Range by David Epstein

Check it out on Goodreads Started with a tightly-knit structure, but faltered at the end. The last few chapters were a slog to get through - mostly because of numerous “business-class” style case studies. Main takeaway? Other than the central idea around which the book revolves (and succinctly mentioned as the book subtitle too), the idea of interleaving is what struck me the most. I had already read about this particular method in Michael Nielsen’s brilliant post on Anki (“Augmenting Long-term Memory”) and it was interesting to read about it formally in the book....

September 5, 2019 · 2 min · Siddhartha Golu

Deference vs. Indifference

(See this picture on Flickr) Deference vs. Indifference There used to be a time when things used to be simple. I’d wake up, rub my eyes, sit up straight, close my eyes, And pray that He will continue to guide me as He had done the previous day. There used to be a time when I used to love the aroma of the stick when it burned, lighting up my day with the secret enchantments,...

March 15, 2019 · 2 min · Siddhartha Golu

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

Check it out on Goodreads The School of Life - a massively popular YouTube channel - used to be this source of solace in some turbulent times of my college life. It is not something that you’d think would be cheerful and uplifting - a quick glance at some of the most popular videos of the channel would include titles such as “Why we go cold on our partners”, “Why you will marry the wrong person” etc....

February 14, 2019 · 3 min · Siddhartha Golu

The Stranger and The Plague by Albert Camus

Preamble Philosophy has always been one of those baffling things that entice you at first by its simplicity, but as you get sucked into it more and more, you find yourself searching for the end of this labyrinthine landscape. I had my first exposure to anything related to philosophy in my second year of college when I stumbled upon The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. At the time, it was one of the fascinating books I had ever read....

January 21, 2019 · 7 min · Siddhartha Golu