopias written in the 20th century. (The other two were Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.)

Ozeki wrote Marie Kondo’s fictional origin story and connected Marie Kondo’s book about tidying to the economic system that it was criticizing indirectly: a capitalism that propels itself by turning everyone into a consumer

The way in which the narration proceeds is very interesting. As the flashback story of someone who has come to terms with things trying to express themselves, the switches between the Book and Benny are interesting. The plot seems to be dragging _a bit_ in this first phase, but I am intrigued by the premise, so I’ll continue reading.

Great! I love her writing. She gives up in confusion in so many scenes. And the main character’s descriptions of other people’s imaginations (actually her own) are great. I enjoyed reading this thoroughly. And yes, the book is better than the movie.

Great, read the first essay! Funny too. She understood why most people would incessantly take pictures of paintings in an art museum with their iPhones. (I couldn’t quite believe the prevalence of this absurd practice. All paintings have already been professionally photographed anyway; one could JUST experience them, but people choose to take a photograph.)

A short read and a delightful comedy about bureaucracy. A tonic just as good as Kafka's when one is faced with the despair of dealing with officialdom and meaninglessness.

A funny novel! The ending is surprising

This novel is very funny! The main character is absolutely straight out of one of Gogol’s plays: he is interminably nervous and anxious.

An unexpected ending. This book really made me think about whether we understand any character that the narrator talks about in any book, and whether any narrator is a "reliable narrator."

Moravia continually draws parallels between the modern lover, full of Freudian complexes (played by Molteni) and the passionate lover of yore (Ulysses and Petrarch), devoid of any self-doubt about his love, the object of his love, or of his right to be passionate in his claim over the object. I like this deeper tension within the novel.

I read this book as a practical application of the theory presented by Srinivasan in "Right to Sex." The book was a useful read; the author really seems to struggle with the tenets put forth by liberal feminism as being central to female equality. But it is clear that the author disagrees. There are some contradictions in the author's behavior, but she doesn't address them directly.

The main character is full of contradictions. The writing style and the prose is very negative (cynical, pessimistic, etc.) The plot is very hard to figure out, so I am excited to read further. (I saw this book on-screen on Dev D, the Hindi movie. And I have been wanting to read it for a while now.)

A collection of 6 essays. Srinivasan is an astute observer, and relentlessly breaks down arguments. I raced through this book, because she doesn't waste even a few paragraphs on anything that doesn't directly follow from the premise that she sets up in the first few paragraphs of each essay.

I did not expect to see "microfinance" mentioned here. "Sex, Carceralism, Capitalism" was the best essay in this collection.

Dalrymple is an astute observer of new nations. He notices the common pathologies in all the countries he visits. His descriptions of the (few) conversations he has with locals in each country are powerful indications of the subtle ways in which these states differ, despite having the same underlying theory. If you are dejected about late-stage capitalism's excesses, this book is a must-read.

A very good novel. Majumdar's portrayal of Bengal and India is relatable. The structure of the book is interesting, with each chapter written from the perspective of a single character. Lovely's broken English throughout the book is a nice touch. The "Interlude" chapters were heart wrenching. The chapter in which two men go to a new mall and are asked to pay a Rs. 50 entrance fee is memorable.

Very insightful. I learn a lot about modern China. The book answered a lot of the questions I had about modern China: How can billionaires be allowed to exist in a communist state? Who was Mao and why is he central to the story of modern China? And perhaps, the most important of all: How did China grow its economy at an unthinkable rate?

I am looking forward to reading my notes and extracting the key lessons.

A mix of a memoir (in which the author searches for the Customs line in 1996-1998 in India) and a recounting of India's history under British rule, with a focus on tax collection and the ingenious, oppressive, and ruthless strategies employed by bureaucrats.

The vileness of the actions discussed in the book infuriated me. At times, the idiocy and base selfishness of princely state rulers confounded me.

The author’s recounting of the 2008 Sanlu dairy formula poisoning babies scandal is chilling. He has done an uncomfortably good job of telling that story; to the point where one has to remind oneself that it is not some fictional Jon Grisham novel with stories of corporate intrigue and government manipulation. This instance was also indicative of the larger point that is being made in this book.

Great sci-fi and very interesting ending. I was able to guess that it had something to do with "what" Naismith was and that the message was missing some words. The portrayal of the late-stage of the human race is profoundly disturbing; especially the screaming Highborn. (I assumed that her portrayal would have been a little bit more sympathetic and ... well, "highborn." I wonder if my expectations betray my biases!)

First chapter and my head is already spinning from the dual party-government governing system. Interesting writing though, so it is a fun read (for now).