You can learn so much from listening to these fascinating podcasts

If you're an aspiring media student or a young journalist or a writer-in-the making, there are few better ways of learning the craft of non-fiction than by hearing from the experts how they did what they did. In this respect, the Longoform podcasts are an invaluable tool.

Here, just for starters, are 10 podcasts I have  listened to (some more than once) — and enjoyed thoroughly:

1. https://goo.gl/M0z4ao — Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of The New York Times

2. https://goo.gl/RURwvy — Alexis Okeowo, a foreign correspondent, has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Businessweek. Recently wrote about Boko Haram

3. https://goo.gl/iQj3CG — Rukmini Callimachi, covers ISIS for The New York Times

4. https://goo.gl/MfepbH — Tim Ferriss, productivity expert and author of The Four-Hour Workweek and The Four-Hour Body

5. https://goo.gl/O5AaMo — Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, which was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, and Tiny Beautiful Things

6. http://bit.ly/1jC9TSw — S.L. Price, senior editor at Sports Illustrated. He has written in his book, A Far Field, about his experience of covering the India-Pakistan cricket series

7. http://bit.ly/1RjtJNC — Carol Loomis, who retired last summer after covering business for 60 years at Fortune magazine. She continues to edit Warren Buffett's annual report

8. https://goo.gl/yhrusL — Ian Urbina, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, who recently published "The Outlaw Ocean," a four-part series on crime in international waters

9. https://goo.gl/7zoywA — Stephen J. Dubner is the co-author, with Steven D. Levitt, of Freakonomics. Their latest book, When to Rob a Bank, came out in May

10. https://goo.gl/YBMhmE — Ashlee Vance covers technology for Bloomberg Businessweek and is the author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future 

What can we learn from listening to these podcasts?

• What it means to be a journalist/writer/reporter/editor/author
• How to deal with the issues that come up in the course of work
• How to conduct interviews
• How to ask probing questions, to listen to the answers and ask follow-up questions
• How to articulate your thoughts
• What you have to do to succeed in your chosen field

As of the time of writing, there were 164 podcasts in the Longform archive. So after you are done listening to the 10 listed above, go ahead and wade right in.

UPDATE (November 5, 2015): To understand better the craft of journalistic interviewing, listen to this podcast with the New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir, whose expose of worker exploitation in New York's nail salons was one of the newspaper's biggest stories in recent times. Maslin Nir worked for 13 months over her story, which was then published in two parts earlier this year. You can read the stories here:

1. The Price of Nice Nails

2. Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers

And you can listen to the podcast interview with Maslin Nir here: #142.

UPDATE (November 6, 2015): I have just finished listening to an eye-opening interview with Anand Gopal, who gave up a planned career in physics to go to Afghanistan to write about the situation there. Why Gopal did it and, perhaps more compelling for aspiring journalists, how he did it composes the bulk of his conversation with Aaron Lammer of Longform Podcasts. Listen to the podcast here: #125.

PS: I have aready ordered the book Anand Gopal wrote about his experiences in Afghanistan: No Good Men among the Living.

• Here you can read an interview with Aaron Lammer and learn how he and his partner Max Linsky went about building the highly popular Longform.org site: The Art of Podcasting.

Why American writer Dinty Moore is all praise for Indian speakers and writers of English

I have been reading an interesting and highly original book (pictured) by author, editor, and writing coach Dinty Moore.

Moore writes with humour and with intelligence. Here's the first paragraph from the introduction:

"Perhaps you are standing in the bookstore, scanning this introductory chapter, wondering just what sort of book you have in hand. You are a good-looking person whose minor flaws seem to only accentuate your considerable charm. You are intelligent. And immune to flattery."

So yes, Moore writes with humour and with intelligence. But we all make mistakes and I thought Moore made one on Page 18 in a four-page essay dedicated to teaching readers how to use an "em dash". So I wrote an e-mail to him on Sunday night.

Subject: A question regarding the em dash as used in your book, "Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy"

Hello Dinty,

This is Ramesh Prabhu in Bangalore, India.

I am a good-looking person whose minor flaws seem to only accentuate my considerable charm. I am intelligent. And immune to flattery.

In other words, I have bought a copy of your book.

Now that I have got that out of the way, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

On Page 18 of your book, in the essay regarding Cheryl Strayed's letter to you about her love affair with the em dash, you give us this example of how to use this particular punctuation mark:

I have three goals for my day—measure an "n" and an "m", memorize the width of the two letters, and look up "obsessive disorders" on Wikipedia.

My understanding is that a colon, not a dash (em or en) should be used to introduce a list. So don't you think you should have used a colon instead of the em dash in that sentence?

I have three goals for my day: measure an "n" and an "m", memorize the width of the two letters, and look up "obsessive disorders" on Wikipedia.

I am a journalist turned journalism professor. I have been teaching journalism since April 2003 at a media college in Bangalore. My students and I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,

Ramesh 

And here's Moore's reply: 

Subject: Re: A question regarding the em dash as used in your book, "Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy"

 

Ramesh

I think you are correct.  I also think that, in general, Indian speakers and writers of English are far more precise and correct than the British are nowadays.  And for sure, you are better at this than we Americans, who tend to be immensely sloppy, informal, and inconsistent. Thanks to you and your students for the correction.

Dinty

***

ALSO READ:

An e-mail interaction with The New York Times — In 8 minutes, a response from The New York Times to my e-mail pointing out a typo in a headline

An e-mail interaction with author Mardy Grothe —  It all depends on the telling, sure. But surely who does the telling matters?

 

“More than 300 women were shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten, bludgeoned, or burned to death over the past decade by men in South Carolina, dying at a rate of one every 12 days while the state does little to stem the carnage from domestic abuse.”

Journalism guru Roy Peter Clark considers that to be the best lead, or intro, from among this year's Pulitzer Prize winners. Here he explains why: "The winner for the best Pulitzer Prize lead is…"

In the same post you can also read Clark's analysis of the next best leads.

For copy editors and reporters everywhere, Clark is a godsend. Check this out, too:

• "Three Little Words": A multi-part true story that keeps you wanting to read on. This is what journalism is really about"

• "How journalism guru Roy Peter Clark helped to turn a classified ad into a heartwarming newspaper story"

• "If you had to think up a six-word motto for journalism, what would it be?"

AND WHILE ON THE SUBJECT of the Pulitzer Prize, you should read this:"‘Investigative reporting is obviously alive and well’ and other observations from first-time Pulitzer jurors".

10 interesting — and relevant — articles to inspire media professionals, especially young journalists and journalism aspirants

1. "The best farewell address by a journalist":

‘At The [NY] Times, you can imagine yourself making journalism that changes the world’

• "This so inspiring," wrote Commitscion Barkha Joshi (Class of 2016) on my Facebook wall soon after I posted this link yesterday.

2. Taking magazine cover design to new heights:

How they did it: "Behind the Making of Our Walking New York Cover"

3. An essay adapted from Tales from the Great Disruption: Insights and Lessons from Journalism’s Technological Transformation, by Michael Shapiro, Anna Hiatt, and Mike Hoyt:

"The Value of News"

An excerpt:

... I can think of no better distillation of what exists at the heart of the relationship between journalism and its audiences than the phrase that Lisa Gubernick, a wonderful journalist at Forbes and the Journal, used to open every single conversation, professional and personal. She would ask, “What’s new and interesting?”

4. Journalists talk about what is perhaps their greatest fear:

"Fear of screwing up"

An excerpt:

To be a journalist, you have to be afraid. Fear makes you triple-check your work. It makes you sharper, faster, more focused. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, or drops in unexpectedly at that party or dinner. Fear demands that you be absolutely sure you want to say every little thing you’re saying. 

"I have enough fear to do my job well. Brilliant article," wrote Commitscion Abira Banerjee (Class of 2015) on my Facebook wall the day after I posted this link.

5. Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron on journalism’s transition from print to digital:

“Journalism’s Big Move: What to Discard, Keep, and Acquire in Moving From Print to Web”

 

6. Rolling Stone magazine and the controversial university rape article:

Do scandals like Rolling Stone’s do lasting damage to journalism?

An excerpt:

While many agreed Rolling Stone’s failure harmed the media’s reputation, they also said it and the industry could repair the damage. The larger threats to journalism, many of them added, are more gradual systemic changes, from the implosion of business models to false balance in public “controversies.”

7. "A year after the firings of two top women editors, four journalism leaders discuss the challenges of editing while female."

"Can you think about rising?"

8. "Many writers are fond of semicolons; we use them a lot; even when we shouldn’t; and we often don’t know how to use them. (One clue: not the way we just did.)"

"To semicolon, or not to semicolon"

9. A well-deserved tribute to veteran journalist P. Sainath and his team:

"Documenting India's Villages Before They Vanish"

An excerpt:

So far, Sainath has recruited more than 1,000 volunteers for the archive project, ranging from 30-year veterans of the journalism business to software engineers who’ve written nary a word. They’ve documented some fascinating characters. One of them is a 73-year-old librarian who manages a trove of 170 classics, mostly translations of Russian masters, in a tiny forest village frequented by wild elephants.

Also read: A savvy, must-watch documentary on the peerless P. Sainath

10. "Copy-editing can be a great job. I’ve always been grateful for the work and especially for the people I’ve met, copy editors, fact checkers, editors, and writers alike."

"Workers of the word, unite"

• Also read: All hail the Comma Queen!

All hail the Comma Queen!

When a copy editor of the Salon e-zine chats up the copy editor of New Yorker magazine who also happens to have published a book about her profession, what results is an interview that puts the spotlight on a vital job: editing.

Here is a sample Q&A: 

Q: Schools are teaching grammar a lot less and relying on technology and word processing programmes to “teach” it by default, pointing out grammar mistakes. Do you think this, not to mention texting and tweeting, will have a significant effect on the grammar and spelling of future adults? 

A: That’s not a very nice way to learn, just by having your mistakes pointed out. But there are fun ways to do it: “Schoolhouse Rock,” for instance, and pop music. Lately, Weird Al Yankovic has been singing about grammar and usage. Texting and tweeting shouldn’t really affect grammar, though spell-check programmes and autocorrect will have an effect on spelling. I believe that the only way to learn English grammar is to study a foreign language.

MARY NORRIS: COPY THAT!

Q: Your profanity chapter is full of hilarious examples of language writers are competing to get into the magazine. One piece by Ben McGrath debuted “bros before hos” in the New Yorker, creating a spelling dilemma with “hos”—hmm, I see that Webster’s gives the plural of “ho” as either “hos” or “hoes.” Where do you turn if it’s not in the dictionaries of record? 

A: When a word is not in Webster’s or Random House, I will look online. There are many dictionaries of slang, but you have to choose your source carefully. One of our sources is the New York Times, but of course it’s no good for profanity! One feels so silly looking up “jism,” say (though there are variant spellings), and even sillier querying it. You try to find a respectable source for the profanity, and it is a bit of a challenge. Rap lyrics, especially.

Read this fascinating feature in its entirety here: New Yorker copyeditor dishes on the wacky side of her (quite dignified) job: “One feels so silly looking up [profanity]” 

• ALSO READ: "Workers of the Word, Unite"

• ADDITIONAL READING: Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation

"Make social media work for you (not against you)"

What I have been telling my students for many years now: "Recruiters are looking at your social media posts."

Here, writing in Mint, Infancia Cardozo explains how you can ensure that potential employers like what they see and how to improve your hireability.

 Read this instructive and enlightening article in its entirety here.

• ALSO READ: "Facebook: Boon or bane?"

Media Matters-10: What to read, especially if you want to understand the media (Second and final part of a two-part series)

This was published on the Education Page of Dubai's Khaleej Times today:

WHAT TO READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE MEDIA-2

This is the second and final part of a two-part series

By Ramesh Prabhu

In “Media Matters” on February 24, I introduced you to Krishna Prasad, the editor in chief of Outlook, and his list of recommended reads. In that column we covered two categories: “Fiction” as well as “Style and Writing Guides”. Today we will cover the remaining five categories.

I have had to trim the original list for reasons of space, as well as to add some books which I have found to be especially useful and some books which became available only recently. My choices are marked by the prefix “RP”. If you would like to go through the list Krishna Prasad gave me, here’s the link: What To Read.

COMPILATIONS
The best way of learning journalism is to think and act like a journalist. And one sure way of doing so is to find time to go through some of the compilations of great journalism. Not only will you get an idea of what was done by journalists before you, but you also get to read and update your knowledge about events, people, and places in history.

1. The Faber Book of Reportage, edited by John Carey
2. The Granta Book of Reportage
3. The New Journalism, edited by Tom Wolfe and E.W. Johnson
4. The Penguin Book of Columnists
5. (RP) Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way: Stories by Winners of the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons, edited by Lathika Padgaonkar and Shubha Singh
6. (RP) The Paris Review Interviews, Vols I, II, III
7. (RP) Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World, edited by Anya Schiffrin
8. (RP) The Best American Magazine Writing 2014, edited by Sid Holt for the American Society of Magazine Editors
9. (RP) Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists, edited by Eleanor Mills and Kira Cochrane
10. (RP) Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns, edited by John Avlon, Jesse Angelo, and Errol Louis
11. (RP) Time: 85 Years of Great Writing, edited by Christopher Porterfield
12. (RP) Telling True Stories, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call
13. (RP) Writing a Nation: An Anthology of Indian Journalism, edited by Nirmala Lakshman
14. (RP) Breaking the Big Story: Great Moments in Indian Journalism, edited by B.G. Verghese
25. (RP) Foreign Correspondent: Fifty Years of Reporting on South Asia, edited by Simon Denyer, John Elliott, and Bernard Imhasly
  
MEMOIRS
This is a sure-shot way of learning how journalism works and how journalists work. The very best people in the business have put it all down on a platter for young journalists and you would be foolish not to partake of a great feast.

1. A Good Life, by Ben Bradlee, the executive editor who turned The Washington Post around
2. Good Times, Bad Times, by Harold Evans, the pioneering editor of The Sunday Times
3. A Personal History, by Katherine Graham, the publisher who oversaw the Watergate exposé
4. (RP) Lucknow Boy, by Vinod Mehta
5. (RP) Editor Unplugged, by Vinod Mehta
6. (RP) News from No Man’s Land, by John Simpson, the famed BBC TV journalist
7. (RP) Remembering Mr Shawn’s New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing, by Ved Mehta
8. (RP) Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival, by Anderson Cooper of CNN

BIOGRAPHIES
Another great way of learning more about our business. There are two you must try to read. The first is Paper Tigers, by Nicholas Coleridge, in which he profiles some of the world’s great publishers, including three from India: Samir Jain of The Times of India, Aveek Sarkar of the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group, and Ramnath Goenka, the feisty founder of The Indian Express. And the second is my all-time favourite: The Years with Ross, by James Thurber, in which he profiles the eccentric founder-editor of The New Yorker, Harold Ross.

COLLECTIONS
Most great journalists have published collections of their stand-out work. And the books by some of the very best are always at my bedside.

1. Essays, by George Orwell, unquestionably the most vibrant columnist of the 20th century
2. The Best of Plimpton, by George Plimpton, the pioneer of participatory journalism
3. (RP) Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and Other Essays, by Gay Talese
4. (RP) Interviews with History and Power, by Oriana Fallaci
5. (RP) Anticipating India, by Shekhar Gupta, former editor of The Indian Express
6. (RP) Journalism, by Joe Sacco, the pioneer of comics journalism

CLASSICS
Some books by journalists have become classics: Hiroshima, by John Hersey, a sterling account of the victims of the nuclear bombing; In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, a reconstruction of a serial killing in Kansas; The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, on the horrific conditions in the American meat packing industry. But my own personal favourite is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson, a drugged-out, tripped-out modern classic by the Father of Gonzo Journalism.

 (RP) My must-reads in this category:
1. All the President’s Men: The Greatest Reporting Story of all Time, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
2. Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists, by Mike Wallace and Beth Knobel
3. Hard News, by Seth Mnookin
4. Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s Poorest Districts, by P. Sainath
5. Page One: Inside the New York Times and the Future of Journalism, edited by David Folkenflik

THINK ABOUT IT: “A reporter's life, by God, it’s an absolutely wonderful life. Somebody’s paying the bill to educate you — to send you around the world, if you prove worthy.” — Legendary American TV news anchor Mike Wallace

·        Ramesh Prabhu is professor of journalism at Commits Institute of Journalism & Mass Communication, Bangalore. Commits offers a full-time two-year MA degree course.

·        “Media Matters” welcomes questions from readers who would like to know more about careers in journalism. Please send in your queries to education@khaleejtimes.com.

ALSO READ:

• There is no job like journalism (Media Matters-1)
• Can anyone become a journalist? (Media Matters-2)
• What you must do to become a journalist (Media Matters-3)
• Why we became journalists: First part of a three-part series (Media Matters-4)
• Why we became journalists: Second part of a three-part series (Media Matters-5)
• Why we became journalists: Final part of a three-part series (Media Matters-6)
• Good readers make good media professionals (Media Matters-7)
• Reading non-fiction pays huge dividends (Media Matters-8) 
• What to read, especially if you want to understand the media: First part of a two-part series (Media Matters-9)

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Outlook's peerless issue on the Indian media crisis

Media Matters-9: What to read, especially if you want to understand the media (First part of a two-part series)

This was published on the Education Page of Dubai's Khaleej Times today:

WHAT TO READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE MEDIA-I

By Ramesh Prabhu

I have been fortunate over the years to have met and worked with many enterprising journalists. None, to my mind, is more enterprising than Krishna Prasad.

I was first introduced to Krishna Prasad, or KP as he is universally known, sometime in 2001 in Bengaluru. The media company I was working with at the time had hired him to come up with a template for the technology and business daily that was to be launched later that year. KP not only designed a classy tabloid; he also trained the journalists who had been recruited to produce it.

KP, who has been hailed as one of India’s finest young journalists, is today at the top of his game as editor in chief of Outlook, the weekly newsmagazine founded by his mentor, Vinod Mehta.

I am particularly pleased to have made KP’s acquaintance because, like me, he also believes you are what you read. And he is also clear on the point that reading is a vital factor in the success of a media professional.

Many years ago, KP had come to Commits for an interactive session with our students. (He has also been a speaker at the college’s annual seminar.) Afterwards, for our students’ benefit, he graciously handed over to me his recommended reading list, which, in the interests of serving a wider audience, I have reproduced below (the comments introducing each category are by KP) with his consent.

I have had to trim the original list for reasons of space, as well as to add some books which I have found to be especially useful and some books which became available only recently. My choices are marked by the prefix “RP”. If you would like to go through the list KP gave me, here’s the link: What To Read.

Here then, in a two-part feature, are the books you must read – especially if you want to understand the media.

FICTION
Like the movie Citizen Kane (which is the fictionalised account of the life and times of the publisher William Randolph Hearst), one of the all-time great novels is also built on journalism: Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop. But here are a few other works of fiction centered around journalism:

1. Psmith Journalist, by P.G. Wodehouse
2. Fourth Estate, by Jeffrey Archer (a veiled story of Rupert Murdoch)
3. Pelican Brief, by John Grisham
4. (RP) Towards the End of the Morning, by Michael Frayn
5. (RP) Broken News, Amrita Tripathi
6. (RP) The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
7. (RP) Bunker 13, by Aniruddha Bahal

WALKING THE TALK: Outlook editor in chief Krishna Prasad, who was a speaker at the annual Commits seminar in February 2010, is a book-lover at heart.

STYLE AND WRITING GUIDES
For those who love words and the use of language,there can be nothing more gripping than reading “style sheets”: these are the in-house guides and manuals that newspapers and magazines use to achieve uniformity and standardisation. The Economist Style Guide is universally regarded as the best and most entertaining, but there are a few others that you might like to read.

(RP) It is impossible to overestimate the importance of learning how to write well by following the tips and advice of those who have been there, done that. And since grammar and punctuation have a vital role to play in good writing, you should read books that will help you on that front, too.

1. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White
2. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
3. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
4. (RP) How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times, by Roy Peter Clark
5. (RP) The English Language: A User's Guide, by Jack Lynch
6. (RP) Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, by Roy Peter Clark
7. (RP) The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on The Wall Street Journal Guide, by William E. Blundell
8. (RP) 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, by Gary Provost
9. (RP) The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, by Roy Peter Clark
10. (RP) On Writing, by Stephen King

• In the next installment of “Media Matters”: The second and final part of “The books you must read if you want to understand the media”

THINK ABOUT IT: “Why did you become a journalist?”
“Better than working for a living.”
― Leslie Cockburn, Baghdad Solitaire

·        Ramesh Prabhu is professor of journalism at Commits Institute of Journalism & Mass Communication, Bangalore. Commits offers a full-time two-year MA degree course.

·        “Media Matters” welcomes questions from readers who would like to know more about careers in journalism. Please send in your queries to education@khaleejtimes.com.

ALSO READ:

• There is no job like journalism (Media Matters-1)
• Can anyone become a journalist? (Media Matters-2)
• What you must do to become a journalist (Media Matters-3)
• Why we became journalists: First part of a three-part series (Media Matters-4)
• Why we became journalists: Second part of a three-part series (Media Matters-5)
• Why we became journalists: Final part of a three-part series (Media Matters-6)
• Good readers make good media professionals (Media Matters-7)
• Reading non-fiction pays huge dividends (Media Matters-8)

ADDITIONAL READING:

• Outlook's peerless issue on the Indian media crisis

On journalism, Commits students, and the historic Commits-Network 18 tie-up

My brief speech at Expressions 2015, the annual Commits seminar:

• ALSO READ: "WHY I DO WHAT I DO, or What a joy it is to be a journalist and a journalism teacher!"

Media Matters-8: Reading non-fiction pays huge dividends

 This was published on the Education Page of Dubai's Khaleej Times today:

READING NON-FICTION PAYS HUGE DIVIDENDS

Journalism professor RAMESH PRABHU explains, in a Q&A with his journalist alter-ego RAMESH PRABHU, why it is important to read non-fiction.

Q: I am told you are fond of telling every batch of new students that they should read Longitudes and Attitudes, by Thomas Friedman, if they want to know what makes the world tick.

A: Yes, and I also tell them they should read India Unbound, by Gurcharan Das, if they want to know what makes the country tick. As a bibliomaniac, as a teacher, as someone who believes in the manifold blessings showered on readers by books, I have made it my life’s mission to encourage, even push, people to read. And I’m happy that I have had some success over the years.

GURCHARAN DAS, AUTHOR OF INDIA UNBOUND.

Q: Most people I know, especially young adults, seem to prefer fiction. So how do you go about extolling the virtues of non-fiction? Perhaps you can explain by elaborating on your reasons for recommending Thomas Friedman and Gurcharan Das.
 
A: Gurcharan Das first. Many of us have only a superficial knowledge of the reforms of the ’90s that have transformed India so dramatically. The impact of those reforms is being felt even today. But what was the country like before 1990? How did India change after liberalisation? And why is it important for all of us to grasp the logic underlying this grand economic revolution? You will get the answers to these questions, and more, in Gurcharan Das’s splendid book.

Das, a former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India, has a unique insight into the country’s history. He also has a way with words, which makes India Unbound incomparable as an introduction to economics. Really, it is the equivalent of Economics 101.

So, knowing how young people shudder at the thought of an economics lesson and knowing how badly they need to understand the subject, I press them to read India Unbound closely.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN, AUTHOR OF LONGITUDES AND ATTITUDES.

Longitudes and Attitudes, on the other hand, offers readers a seat at the international table as Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, serves up his sharp opinions on “the world in the age of terrorism” (the sub-title of his book, which is a collection of the columns he wrote for the Times). Friedman flies around the world to gather material for his twice-weekly articles, so we get reports — and horizon-widening views — from Riyadh and Moscow, Jakarta and Teheran. Who can say no to this choice cuisine? More to the point, who will want to say no?

Q: Going back to my original question, though, isn’t fiction a better choice? After all, novels transport us to a world that exists in the author’s imagination, and that world becomes ours, too, as we read on. What better way to escape from our humdrum lives!
 
A: Everyone who knows me knows how crazy I am about books. I have been reading books since I was five or six years old. And like everyone else, I began with fiction. So I know where you are coming from. I agree that novels offer us a way to experience many vicarious thrills. But non-fiction gives us a new perspective on our world as it exists. Reading non-fiction can help us become better persons. Non-fiction can give a boost to our careers.

Q: That’s a bit far-fetched, surely?

A: You have apparently not heard of How Will You Measure Your Life? Or The Last Lecture. A Complaint-Free World. Letters to Sam. A Fistful of Rice. How Proust Can Change Your Life... I could go on. These are just a few of the many wonderful books that I have read in recent years that have not only made me think about my approach to life but have also been an inspiration. I wish these books had been around when I was growing up; they would have made such a big difference to my mindset at a stage in my life when change would have been more welcome, and easier, than it is today.

I would have been a better journalist and writer, too, if the books available to me now were available when I was beginning my career. The books I am thinking of are, again, just to mention a few, Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art Of Editing; The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight; Breaking the Big Story: Great Moments in Indian Journalism; Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times; Essential English for Journalists, Editors, and Writers... there are so many extraordinary books in this category that I feel bad about not being able to name all of them.

Q: The way I look at it, you seem to be focused on what I think of as self-help books, and books that deal with journalism and writing. What about history, biography, memoir? And business books — they are all the rage today, I understand.

A: I’m glad you’ve brought this up. I am not really a big fan of “self-help” literature; I think of the books I have referred to as “wisdom literature”. I only chose those two sub-genres you mention because, as a teacher, I have found it easier to get young people started on non-fiction when they believe, rightly, that there is a possibility that the books concerned will have a bearing on their future.

But when it comes to non-fiction, I am an omnivore. Want to read a great book dealing with world history? I recommend highly Travels with Herodotus, by legendary Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who began his career as a foreign correspondent in India. As for biographies, there is Art Spiegelman’s spellbinding Holocaust narrative, Maus (yes, it is a graphic novel, but who says non-fiction has to be wholly text-based?). Recently I also read Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain — how a man can be both an amazing chef and a gifted writer with an eye for detail beats me.

I have read my share of business books, too — not too long ago, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Inside Drucker's Brain, billed as the most accessible guide to the essential ideas of Peter Drucker, the inventor of modern management.

Q: Clearly, there is a wealth of great non-fiction out there to suit all possible tastes.

A: Oh yes. So the sooner you get down to it, the better.

THINK ABOUT IT: “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.” ― Christopher Morley, American journalist, novelist, essayist, and poet

• Coming up in the next installment of “Media Matters”: What to read (especially if you want to understand the media)

·        Ramesh Prabhu is professor of journalism at Commits Institute of Journalism & Mass Communication, Bangalore. Commits offers a full-time two-year MA degree course.

·        “Media Matters” welcomes questions from readers who would like to know more about careers in journalism. Please send in your queries to education@khaleejtimes.com.

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• There is no job like journalism (Media Matters-1)
• Can anyone become a journalist? (Media Matters-2)
• What you must do to become a journalist (Media Matters-3)
• Why we became journalists: First part of a three-part series (Media Matters-4)
• Why we became journalists: Second part of a three-part series (Media Matters-5)
• Why we became journalists: Final part of a three-part series (Media Matters-6)
• Good readers make good media professionals (Media Matters-7)