The Blog of Small Things

Name : Stop reading the news Author : Rolf Dobelli     Year of Publication : 2020     Genre : Non-fiction    Rating : **** (4  stars out of 5) I could not have chosen a more inappropriate time for reading this book. Even as I google and check all global news websites on the latest Covid-19 updates, Rolf Dobelli comes up with a passionate and well-argued short thesis on why we must keep away from any form of news. He proffers arguments such as why news is a waste of time - ably buttressed by results from scientific research as well as quotes from Stoics like Marcus Aurelius. The book puts forward a radical and contestable idea and it is up to us to bite the bullet and kill the news. Sturgeon's law suggests that ninety percent of everything that's published is rubbish. This book belongs to the remaining 10 percent. 

                             Name : Messiah Modi? Author : Tavleen Singh     Year of Publication : 2020     Genre : Non-fiction, Politics     Rating : **(2  stars out of 5) The author's first memoir "Durbar" combined readability with reminiscences of some brave reportage. The second book -"India's broken tryst" was a diatribe against Sonia Gandhi which ends with hope in Modi. This latest book still has the hatred of Sonia Gandhi intact but gets ambiguous about Modi. This is not because of some espousal of lofty ideals like secularism but in typical Tavleen style, the reasons are personal. She hates Sonia deeply because Sonia scuppered her companion's Lavasa city project. After four years of "Har Har Modi", she is now confused because the Modi government cancelled her son's OCI status. In 1960s,we heard the slogan "The personal is political" across the worl...