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Sukumar Ranganathan, Editor in Chief, picks his favourite reads of 2020
A book on science and the politics of science in the year of the coronavirus? Bring it on.
If I were in the situation where my life depended on picking someone to write a non-fiction novel, I would pick my former colleague, Samanth Subramanian. In a three-week period before and after the last New Year, I bought three copies of his book, A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of JBS Haldane, gave two away to friends (after reading roughly a third and half respectively; one in a good cause, I hope), and finally finished reading it with my third copy (which I still have). Given the lateness of its release last year, I am going to treat it as a 2020 book, and what an apt one it was for the year. A book on science and the politics of science in the year of the coronavirus? Bring it on. But don’t read Subramanian’s book for its meticulous research and the larger point it seeks to make — read it for its wonderful structuring (key to everything in writing) and the sheer beauty of its writing. This is a writer at the top of his craft.
Two more of my former colleagues — yes, I have always been part of newsrooms filled mostly with achievers — wrote another book I really enjoyed reading this year: Azim Premji: The Man Behind the Billions (Sundeep Khanna and Varun Sood). Premji isn’t a recluse, but he is notoriously private as I can vouch from the time I used to cover his company. Khanna and Sood, both fine reporters, and also among the few who understand the IT services business, have written a book that is one, a master class in reporting and two, a fine example of what a balanced biography should be. Even I got to know Premji a lot better by the time I finished reading the book.
Finally, as many people in my network know, I am somewhat of a specialist in end-of-the-world books. It’s perhaps the reason why, in late December or early January, I said in our daily editorial meeting that this virus from China would change everything. And it happens that every year, usually in the last quarter (October to December), I end up reading a really good end-of-the-world book. This year, this was The New Wilderness, Diane Cook’s novel about a not-too-far-in-the-future environmental dystopia. The city is polluted and unlivable , and a group of (un)willing volunteers become part of a research study by trying to lead a nomadic, low-impact life in the last surviving wilderness. Like many books of the genre, it is about destruction, but also survival — although it did leave me with a sense of disquiet about our possibly imminent future.
