Interesting Reads

August 15, 2020

Hi,

Hope you are doing well. Today’s recommendations are:

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the art of belling Giants, by Malcolm Gladwell

If you want to read a book and go “huh, I never thought of it that way” multiple times, Malcolm is a good bet. Over the years, his books not only kept me entertained but also consistently gave me food for thought. While his method of citations and reliance on academic literature are questionable, reading his book as pure ideas is something I recommend to my friends. If you enjoyed the Freakanomics series, you would enjoy Malcolm’s books. In this book, he looks at why and how being the underdog is a huge plus as it frees you up, makes you break rules, operate radically outside the system and come out on top.

Bottle of Lies: Ranbaxy and the dark side of Indian Pharma, by Katherine Eban

The scams and faults of the Indian pharmaceutical industry is a dry topic. But Katherine vividly painting the disgusting underside of the industry’s underbelly, to the point where I was scared to buy Indian generic drugs for my family. It is also a lovely story of Dinesh Thakur, a Pharma executive who gives up on material comforts in his crusade to get people to do the right things (medicine should save people and not kill is an abysmally low bar, but he is still fighting for it.

Looking forward to writing to you again.