Tag: Bookstrapping

Bookstrapping: War By Bob Woodward

After fifty years of reporting on American politics, Woodward has trained his expert lens on the 3 years from 2021 to 2024. He has tremendous access and makes full use of it to give a ringside view of US Foreign policy and how that defines the character of its Presidents. (Image source: Simon & Schuster)

Bob Woodward is famous for his Donald Trump trilogy, the books Fear (2018) Rage (2020) and Peril (2021). Woodward is a two time Pulitzer winner, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Bookstrapping – The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris

“Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work.”, stated Kamala Harris in The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. (Image source: Amazon)

Kamala Harris wears her middle class upbringing proudly and understands justice and makes it the core of her identity, highlights Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta in her review.

Bookstrapping: Travellers in the golden realm by Lubaaba Al Azami

Al Azami says that India's reputation as an early paradise was built on the abundance of glinting gold and precious gemstones in her bountiful mines, even as India's spices were fabled as a fountain of youth, reviews Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta. (Image source: Amazon)

One of the bookstrapping insights by Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta highlighted that in the 16th and 17 centuries, there were three leading Islamic Empires in the world- the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Persian Safavid empire and the Indian Mughal empire. However, only in India did the rulers govern as a religious minority.

Bookstrapping: 101 years too little?

Visvesvaraya was a well-travelled man. He travelled to Japan in the 1890s, returning thoroughly impressed by its electric tramways and electric lighting, its education system and its modern economy, highlights Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta.

In this week’s bookstrapping, Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta reviews ‘Engineering a Nation’ by Aparajith Ramnath, which is on Bharat Ratna awardee and one of the early architect’s of India, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya or Sir Visvesvaraya.

Book Review: Smarak Swain’s ‘Digital Fortunes: A Value Investor’s Guide to the New Economy’

Swain notes how crypto's promise of a 'decentralised trustless system' was ironically used by swindlers to gain the trust of innocent people. Intermediaries in crypto markets have themselves become repositories of trust. Crypto evangelists promote their vision of a society where trust is placed in ‘cryptography’ rather than centralised institutions like governments and banks, reviews Meghan Bal. (Image source: Amazon)

Digital Fortunes is a must read for anyone who wants to learn about the digital economy, writes Meghna Bal in her review.

Bookstrapping: Illustrated books ahoy!

Reviewer Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta makes a special reference to the work of Nagata Kabi, the Japanese manga artist who authored several books including My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. The books deal with adult themes of eating disorders, mental illness, self-abuse which exposes the underbelly of biases in Japanese society. (Image source: Amazon)

Reviewer Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta reviews some of the illustrated books like Rajiv Banerjee’s Bangaliyana, Neil Geiman’s ’Ocean at the End of the Lane: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It’, Charlie Mackesy’s ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse’, among others, and stresses upon why they are a must read.

Bookstrapping: Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary?

There is a serendipity to this book itself; just as theres a serendipity to the OED. In her last days living in Oxford, before taking a teaching position at Stanford, Sarah Ogilvie, who had worked as an editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, discovered six handwritten address books noting the names of more than 3,000 contributors to the project. This is what triggered her journey, states Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta.

In this week’s column, Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta writes, it’s only in the 19th century that the dictionary began to trace the meanings of words across time and describe how people were actually using them.

Bookstrapping: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

As per Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta's review, a phone-based life often fills 'our life's search for meaning' with trivial and degrading content. (Image source: Amazon)

As per the review by Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta of ‘The Anxious Generation’ by Jonathan Haidt, apart from social media creating an obsession among girls to embrace perfection, heavy addicts of social media reported higher levels of depression as compared to non-users.

Bookstrapping: Of money, male loneliness and more

The book 'The Trolls of Wall Street' offers a window into the ‘power struggles’ within online communities - does the founder of a community remain in charge? Can an outsider become the prime mover in a community they didn’t begin? Can a community thrive on the ethos that ‘people who are easily offended will not be tolerated?’ (Image source: Amazon)

As per our reviewer Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta, author and journalist Nathaniel Popper talks about ‘people, connections and wealth’ in the online world in The Trolls of Wall Street. Mark Mobius is also talking about ‘people, connections and wealth’ in the offline world in ‘The Book Of Wealth.’