My February TBR dispatch for a month that flew by
A periodic list of quirky Wikipedia pages, hardhitting journalism, delicious longforms, jarring opeds, quickread books, and silly multimedia to add to your monthly #ToBeRead
Seriously, where did February go? I was excited to curate a reading list for the month because we were graced with just so many delicious pieces. And the next thing I know, it’s the last day of the month and I have to pay yet another credit card bill (I always forget it’s not free money).
Enjoy these goodreads while it’s still breezy out!
These just in
Let’s look at some hits from February 2025:
‘‘Sometimes it’s fabulous, sometimes it’s Lord of the Flies’: behind the scenes of The White Lotus season three’ by Charlotte Edwardes for the Guardian. If you’re a slave to White Lotus Mondays and are currently mourning the death of the wlooowloo wlooowloooooo intro like me, this is a must-read behind the scenes of great television. I’m not surprised White is so heavily inspired by reality TV—it shows [cut to Pornchai’s rockhard abs]. (Read)
‘Is the Nirbhaya Fund a solution or problem?’ by Nihira for Syaahi. Absolutely scathing takedown of India’s deeply flawed women safety fund—one that reeks of misplaced priorities and bureaucratic greed. Must read even if it makes your blood boil, because our governments truly do not see women as people. (Read)
‘What’s the Opposite of Taking Someone’s Virginity?’ by Elizabeth Laura Nelson for Narratively. This is a weird one. It’s achingly morose and sexy and funny and slice-of-life. A short romcom laced in regret but youthfulness. I love Nelson’s other writing too, it feels personal yet too batshit crazy to be true. (Read)
‘Bluetooth Speakers Are Ruining Music’ by By Michael Owen for the Atlantic. “You have two ears for a reason”, reads the lede. If you guessed the writer is a boomer, you are right! But he recounts a nostalgic time in our lives when music was either so personal it was bodily, or so communal we had accessible concerts. Now we have neither. Beautiful ode to a beautiful time. (Read)
‘Stop Infantilizing Luigi Stans’ by Unnati Bose for The Harbus. Scream it from the rooftops!! I cutting explainer on why two things can be true. Sure, murder bad. But an informed takedown of a wretchedly exploitative health system that kills millions is not. (Read)
‘Bollywood's Fantasy of Control Is Failing Everyone’ by Takshi Mehta for The Plank. This story asks the pressing question: why has bollywood been so fucking shit lately? And if everything to come out of it stinks, how is it all crossing the 100-Cr mark? No shade to first woman ever Urvashi Rautela… the math does not add up. But what if the formula we’ve been using all these decades is wrong? (Read)
‘The death of capital letters: why gen Z loves lowercase’ by Nyima Jobe for the Guardian. Stylistic preference or a cultural phenomenon? Another seemingly boomer writer weighs in with surprising degree of nuance and calls to bell hooks. (Read)
‘Elon Musk put a chip in this paralysed man’s brain. Now he can move things with his mind. Should we be amazed - or terrified?’ by Jenny Kleeman for the Guardian. Short answer: terrified. This is a long, winding story, recounting the ethics of Musk’s latest biotech venture—a severance-ass chip in the brain that could give one ‘telekinetic’ abilities. Impressive, scary, funny, and leaves you smiling. Not something I often associate with that blithering idiot. (Read)
Wiki Shuffle
Here are some of my favourite totally random pages that I have landed on and enjoyed reading after hitting shuffle over a trillion times on Wikipedia:
FM-2030. My unserious baby boy. Calls himself a progressive futurist and transhumanist. Nothing about this man is normal. In a 1972 oped in The New York Times, he wrote that the leadership in the Arab–Israeli conflict had failed, and that the warring sides were “acting like adolescents, refuse to resolve their wasteful 25-year-old brawl”. Love me a nuanced KING!
Roopkund. Now I’ve seen too many reels about this one but the wikipage is a repository of it’s creepy history. Roopkund lake, also called skeleton lake, is a glacial body marked by hundreds and hundreds of skeletons in and around it. The remains belong to groups across three different events in history.
Codex Seraphinianus. A weird “illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world” with illustrations straight out of a fever dream and completely made up modern script. Very polarising and yet adapted across editions and languages… please see the pictures here, there’s something so unsettling about this one.
All time hits
Old longforms that stand the test of time. This is not an exhaustive list and will be spread these over the next few dispatches. Please relish.
‘The wild, mysterious history of sports' most enduring gesture: the high five’ by Jon Mooallem for ESPN. Legendary story, impossible to put down (much like a hanging high five…). (Read)
‘The Identity Hoaxers’ by Helen Lewis for the Atlantic. “What if people don’t just invent medical symptoms to get attention—what if they feign oppression, too?” This one is unhinged with some unexpected name-drops. (Read)
‘On Succession, Jeremy Strong does not get the joke’ by Michael Schulman for The New Yorker. My earnest king, second only to Timothee Chalamet after his SAG speech, opens up about how seriously he takes his role(s), especially on Succession. Clearly, this does not apply to his fashion choices. (Read)
That’s all folks, happy reading! #ReclaimAttentionSpans2025
Love, D