• Culture

    Petty Hollywood

    It is a shame that Tom Cruise’s outstanding performance in “Top Gun Maverick” has been overlooked by the Hollywood Foreign Press in their nomination for the Golden Globe awards. Despite receiving critical acclaim for his role, Cruise was not nominated for the Best Actor award. The reason for this snub is clear: Cruise had previously returned all three of his Golden Globe awards as a protest against the lack of diversity in the awards. Instead of taking this as an opportunity for introspection, the Hollywood Foreign Press has chosen to take it as a personal affront and has retaliated by snubbing Cruise’s performance. Furthermore, during the actual ceremony, the press…

  • Books,  Jottings

    I managed to finish ‘Working’ by Robert A. Caro.

    Robert A. Caro is a multiple-Pulitzer award winning biographer of prominent personalities such as Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th US President, and polarizing but influential American Public Official Robert Moses. I came to know about this book on Twitter. I don’t know exactly who it was who suggested this book (may be Vivek Kaul) on his timeline, but I am happy that I paid for the kindle version of this highly readable book. I am a slow reader. But, I am happy to share that I managed to finish this book. I read books slowly and the fault is mostly mine and is by no way caused by the quality of…

  • Books,  Culture

    Audio Book I am Listening to in June 2020

    I am happy to record that I did manage to complete three books out of five books that were left unread in my Audible library. The last time I blogged about my audio book odyssey, I was listening to following books:- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Written by William L. Shirer. Talking to Strangers. Written by Malcolm Gladwell. Mythos. Written by Stephen Fry. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Written by Yuval Noah Harari. Sherlock Holmes: Definitive Collection. Written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Well, I managed to finish four out of the abovementioned five. I returned the one by Malcolm Gladwell–but not before finishing it–and got myself…

  • Books,  Jottings,  Uncategorized

    Audio Books I am listening to in April 2020.

    Since I have gotten myself an audible account I have been keenly listening to them. It’s a lovely service, and a god-send for those who do not have the time to curl up with an actual book, or any reading device for that matter. Luckily, thus far, I have been reading lots of books on my Ipad as well as kindle–but I am happy to state that I have also listened to plenty of books on my audible account. Thus far I have accumulated 14 books on Audible and only five of them are unfinished–and I hope to complete at least three of them during the “lockdown.” So, without further…