A 2023 round-up

The books, music, movies, and games that I enjoyed this year.

Each year I do a round-up of my favourite books, music, and movies of the year. This year, I'm adding games to the list since I played many more games this year than in previous years. Let’s get started!

Books, and Bookshops

I read 26 books this year, fewer than most years. Most of my reading was done during travel — either on my Kindle in a cab or a flight, or a paperback in my hotel. My reading was split evenly between fiction and non-fiction. Here are the books I enjoyed the most and that affected me the most this year — this list is roughly ordered, across fiction and non-fiction.

Fiction

1. A Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers: Short, slow, beautiful, and moving. I am going to read more Becky Chambers (the Wayfarers series) next year!

2. The Final Season, Andrew Gillsmith: Laugh-out-loud funny sci-fi that makes you think. Great for anyone in TV and movies! I also read “Our Lady of the Artilects”, by Andrew Gillsmith this year, which I enjoyed — but not as much as this one.

3. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin: Video games, friendships, and a throwback to growing up in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s — what else do you want?! A tender and nostalgic read.

4. A young doctor’s notebook, Mikhail Bulgakov: Humorous and touching short stories about a young doctor in rural Russia before the first world war. I picked it up because I had loved The Master and the Margarita by Bulgakov a few years ago (one of my favourite books of all time).

5. The Passion, Jeanette Winterson: Historical fiction, magic realism, and romance at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Just that line should hook you! I enjoyed the book — but not quite as much as the reviews.

6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith: I loved this classic young adult book that I read at the beginning of the year. It is a realistic, detailed portrait of growing up in poverty in Brooklyn at the beginning of the last century and is gritty and yet optimistic.

7. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck: I re-read Cannery Row again this year. I love Steinbeck, and Cannery Row is one of his most funny, bittersweet, and rollicking books. I love this book!

Non-fiction

1. The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality, Angela Saini: The book that affected me the most this year. I learnt a lot and changed my mind about a few things after reading this book. The biggest insight for me was around how patriarchy is remade every generation, using biology, tradition, religion, and history as reasons to continue to disenfranchise women. Absolutely brilliant, and a must read.

2. The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch: This is a tough book to read, and absolutely worth it. I read the first 4 chapters, muddled my way through the chapter on infinity, and skimmed the rest — and still got a lot out of this book! The podcast on The Tim Ferris Show, with a conversation between David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant was really great too.

3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire: I’ve had this book for years, and got around to reading it this year. It’s short, dense, difficult to read — and an absolute gem. It changes ones world-view of education and how to teach. Every passage requires a re-reading to absorb it. Brilliant.

4. The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade: This was a hard book to get through, and I found parts of it quite tedious and repetitive. However, the core ideas — of the Sacred and the Profane — and the ideas of Sacred Space and Sacred Time affected me and caused me to view ritual in a different light from before.

5. The Foundation of Civilization, Ideas and Ideals, S Radhakrishnan: Brilliant essays that are timeless, on education, universities, and freedom — one can hardly believe that these were written almost 80 years ago! I found the first essay so relevant to the time we live in, and the recent turmoil around free speech in campuses and the politicization of universities, documented well by Fareed Zakaria at https://x.com/FareedZakaria/status/1733927077085143263?s=20.

6. Ambedkar’s India, BR Ambedkar: I hadn’t read anything by BR Ambedkar before, till a close friend recommended this to me. The essays are exceptional — some of the most hard-hitting and eye-opening writing on caste. What is also exceptional is the quality of writing: simple, lucid, and so powerful. Reading this book, and the previous (“The Foundations of Civilization”), I couldn’t help but feel that the quality of English and the standard of essay writing was on another plane in previous generations.

7. Orientalism, Edward Said: I started reading this book during the Israel - Palestine conflict, with an idea to understand more about the region. While the book didn’t give me much in this context, it packed a punch — and taught me about how the whole field of “Orientalism” is a created field, a fiction written by the West about the middle-east. Eye-opening, and a foundation on how culture and colonialism has shaped our politics over the centuries.

8. An Actor Prepares, Konstantin Stanislavsky: The style of writing — almost like a story — and the content, where you understand the inner-workings of acting, is exceptional. A book I will keep going back to, not only to understand acting, but to maybe prepare for the roles that I will play someday!

Bookshops

I discovered 3 excellent independent bookshops this year. Each of them has a fantastic collection of books and a helpful staff.

1. Luna Books, Hyderabad: A peaceful bookshop near KBR Park, with a great selection of curated books. I had to force myself to not buy every book I laid my hands on — each book I picked piqued my interest.

2. A Bookshop, Mumbai: I chanced upon this roadside bookshop while walking around in Bandra late one evening. While it looks like any other roadside store at first glance, with piles of books on top of one another, a closer look shows you that this is a fantastic collection of second hand books. The collection of books on film, music, and art were outstanding.

3. Happy Bookstall, Mumbai: I was walking down Hill Road, Bandra, after eating pani-puri at Elcos when I spied Happy Bookstall. The father and son who run this place were chatty, and suggested many books to me. We had a wonderful conversation, and I left without buying anything — a rare occurrence. I returned the next day though, and spent more time at the shop, and ended up buying a bunch of Japanese detective fiction books (Higashino, Soji Shimada, Yokomizo) that kept me company in rainy Mumbai evenings.

Music

I listened to a lot of varied music this year — as in years before — and pushed forward the boundary of my musical tastes. My year was divided into 4 phases: the early part of the year, when I listened to a lot of Pitchfork 10/10 albums, the second phase when I listened to a lot of Hindustani Classical (Pt Jasraj, Nikhil Bannerjee, Hariprasad Chaurasia), the third phase, when I listened to a fair bit of gaming music, and the last few months, when I’ve been diving into the RD Burman universe.

In listening to music, two things changed for me: firstly, I switched from Spotify to YouTube Music (because of a larger Hindustani classical collection, and also because sharing Spotify with my daughter caused my recommendations to be flooded with Taylor Swift), and I started listening on good headphones, which made a world of difference to my listening, and I started appreciating more aspects of what I was listening to.

With that preface, here are my favourite albums I heard for the first time this year:

1. Graceland, Paul Simon: I hadn’t heard this album before — what a miss, given how much of Simon & Garfunkel I’ve heard — and I loved it. Fantastic.

2. What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye: I had tried listening to this album many times before, but never really paid attention to it. When I heard it on my headphones, and paid attention to it — what an album. Exceptional.

3. Quarantine the Past, Pavement: I read about Pavement in the book “Stay True”, by Hua Hsu, earlier in the year. I didn’t expect to enjoy the album, but it was a surprisingly good alt-rock album.

4. Donuts, J Dilla: I had read of Dilla when I was deep into my hip-hop listening phase 2 years ago, when I was listening toThe Pharcyde, De La Soul, Erykah Badu, and Common. I had never heard Donuts though — his final, iconic, instrumental sample album. Brilliant.

5. I Cant Stand the Rain, Ann Peebles: My brother gifted my daughter an LP of this album for her birthday. This is a fantastic soul and R&B record.

6. City of Gold, Molly Tuttle: I discovered this album by Molly Tuttle (the only album in this list from 2023!), and loved the bluegrassy feel and banjo tunes on this album. A rising star for sure!

7. Life and Life Only, The Heavy Heavy: Another discover, I love The Heavy Heavy! A great ‘60’s album — made by a band in 2022!

8. Forever Changes, Love: I had never heard — or heard of — Love when I was growing up and listening to a lot of ‘60’s rock music. I heard of them on the Tyler Cowen podcast with Rick Rubin (highly recommended podcast, Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act” is on my “To Read” list for next year). This was a good ‘60’s psych-rock album!

9. Game soundtracks: I played — and enjoyed the music of — Tetris Effect, Laika — Aged Through Blood, and Descenders. And of course, my favourite song videos and music from RIOT Games this year were: Gods, by New Jeans (which was the Worlds 2023 anthem), Remix Rumble by Steve Aoki for Teamfight Tactics (what a fantastic video!), and the VALORANT Champions anthem song and video, Ticking Away by Grabbitz & bbno$

10. The Archies soundtrack: This was the surprise Bollywood music album of the year for me. The music by Shankar - Ehsan - Loy was on point, and captured the ‘60s feel and the Archies feel. The singing by Dot. was exceptional — she’s definitely a star to watch out for! It’s easy cotton candy listening, and just the perfect music for a cold day and the Christmas time of the year.

11. Gaman: I discovered this short (22 minutes), brilliant album by Jaidev earlier in the year. With songs by Hariharan, Suresh Wadkar, and Chhaya Ganguly, it is a beautiful album of ghazals and folk music. The movie has good reviews and is on my “To Watch” list.

… and a whole lot of RD Burman: Teesri Manzil, Saagar, Satte pe satta, The Burning Train, Rocky, Arjun, Shalimar, Bombay to Goa, and so many more. I got into RD Burman because a close friend whose taste I respect is a huge fan — and while I had of course heard a lot of the popular RD Burman songs in the background, I had never paid attention to the music itself. While listening to RD Burman I also sampled a fair bit of MM Kreem (who was a huge fan of RD Burman) and Shiv Hari for contrast, and gained new appreciation for the music of RD Burman. In his popular songs, there is so much happening in each song — fantastic orchestra, and great movie music. The versatility of RD is that his best songs are simple, and so influenced by classical music. My biggest discovery though were many of his fantastic instrumental numbers — the title and theme music of movies — from movies like Shalimar, Bullet Train, Rocky, Teesri Manzil, and Bombay to Goa. Exceptional stuff, and I’m glad I spent time expanding my understanding of RD Burman’s music!

Movies & TV Shows

I don’t watch as many movies or TV shows as my friends. I missed watching Oppenheimer, Spiderverse, and Killers of the Flower Moon this year, which are all on my “To Watch” list. I also didn’t watch too much of Bollywood, or the growing list of excellent Indian regional movies (Ardhangini, Kaathal, Viduthalai, Aatmapamphlet)

With that preface, here are my top 5 movie picks for 2023:

1. 12th Fail: I wrote about this exceptional movie at length on LinkedIn (of all places!). A blurb from the piece, “12th Fail is an excellent movie, and also an important one. It is a movie that I cried in, that I will remember, and that I will watch again and again. Comparing any movie with the Apu Trilogy is provocation for argument. However, in not a dissimilar way, 12th Fail too is a modern telling of the poverty that most of India lives in, and yet the unwavering optimism, hope, and spirit of its people. This movie is not only a Bollywood classic, but a world movie that deserves attention and praise”. Watch this movie if you haven’t.

2. Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam: What a long, strange trip! It’s a weird, fantastic, dreamlike movie, with exceptional acting by Mammootty (who at the age of 72 has done varied, fantastic movies like Kaathal, Bheeshma Parvam, Rorschach all in the last two years!).

3. Ponniyan Selvan 2: A satisfying conclusion to the 2-part movie series, with all of the intrigue and action from the book translated to screen on epic proportion and with a massive soundtrack (who says Rahman’s best days are over?!).

4. The Archies (above Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani): Perhaps a controversial pick! Rocky aur Rani was a classic Bollywood movie, with great acting by Ranvir Singh and Alia Bhatt. The Archies was an atypical Bollywood movie, released only on Netflix, with more English than Hindi, and less-than-impressive acting. However, The Archies points to the future of Bollywood on OTT (while Rocky aur Rani points to the past): a new crop of fresh-faced actors who will get better with time, movies with an English sensibility, and catering to a GenZ audience that is ever more exposed to world culture. Besides all this, The Archies was an easy watch, with warm tones, and arguably the first Christmas movie to come out of Bollywood.

5. Barbie: I loved Barbie — even though I didn’t expect to. It was oddball, funny, self-deprecatory, and intelligent. There were so many things that could have gone wrong with this movie, and Greta Gerwig navigated them all. A fantastic fable.

I also watched — and rewatched — “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, a brilliant movie I had missed last year, and that taught me about Meta-Modernism, through this brilliant YouTube video: Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now?

Onto TV shows, I missed more than I watched. Among Indian TV shows, I watched Farzi and Guns & Gulaabs, both of which I enjoyed, but I don’t remember much of. However, the standout TV series for me from this year was “One Piece” — I binged the show with my daughter over 2 days, and loved every part of it. Each episode was true to the original, and the characters playing Monkey D Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, and Nami do a fantastic job. I am looking forward to Season 2!

Games

I played a lot of VALORANT and Teamfight Tactics this year — as can be expected! In the last 10 months at RIOT Games, I’ve really gotten into VALORANT, and play it every day. Unfortunately, I wish I could play more competitive — instead, in the last few months, I’ve mostly played a lot of Team Deathmatch.

Outside of the RIOT Games games that I play, I did end up playing a lot of games on Steam. The games I spent most time on this year were: EA FIFA 2023 (no surprises!), Street Fighter 6, Tetris Effect (loved the game and the soundtrack), Laika — Aged Through Blood, and Dead Cells.

Other media

I continued to follow two of my favourite podcasts this year: Conversations with Tyler, and The Jordan B Peterson podcast. They are both different, they both make me think, and they both are perfect to listen to on flights (and I was on many flights this year!).

I did end up also watching a lot of YouTube videos and shorts, and Insta reels this year — more than last year. I think I’m done with this, and want to cut back on my “timepass” video consumption in 2024!