I spent a fairly brutal summer reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I didn’t take any notes while reading it, instead I found myself making highlights practically every other page. These are some of my favourites that I share without any context. Just a trousseau of gilded sentences that are, strangely, now mine. A great bladder for dried peas to rattle in!” said Mrs. Cadwallader. And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

Note on How Asia Works Notes and thoughts on reading Joe Studwell’s How Asia Works. It is one of the best books I have read, and often recommend it to anyone asking for a suggestion on what to read. This is a great read even if you aren’t interested in economics, policy making or development. My notes don’t capture this fully, but it will make you look at the world differently upon reading it; for me it fostered the idea of how to systematically explore my curioisties.

Death is a constant in Kerouac’s Big Sur, omnipresent, standing on our every turn. Religion is a constant. Drunkenness is a constant. Mother is a constant. The white line splitting the road is a constant. The road is a constant. Friends and friendships though, change. Even the ice cold Billie with her blond hair and blue eyes gets angry and cold, and you wonder what took her so long. Of course, the immediate response to finishing the Big Sur, or any of Kerouac’s novels, his endless Legends of Duoloz series, is an urge to write in his manner.

On Reading the Left Hand of Darkness Light is the Left Hand of Darkness In the edition that I read (from 2019, fifty years after this book was first published) there is an introduction, an author’s note and an afterword to go alongside the story. I had purchased it in November last year, read it in March this year, and managed to read the introduction, the note and the afterword only today in June of 2022.

Delhi Mostly Harmless Elizabeth Chatterjee’s book on her time in Delhi is charming. I picked up the book on the way back home to Bombay from Pune in February this year. I was about to start the second season of Bombay Daak, and it was an instinctive purchase; I hoped to find some inspiration on writing about a city, or gather a different perspective on how to look at one.