The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

The Design of Everyday Things is a lovely book that changes the reader's perspective about the everyday things we use. It is widely considered the Bible of Design, and the author Don Norman is regarded as the father of design. The book is easy to read and looks at the most common tools from the…

The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2

I read volume two of 'The Gulag Archipelago two years after reading volume one. I believe this series is the finest literature I have read until now, demonstrating the monumentality of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's work. The book felt like the personification of the term 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. It was an attempt to…

The Picturesque Poem

Hi Everyone, A few months ago, I thought of an idea for a new poetry page. I felt that I could merge pictures and poems aesthetically and that Instagram could be a great place to post them. So I tried my hand at Adobe Photoshop and created an Instagram page. I regularly post my poetry…

A Concise History of Australia by Stuart Macintyre

Before writing any thoughts about this book, I would like to give a disclaimer. I don't know much about Australian history and reading the book only made me aware of how much I didn't know and didn't understand. Nevertheless, having read the book, I have gained a feel of Australian culture and perspective. The book…

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

This is the first book I finished reading on my recently bought Amazon Kindle. It is a short sci-fi book written over a century ago, in 1898, which made it quite interesting because the imagination from back then would come from a different perspective. In fact, there have been recent movies created based on this…

Man and his Symbols

by Carl Jung, M.L von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Jolande Jacobi and Aniela Jaffe I picked up this book impulsively, without much context about the field of psychology. I found it to be a fascinating read. It delved into topics I didn't know much about, and it changed how I viewed my own consciousness. The…

The Picture Diary – My Poetry Book

In December 2021, I registered for Bookleaf Publishing’s ‘Write India Challenge’. As part of the challenge I had to write 1 poem a day for 21 days, and they would publish a book out of it. I decided to take part in the challenge, but I did not want to write 21 random poems and…

World Order by Henry Kissinger

I picked up this book to learn about Diplomacy and Foreign Relations. It was a fascinating read, and it provided me with many interesting insights into the world of Global Politics. I have read Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky, and in many ways, this book is the polar opposite of that book. This book elucidates…

India after Gandhi by Ramchandra Guha

'India after Gandhi' by Ramchandra Guha is an account of Indian history after Independence from colonial rule. It starts with topics like the integration of the princely states, and the mass migration of Hindus into India from Pakistan post-partition and concludes with the rise of the BJP as the pre-eminent party in Indian politics, displacing…

Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky

A small side note A couple of months ago, I was looking at books in a second-hand bookstore with a friend. There are quite a few sizeable second-hand book stores on MG Road in Bangalore, and I go there a few times every year. In the age of Google and e-books, exploring through stacks of…