Americanah, MH370 and Ryan Holliday’s Reading Recommendations

Jan 27

Jan 27 Americanah, MH370 and Ryan Holliday’s Reading Recommendations

First newsletter of the year, and one after a long break.In the last few weeks, I took a break from reading short form articles and non-fiction books. If I read anything it was long-form fiction. With that, here are a few interesting articles and books that I came across:

1. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: This book was handed over to me by my good friend, Martin Paulsen. I have not read Adichie before even though her first work – Half a Yellow Sun – had made her quite famous. Once I picked up the book, I couldn’t put it down. That’s not to say that it will resonate with everyone. I believe it will work more for new kind of immigrants (“raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction”) who have deliberated on the topic of race. “Americanah” tells the story of a smart, strong opinionated Nigerian girl named Ifemelu who comes to America from Nigeria. What follows is her struggle to find her place in the American society that she eventually, superficially at least, seems to establish herself in. The casualty of her move is her high school boyfriend, Obinze, her equal in intelligence, but who Ifemelu has left behind. There was a lot that I could identify with, and I guess other immigrants like me would do too. My recommendation: read a few chapters at a book shop and if the book speaks to you then take it home.

2. Despite everything I couldn’t keep away from some excellent investigative journalism during the break also. This story appeared just before Christmas and I kept going back to it again and again - first to learn how to write well-researched pieces (this story is by William Langewiesche, who writes mostly from warzones) and second to seek inspiration how a single person’s effort can figuratively speaking make a dent in the universe (in this context it’s Blaine Gibson ‘The Beachcomber’). This story is about the disappearance of MH370, and while there are several stories written on the subject, this one aims to be as conclusive as it’s possible to be at this time. Gibson combed the beaches of Mozambique and Madagascar to search for the missing pieces of MH370 and has so far found a third of the MH370 parts by his singular effort. This is a long story and read it when you get time. I have a feeling that after reading this one you’ll look up more on Gibson and will go out looking to read more of Langewiesche’s stories.

3. Ryan Holliday came out with a list of his book recommendations for 2020: A lot of these were new to me and I may not go through all of them. Good though to find Epstein’s Range in this list which I highly recommend too. What I will pick up from this list are these two: ‘Everything is Figureoutable’ by Marie Forleo and ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ by Malcolm X. But do check out the list as there are several good, uncommon recommendations.

A quote that I came across recently: