Monday, May 15, 2017

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Started Reading

I decided to continue my reading this month with spy fiction and zeroed on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I have seen the movie but luckily I forgot who was the mole. I remember the actor who played the mole but I don't remember name of his character. So it is still a mystery novel to me. But more than plain spy fiction, I have so far really enjoyed the novel for its detailing of back office process. While the reading is still progressing, I came across this review in my rss feeds of LitHub. As if universe was conspiring for me to read this (and if it was, couldn't it find a worthier aim to conspire for !!).

Friday, May 05, 2017

Goodluck Longreads

Story or information is not everything. its presentation matters a lot. A well written piece can make an otherwise mundane news read worthy whereas a badly written piece can convert an interesting news into trash. I first noticed in Readers Digest many years back the style of giving all the background information, projecting the personality of main characters, and other such quirks which would bring alive  the story being depicted in front of reader. I have had the god fortune of reading many more such stories in past few years and they are a joy to read. lately, one source of such stories has been weekly newsletter I receive from Longreads and therefore I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they are also into funding original pieces. More can be read here. I really liked the idea that readers contribute but they do not decide what gets funded. I fully support this. Not just because, as the article reports, that it is not yet known how the report will turn out to be. Rather, I have come to see division of labor as a very important and useful idea and therefore in today's world of information overload, we should let professional editors take decisions about what gets funded and what gets curated.