A list of good reads

• New Yorker has a beautifully crafted eulogy for the good old days of coding—slowly disappearing due to the likes of ChatGPT. 
• Also in the New Yorker: an excellent essay on cassette tapes and how they revolutionised music.  
• Smithsonian Magazine offers a sneak peek of famed British Indian artist Anish Kapoor’s next act at his opulent Venice studio. 
• Scientific American has a very useful piece on why we need to change how we diagnose dyslexia.
• Matt Flegenheimer in the New York Times Magazine reports on the cult of Russell Brand—which endures amidst allegations of sexual-assault. 
• The Washington Post (splainer gift link) explains why Mona Chalabi is unhappy with the publication that helped her win a Pulitzer—i.e the New York Times. 
• De Spiegel’s scathing piece on Greta Thunberg—who is under fire in Germany for supporting the Palestinian movement—is both viral and highly controversial. You can read about the rift being caused in the climate movement due to Greta Thunberg’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. 
• Scroll has an excerpt from Kunal Purohit’s new book on Hindutva pop culture—titled ‘H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars’—on Kavi Singh, a 25-year-old sensation.
• One of the best cricket writers in the country—Sharda Ugra—explains in The India Forum what is wrong with India’s World Cup experience. We’ve seen the best performances but it “has also been the most small-hearted and petty of the World Cups that India has hosted.”