New Horizons

Note Taking, Writing Better, and Building a Knowledge Base And a review of the book "How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers" by Sönke Ahrens. Context Last year, I read a book called "How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning, and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers" by Sönke Ahrens to improve my writing and notetaking skills. This blog post is meant for anyone who has never heard the word "Zettlekasten" or "Commonplace Notebook", and wants to get better at extracting and maintaining the information they consume.  We need four tools: · Something to write with and something to write on (pen and paper will do) · A reference management system (the best programs are free) · The slip-box (the best program is free) · An editor (whatever works best for you: very good ones are free) — Sönke Ahrens ...

The book is in-line with the modernist version of the Woolfish 'stream of consciousness' style, characteristic of two prominent members of the Bloomsbury group. I haven't embarked on the voyage of a book that 'Ulysees' by Joyce is, but I am aware of his writing style and look forward to it having read most of Virginia Woolf's works. I absolutely loved the beginning of the book — it caught me off guard; it was so unique and unexpected a way to read about a character, and so poetic in its prose that I ended up highlighting most of the passages. Very much like 'Mrs. Dalloway', the story follows the life of the protagonist, George, over the course of a single day. Unlike 'Mrs. Dalloway', however, it isn't elaborate in the backstories of the other characters in the novel, and doesn't focus too heavily on the other themes underlying the main story of a gay professor in '60s America. There is some bit about the Vietnam War and minorities...

Blarb (blurb + blab) There comes a time (usually the middle of the year) when a TBR (to-be-read) starts looking dull and uninteresting. To-be-reads or yearly reading lists tend to suffer from the current bias of being chosen for having great publicity, for being trendy due to societal disruptions, or for being a much-awaited addition to a series. Something of the sort happened to me mid-July [yeah, so not exactly the middle of the year, get over it]. Back in March, when I decided to add books to my 2020 reading list concretely , I thought I'd picked a fair assortment of non-fiction and fiction, of politics and climate change, of politics of climate change, of some core science books related to my domain of interest, and what would hopefully make for interesting reads by writers having a very different perspective than I. However, I soon got disenchanted with the fictional tales I'd chosen to read. I got annoyed at non-fiction authors for not coming to the point. I got deep int...

I’ve been reading literature that keeps taking me back to narrow Parisian lanes and Shakespeare and Co.  In ‘The Paris Hours’, I had the pleasure of meeting Proust himself, and walking around a lush green garden that I imagined would be swarming with families and children enjoying a weekend together. In ‘A Moveable Feast’, I spoke to Beach, remembering her kindness in ‘The Paris Hours’. In that other book about artists’ habits, I connected with Gertrude Stein’s obnoxious coffee habits.  And now, in ‘Time was soft…’ I live in the bookstore itself, marveling at cheap Parisian dinners and at interesting conversations with fellow inhabitants.   The iridescent bubble bursts and sputters and I am left ashamed at the liberties I have taken with reality. Good writing may engross you, but you can never leave the physical realities of your being.  As for me, I’m bound to my chair, its cushion and plush backrest giving no comfort to the increasing despondence of my knowledge th...

Our Moon has Blood Clots, by Rahul Pandita If you were shocked to find senior journalists in India justifying a series of assaults on the Kashmiri Pandit community by factoring in economic disparities and cultural differences, and want to read literature that serves both as a horrifying account of violence against the Pandit community, as well as a polemic against crass and insensitive mainstream media, this is the book for you. These first-hand accounts of atrocities against the Kashmiri Pandit community leave you shaken; you grow to further despise and distrust the mainstream jargon about Kashmir that only focuses on brutality by the Indian state and the greatness of the separatist movement.  Pandita is generous with his writing; he starts off with a detailed history of Kashmir and Kashmiri Pandits, going as far back as the fourteenth century. You learn a lot about their customs, their poetry, their tales of Kashmiri life, as well as the multitudes of times the community has been...

I read the synopsis for “Everything I Never Told You” by Celeste Ng during one of my Goodreads scans; I had been looking for something resembling a certain favorite book of mine, “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt that I’d read as a child, all warm and cozy in my bed. Years later, I re-read the book to comfort me and remind me of nicer times. I wanted that feeling again, but this time, with a whole assortment of higher-reading level books to go to in times of need. True to its name, “Everything I Never Told You” is riddled with things left unsaid, thoughts buried deep in one’s head, emotions hidden neatly under masks of calm, of happiness, of normalcy.  It’s an exhausting read and I mean it in the nicest way possible. Turning each page is like pushing yourself further down a deep well filled with honey; the saccharine taste of despair suffocates you as the brilliance of Ng’s work effortlessly tugs you along through the viscous despondence into the lives of t...

Earlier this year I found my YouTube feed filled with songs of a peculiar sounding movie titled "Call me by your name". Wondering why on earth I'd ever do that, I gave the song a try. It would take me just half a minute to realize that this song, this particular song, I would cherish as a favorite forever. And hence began the fangirling. I watched all the trailers. I read the Wikipedia article. I watched interviews of the author. I stalked Armie Hammer on Instagram. I told everyone I met about the book, the movie and especially, the songs. And of course, I listened to "Mystery of love" on repeat till my ears throbbed in pain and my head was filled with confabulations of warm sunny days and sepia-tinted skies. My imagination of the summers of northern Italy was  prefaced by the opening scenes of the movie, the characters complementing the green of the orchard, basking in the white light of the yellow sun, in their billowy pastel colored clothes. It reminded me o...