A lucid synthesis of genomics, linguistics, and prehistory: Tony Joseph’s Early Indians
Tony Joseph blends research strands from disciplines such as linguistics, genomics, archeology, archeobotany, paleogeography, and the luminescence of grains of sand of ancient river beds in a lucid synthesis that narrates the story of First Indians, the Harappan Civilization (known previously as the Indus Valley Civilization), its continuing legacy in everyday Indian culture and life, […]
Book Review: The graphic novel as a format for visual sensemaking and the change poets of ‘Unrig’
My local library – part of the Helsinki City system – had this book on display yesterday among the handful of English language books accessible for browsing within the current constraints of the pandemic. I devoured it in one sitting. As I wrote in a private paid-for social media platform where I’m part of the […]
Book Review: Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel
Although the book I’ll be reviewing today was first published in the year 2007, I only came upon it this year in a used bookstore. Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved lays bare the innards of the world’s food distribution systems and the market dominance of the megacorps in the business. The Guardian’s original review captures […]
Book Review: Operation Elop, the final years of Nokia by Merina Salminen and Pekka Nykänen
Operation Elop, uploaded by Harri Kiljander has just been made available in English and I’m already on Chapter 8. I saw the editor’s tweet 23 minutes after he said “It’s done and available on Medium under a Creative Commons license” and I haven’t stopped diving in and out since. It starts with a memorable day […]
Book Review: And The Weak Suffer What They Must? by Yanis Varoufakis
Ten years ago, I read and reviewed Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz – my first Big Econ tome iirc – and my attention was immediately engaged by the eminently readable style of writing. Reading Stiglitz not only raised the bar for my expectations from nonfiction writing but lowered the barriers to my resistance to […]
Book Review- Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden
After a gap of 6 years and many more journeys looking at Africa through the lens of design ethnography, I sat down to re-read Richard Dowden‘s Africa this past weekend. It moved me to want to write so many times during the read, it’s a wonder I made it through the book before starting this […]
Africa’s world trade: Informal economies and globalization from below by Margaret C. Lee
The entire text of Professor Margeret C. Lee’s work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence. Clicking on the cover will take you directly to the PDF. Chapter 3 takes the reader through a journey to different countries of Africa, including Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, […]
Book Review: Adventures in Stationery by James Ward
I read this book in one sitting yesterday. Now I’m here writing on it. Any adult who’s furtively indulged in scented erasers, colourful gel pens or handmade paper, to be shoved secretly down the lowermost drawer in the desk will love this book. Pens and pencils, paperclips and pushpins. James Ward lovingly describes them all, […]
Book Review: An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions by Jean Dreze & Amartya Sen
Photo Credit: India Habitat Centre, New Delhi Just over a month ago, in Kinokuniya bookstore located in Singapore’s Orchard Road, I picked up the hardcover release of Amartya Sen’s latest book – An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions – coauthored with Jean Dreze. Today, I’ve reached the point in my daily few pages of […]
Reflecting on the good old fashioned explorer’s travelogue
Reading through Jan Chipchase’s stereotypically English approach to announcing the impending arrival of his apparently well received book is making me quirk my mouth in a remiscent smile of the days when we hung on every post – Chipchase at his height, splashed as the design researcher’s Indiana Jones, across the New York Times in […]
