What I have been reading...

I have always found DoZ’s reading tastes to be fairly decent ;-), so picked up the New Yorker and the Sunday Times and came away quite impressed…especially with the length, clarity and craft of some of the articles in the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. Check these out…

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
In Natures Casino - a story about how the insurance industry has been misreading the catastrophe insurance biz and how some people are radically changing it. An amazing article, to say the least, that almost reads like a short thriller novella. The way some of these real-life characters are sketched is also a literary delight. This would make for a great b-school class discussion.
5 stars

The Unexpected Fantasist- a delightful short piece about Jose Saramago who remains his own man despite everything else including the Nobel Prize.
4.5 stars

Universal Faith-An article that discusses how religion may or may not form part of a child’s regular education. I also like this ethicist column in which people send in queries about everyday ethical dilemmas to which a propahly educated “ethics” scholar gives his usually sane and simple perspective.
4 stars

Challenging the generals
An unconventional piece about how US Army generals may be letting down their junior officers by taking the principle of “civilian control” over Army a bit too far. The article also points out the fate of such thought dissenters-how their chances of career advancement thin out in the Army. I was surprised that the US Army allowed such an article at all to be published-in my 20 years of reading Indian magazines/books, I haven’t seen anything like this from a serving military officer-is there a lesson? It is articles like these that slightly restore my faith in the institution of democracy. This and bumper stickers that say “When Clinton lied, no one died”
4 stars


THE NEW YORKER
Seeds for apocalypse
A incisively researched article on how a few good men are creating seed banks-of every known plant especially food crops so that mankind wouldn’t lose our agricultural roots in case of a world-wide catastrophe-manmade or natural.
4.5 stars

The Human Bomb-How Sarkozy has made an immediate impact on the French body politic; of how he has cleverly used a mix of perception and realities to make an impact. And how he might or might not be able to sustain it.
3.5 stars

Nawabdin Electrician-A delightful piece of short fiction with all the idiosyncracies of sub-continental life packed in with a nice oomph end. Loved it.
5 stars

He that plays the King - A profile about Ian McKellen (remember Gandalf?) - it was a relief for a difference about a celebrity who hasn’t broken up, oversped or waved too delightedly to papparazzi. Oh, the sheer length of this piece had me sighing for an hour on the train to Palatine ;-)
4 stars

Poems - Both the poems by Kimiko Hahn and Philip Schultz are good…although the one by Hahn looks just a bit forced. Schultz’s poem is something like what I would write on a very good day…a very very good summer day with the Sunday Times on the shores of Lake Michigan with the terns, the breeze and good ol’ Kingfisher beer for company. Pretty women with suitable qualifications can also apply.
3 stars

Since I have obviously taken out only the articles which I have liked, all of them get above average stars. This, my friends, is called selection bias in statistics. May the trumpets blow aloud and afar that GT has completed his pre-Stats reading material!