A list of good reads
- Subscriber Shilpashree Jagannathan’s husband wrote a lovely piece about their love story in Outlook.
- This Atlantic essay asks since when did being ‘cringe’ become the ultimate sin?
- Mint Lounge has a very good read on the beautification of Old Delhi—and why so many of its residents are ambivalent.
- Nancy Friedman looks at a curious pattern: “many founders gravitate toward company and product names that mirror their personal names.” Example: The ‘zo’ in Amazon which mirrors the same letters in Bezos.
- The Cut has a good read on the history of women’s relationship with fitness culture.
- We greatly enjoyed Food52’s look at the history of pizza—the ultimate Italian dish that took over the world. Turns out Italians weren’t too enamoured with pizzas until they became a global rage.
- This Guardian deep dive reveals how accelerating climate change is throwing the world of insects totally out of whack.
- Looking for a bit of fiction? Pravesh Bhardwaj in LongReads recommends his 10 favourite short stories.
- Harold Lee’s thought-provoking blog post questions the feel-virtuous idea that we should spend our money on “experiences” rather than things.
- Shahid Jameel and Gautam Menon in The India Forum look at the post-Omicron world ahead—and living with an endemic disease that requires frequent booster shots.
- This one is for all our gentlemen subscribers: The biggest hair trends of 2022, courtesy GQ.
- Bloomberg News looks at the state of the podcast industry and makes an eyebrow-raising discovery: Lots and lots of podcasts but no big successes in recent years.
- Signal app founder Matthew Rosenfeld offers a thoughtful look at just how decentralised we can expect Web3 to be. If you don’t know much about Web3, be sure to check out our explainer.
- Quartz explains why parts of the world are experiencing a great potato shortage.
- TIME magazine reports on the proliferation of hate on Reddit—based on conversations with 19 moderators around the world.
- PARI has a lovely story of Thiru the turmeric farmer—who found success by switching to organic farming and leveraging social media.
- Speaking of social media fame, The Hindu profiles restaurateur and martial artiste Dev Raturi who has gone viral for his videos documenting life under lockdown in the Chinese city of Xian.
