Show Reviews 2023

• star The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 by Ramesh Menon
  I am thankful for this version of the Mahabharata! The style of writing is very engaging - it's almost poetic (which by definition should be the case), and the chapters are concise and each has a definite progression - I’m not sure if that’s an applause to the story itself or the retelling.
  
  I find the Mahabharata a very clever religious scripture - in very rare scenarios does the book define any action or behavior as solely good or bad, or list out what the right thing to do is. Instead, it focuses on discussing various points of views, by first establishing characters and their backstories, and then looking at situations from their eyes. It's also brilliant how the book is essentially on Dharma, but never defines what it precisely is - for the reason that there is no one definition. It is the central topic, and yet is only spoken of through each character in different scenarios.
  
  The first volume sets up all the characters and builds the storyline to the point at which they are on the brink of the Great War. Parts of this made me angry, but midway through I realized it was because I thought of the characters were supposed to be ideal beings constantly doing the right thing. The story instead builds elaborate traits through many interactions, to allow you to form a good mental model of each person’s behavior and more importantly, flaws. It’s when I treated the "happenings" as is, and not as judgements, that I was less confused about why the story is what it is.
• star The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 by Ramesh Menon
  [Continued from my review of Volume 1]
  
  The first 150 pages of the second volume are by the most enjoyable throughout the book - it’s the discussion, opinions, point of views shown by each person about whether or not there should be war. Unlike Dharma, The War is that central tangible part of the story that each character shows through their own point of view.
  I also really enjoyed Bheeshma’s extensive Guide to being a King - more than Krishna’s Gita. Bheeshma's was a practical guide, Krishna's based more on faith. You can't have one without the other though.
  I didn't particularly enjoy the elaborate description of the war described day-by-day, because I was again looking at it from a "what can I learn from this" point of view. Instead, when I viewed it as a part of a grand story that was predominantly a story around the War, I see that as necessary.
  
  Reading both volumes was a massive project. It took my 3 months in total, but I'm very happy I did. Thank you to the author for retelling the epic for people of the 21st century!
• star Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
  I absolutely loved some of the stories here (the others a little less). "Salted Circus Cashews, Swear to God" has become my all-time favorite short story, as it conveys the perils of modern love, dating, and trust. It's also the first short story I ever read out loud at an open-mic for I like it so much.
• star A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
  Whenever I go to an art museum, I always wish I knew how to admire and appreciate the paintings - because that is an art in itself.
  
  This book is that textbook for fiction - the kind I wish we were taught in school. It makes you work with it. You don't simply read this book, the author makes you think of every sentence and every little detail the author chose to add. It shows you how there is depth more than is seen on the surface. Not in a romanticized manner, but by presenting you a new "did you think of it this way" angle.
  
  I only read the first 3 short stories, but I hope to come back to this someday.
• book The Test by Sylvain Neuvel
  This was a Black Mirror episode cross The Truman Show in the form of a book. Fun for a one-sitting read. Also a subtle reminder that if there is a God, or an all-knowing algorithm controlling all this, it's in your benefit to be a *good* person - in the form of being gentle and helpful to the others around you. And that rebelling against what seems wrong is sometimes a good thing.
• book Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu (Buddha #1) by Osamu Tezuka
  The illustrations are beautiful! I wish the first volume had more about the Buddha right from the get-go. Instead, these 400 pages set the scene for what Ancient India was like, explaining the ill fate that being born in lower castes brought. It entails the story of a fictional shudra who struggles to rise the caste ladder if at all it can be thought of as a ladder.
  
  There's a hint of the idea of oneness and letting go; lock eyes with the tiger and submit yourself to her, and you shall see she lets you be. To give in to fear is fear. Life continues on with the arduous process of transforming from one form to the next.
  
  If you're already familiar with India and all you care for is the Buddha's story, I'd recommend skipping the first volume altogether.
• book Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
  A "How I Built This" podcast episode in the form of a book. It's more autobiographical/autostartupgraphical, but I enjoy reading founder stories, and this book was just that. This is another one of those books that really need you to do the heavy lifting to make any actionable change in your own life. I appreciate it being a <100 page book with minimal fluff.
• star My Body by Emily Ratajkowski
  Her story reads of a person specifically born to become the person she is today. From her mother’s desire to see her on magazine covers to her own rise to the top.
  It validated my worldview of the life I thought a model would lead - of what my life would be like if I were born in her body.
  And yet, I’ve seen many women equally gorgeous who lead average lives working everyday jobs.
  She has the desire to be more. A multi-dimensional personality - to show everyone that there’s a lot more to her than her looks. She knows her body, she knows how to use it, and she knows how to disassociate from it.
  I like how she has different forms of writing - paragraphs, essays, articles, to entire chapters. It makes me think they are several blogposts stitched together coherently to form a book. Yet, each section of the book is distinct and enjoyable to read.

2022

• book The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan W. Watts
  This book is quite literally a tl;dr form of everything Alan Watts has to say, compressed into ~100 pages.
• book The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts by Trilochan Sastry
  In aiming to be precise, this book takes away the joy of the subject matter. The author tries to present facts as unbiased as possible, but in that attempt repeats the same things over and over. This book does a good job if the intended audience is a person studying religious texts for an exam. But for the casual reader who is interested in Hinduism, this doesn't leave you with much you will remember a day after reading a chapter. It just lists facts, not insights.
• book The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Be Quick, Be Interesting by Patrick King
  I wish these kinds of conversation-improving books had textbook style questions and answers at the end of each chapter to really make you think. What I've found is it's just much better to go to any Reddit thread and think of witty comments. Once you've written some down, scroll down and learn how yours could have been better! That said, this book does a good job at identifying how chit-chat can be done in a less boring way - but focussing on theory with a few personal fat people anecdotes doesn't stick or help the reader remember anything in the long run.
• book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
  Discussing Earth's problems while teaching one to detach from the "I" felt very forced. It also didn't have to be 300+ pages long because the core ideas were few and sparse. I feel like this book is a good intro into spirituality, but having read Alan Watts, Michael Singer, and a couple of others, Eckhart Tolle's work feels like a commercialized mass-market book.
• book The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer
  One of the key ideas that has stuck with me through the years is treating one's eyes like windows to the world. The way he explains it, I started viewing life a lot like a movie on display where I could finally grasp the idea of watching life happen. This is the second time I've read this book about halfway. Some day, when I'm back into the spirituality phase, I'll complete reading this and his latest book.
• book The Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali
  This guy is truly great. What I learned from this book is you've got to be your own biggest hypeman, no one else is going to do it for you. Have the confidence to say things, but back them up with utmost hard work. I understand why people disliked his outspoken personality, but that is also exactly why so many people know of him. He's great with his words - and they somehow read in my head the way he would say them. I didn't finish the book (~35%) because it is rather long and I'd much rather listen to this kind of story than read it.
• star Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna
  There comes a point post the 50/75 page mark where you're so surprised of him being so incredibly narcissistic, constantly declaring that he's enlightened, that you think to yourself this man must be fictional.
  
  And once you realize and accept that, the ideas in the book are top grade. This book is on enlightenment, but the crux of the idea applies to all fields: Think for yourself & put in the work.
  
  If you want to be a top tennis player, buying the best racquet, tickets to watch Federer play, or wearing sweat bands won't get you there. What'll get you there is putting in the work. The gimmicks above will fall into place once you've put in the work.
• book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
  Each one of us forms a view on life based on the hand we're dealt and the experiences we're made to face. Some go through problems at a much higher level in Maslow's hierarchy, and rarely spend thought on finding a way to work through them.
  
  The author on the other hand came face to face with the barbaric, animalistic nature of humans, struggling every second to just live another day. He built a story, a philosophy that worked for him to get through these atrocities.
  
  I like that he didn't go into the details of the horrors he faced; he presented his story, and through the story explained the philosophy that helped him get through it.
  
  To me, my takeaway of the book is what the video maker Exurb1a said; meaning is a jumper that you have to knit yourself.
• book The Stranger by Albert Camus
  What a truly strange story. I thought I'd have clever insights after letting the story rest in my head for a while, but all that comes to me is what the main character realizes at the end. He realizes that life has no greater meaning, and I suppose the lesson I learned from the book is that maybe the story holds no greater meaning.
  
  Life is unexplainable, impulsive behaviors have consequences, and past actions are hard to understand if they don't follow societal norms. I did however quite like how the main character's mother was a central character throughout the book, but we never know her directly.
• book The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
  This is a good mix of science, philosophy, and history. The one thing that I'll keep with me is that there is no universal concept of time. Much like how humans discovered the Earth isn't the center of the universe, this book made me realize the extent to which we mend time and physics to fit in our day-to-day worldview. The universe doesn't have a "now", and that just blows my mind.
• star Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System by Chet Haase
  Having worked on Android for ~10 years now, reading this book felt like reading the making of a superhero movie. You get to read the backstories of each of the _characters_, and the origin stories of the components you work on every day. [1]
  
  [1]: Oh and, the footnotes in the book were really fun.
  
  Certain things stood out:
  - Android really built the perfect team to make this happen. It's incredible how small the team was before the 1.0 launch, and that is only possible if you hire right.
  - Each person is a self-starter. If they wanted something, they made it happen.
  - Almost every single person came with years of experience in exactly the domain they worked on, and/or companies that tried doing something similar before Android. Great people know other great people.
• star Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
  All time favorite. I decided to read more of Hermann Hesse after years of loving and re-reading Siddhartha, and this book found me at exactly the time I needed it the most.
  
  The story is a take on the duality of nature; of living a structured and organized life guided by a set of rules, vs living as a free spirited soul who breathes life in. No human is solely one or the other; which is precisely why you connect and feel for both the characters each living on either extreme.
  
  I loved how this book was like Siddhartha in another universe, and how the story raises philosophical questions; like how there is no single path to life, to finding meaning more right than the other. Each one takes their own way.
• book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
  Loneliness. One can live in a world full of people and still be lonely. One can be surrounded by pleasure, by the intimacy of physical relationships, and still be lonely. One can feel an unexplained gravitation towards a particular woman, spend a lifetime with her, and still be lonely.
  
  Life is rough, those we love behave in unexplainable ways, and love itself isn't understandable. We live in patterns, and yet we ourselves don't understand what those patterns are.
  
  As a friend put it for me, all the love in the world can't save you from yourself, from your habits.
• book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
  This author can make anything funny and interesting; the 1980s equivalent of National Geographic.
• book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger Von Oech
  One of the only *practical* self-improvement books I've ever come across that puts in an effort to make you think! It's like reading a 9th grade school textbook, except on a very interesting subject. The author has put questions after each chapter, and he actively asks you to stop and think.

2021

• star Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
  Short story science fiction at its best. I really enjoyed them. Specifically, Ted Chiang gave me the impression that he is a computer programmer; a logician who views the world in a way a programmer does, who also happens to be an author. This struck a chord with me.
  
  He covers topics in time travel, super intelligence, AI, search for meaning, consciousness, and love. I find myself spending a lot of time thinking on these subjects, and for that reason it almost felt as if this book was written for me specifically. Specifically, I often think of and keep a happy memory of having read the Tower of Babylon, and The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.
  
• star Normal People by Sally Rooney
  I loved this book, especially for the characters; I think I'm at the age where I enjoy books on relationships with others and themselves. And that's what this book is about. Where people are just different, sometimes weird, but they're themselves, and you love them anyway. I painted a picture of each character, even different than described, and associated each with a person I know in my life. It reminded me of my friends. It reminded me of a relationship I've never had. It reminded of me and my friend that in a parallel universe might have had their story play out like this.
• star A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway
  I've only read half of the book - but I've realized for me to get anything useful out of this book, I really have to make some notes post each chapter. Else it's like reading a fiction book where you know the overall plot but you tend to forget the major details.
  
  Something that really struck me is how hard it is to remove your biases, and to write from a neutral lens. For example, while speaking about a religion that has nothing to do with the Greek language, the author often praises Greek, and describes the origin of an English word equating it back to the great Greeks - something that dilutes the importance of the actual religion being spoken about, almost placing the Greeks on top.
• star Coldfusion Presents: New Thinking: From Einstein to Artificial Intelligence, the Science and Technology That Transformed Our World by Dagogo Altraide
  I absolutely loved it. However, I don't remember most of the stories in the book, and I wish I did, because they were all very interesting, but apart from making me feel great, and truly understanding that it takes solid hard work, luck, and the right time in history to invent something novel and useful, I don't remember many details.
  
  Making notes on things that strike a chord is the only way to make this a useful read. Otherwise, at this point, all I remember is it making me feel good after having read it.
• star The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
  An excellent introduction on *How to Money*. The ideas presented make so much sense to me; a logical thinker who tries to model the world with reason.
  
  There were however many chapters where I realised how this book was primarily targeted for the average American, and my Indian upbringing made several chapters trivial or just obvious. I wish this was taught as a part of our school curriculum, and I hope to keep coming back to the notes I made for this book.
  
• star Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
  Imagine you're sitting by a bonfire, and your grandfather tells you his life's story of how he started Nike, the biggest sports brand in the world - all the hurdles thrown your way in starting a business, the balancing act of having a personal life and of getting married and having children, and figuring out the man he wanted to be through the whole process.
  
  I really enjoyed it because it read like a fiction book - based entirely on one man's recollection of his life events. And that's where I'd like to underscore the thing that stood out the most to me - much like a fiction book, the author is always _right_, because it is his story and he is the protagonist - given no matter what hardship, he comes out on top victorious. However, there are parts in the book where he says he hasn't done anything wrong/illegal, and yet you feel he isn't painting the entire picture.
  
  All in all though, this was a great motivational read!
  
• star Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
  If in another universe, there was a person who had lived through the exact life I am living today, except with a stronger urge to write a book, this would be the book that version of me wrote.
  
  It has all the elements of topics & interests I gravitate towards, am fond of, or have people around me speak about. It has Black Mirror vibes, plotted similar to the movie Source Code, with philosophical questions we love asking ourselves about the paths not taken & big decisions that might have changed the course of our lives.
  
  Funnily enough, it also reminded me of a book series I loved as a child - The Magic Treehouse, which I thought was a hilarious parallel. All in all, I loved the concept, the hook, and the first half was especially fun to read - the end however was much like 'reading a Hollywood movie'.
• star The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle
  Written in the 1920s when humans did not have the slightest clue of the upcoming digital age, this was the first appearance of a cyborg in literature.
  
  What I loved is how one of the most advanced pieces of technology we had in that day was the mechanical clock; and that's as far as the mind's imagination could go - the clockwork man is a cyborg who functions on advanced mechanical machinery, and the key to his functioning is a complicated clock at the back of its head (!!).
  
  The book feels like a lifetime compilation of the author's take on the various aspects of life, science and speculation of the future; the book has references to the greatness of Einstein, the understanding of time, the dimensions, love, emotions, relationships, scepticism, and belief.
  
  I loved it, and will definitely read this again.
• book The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
  This is a book you read in John's voice. Every sentence sounds so much like him! I enjoyed reading it, but a few chapters through I realized this is much more of a podcast-y listen-to-one-story-a-night kind of book that gives you something to think about, than one you rush through overloading yourself with new ideas and not having enough time to let your brain process each one.
  
  It's a collection of thoughtful bedtime stories for adults with child-like curiosity and wonder, and for that reason I give this book 5 stars.
  
• book Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Lykke / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living by Hector Garcia Puigcerver
  This book is the perfect example people from the West trying to retrofit their ideas in an Eastern setting.
  
  The basis of this book is that you must find your Ikigai; that one thing that brings meaning to your life; that act that keeps you happily busy for the rest of your life, your ikigai. Now, as nice as that sounds, doesn't it remind you of the West's *find your passion* motivation?
  
  This precisely is my problem with this book; they missed the whole point of what Ikigai might actually mean. I'll go into some depth of what this book should've been about in a blog post later. Overall though, I liked how the book wasn't full of fluff.
• book Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston
  A collection of interviews with 30 start-up founders. The common theme I see here is:
  1) each founder was highly driven to just *do something* - it didn't matter what specifically, because every final product started off as something else and evolved into itself.
  2) The Internet boom was all about bringing the real world into the digital web - mails became e-mails, magazine columns became blogs, shopping became e-commerce - and those companies that were early won.
  
  I picked this book from a reading list I found on HackerNews, and I've enjoyed it. Again, more of a bed time story for an entrepreneurial adult.
• book Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
  I truly enjoyed this book as a way to pass time, but not at all from the perspective of learning something from. As a person who has lived his life in two worlds; the world of an Indian upbringing living in a foreign land, I really resonated with how he puts across the contrast between the two in terms of relationships and dating.
  
  However, as with most books, there are maybe 5 core ideas here, and they're excellent. The rest is extra fluff from different angles to drive those core ideas and fill up 300 pages. Another book I feel that would've made for a much, much better 2 hour podcast, especially in his voice.
• book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
  Read about half of it, and realized it is just another self help book that I can read to feel like I'm reading something smart, but until I don't actually apply anything in real life, it's as good as reading fiction.
  
  Something I really wish these books did was quiz you / give you situations to act out in, so you can learn to really see what you would do vs what the author is suggesting. Something of the sort of a school textbook with quizzes at the end of each chapter. I will try to finish it because it is a short book, but I find it hard to make it a useful read.
  
• book Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1) by Terry Pratchett
  10% of the way through, I have no idea what's going on. 30% through, I'm really trying to like this book, but it just keeps switching plots randomly, making things hard to follow.
  
  A year after half-reading this, the thing I remember is how this book was themed on class and caste. I might pick it up again, because in hindsight, it seems like a very interesting book.
• book Naked Money: A Revealing Look at Our Financial System by Charles Wheelan
  Again similar to other non fiction books, for me to get anything useful out of this, I should make notes while I read through it. I might pick this up again.
  
  
• book The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  Remove all pleasures from life, and whatever happens will feel significant; deprive yourself of your favorite food, and the next time you eat it will feel like the best meal you've ever had. I enjoyed this book for the very reason that not a lot happens; it really is just about an old man and a large fish; the everyday thoughts one has captured just as one would think them, the loneliness of life, the comradery of one's own company, the relationships we build inside our heads with things both conscious and inanimate.

2020

• star The Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner
  25 year old developer who goes through the everyday struggles of life while maintaining a diary. I haven't ever connected with a coder/writer as much as I connected with Jordan. He has exactly the same mid 20s questions, the same career-life-relationships worries, the what ifs, and the where am I going, whilst also knowing that he's really doing a fairly good job at life. Personally, this is also a very motivating book for me, and wants me to go back to what I like doing best; building things.
• star The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
  This was the first love story I've ever read, and I loved it. It's a book about perspectives, and what I loved was how the same scene plays differently in two people's heads.
  
  This book has a counterpart movie, and I have to say, the movie was awful. It lost everything that made the book special.
• star Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
  A brilliant dramatic, almost romantic take on the various forms of time. It makes you think of how different the world would be if we perceived time differently. This book isn't for everyone. Most people I've recommended this book to have disliked it, or found it uninteresting.
• star Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline
  Favorite book of all time. It's the first book I've ever read non stop for 12 hours straight. I couldn't put it down! What makes it interesting is, Ready Player One is also a movie (Steven Spielberg!) and this is also the first time I consumed the same content in different formats.
  
  I enjoyed the book a lot more than the movie. I read this during lockdown, and connected with it particularly because of the part where the main character spends months alone locked up in his home living most of his life in the virtual world, Oasis, much like I did connecting with my friends over a laptop screen.
• book What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel
  This is the first book I've read in philosophy, and there will be many, many more for sure. This is a quick 100 page simple introduction of the questions philosophy asks - things I've been thinking about all my life. I liked the content and the ideas, many of which I have thought about before, but the way it was written didn't make it a fun read. Long, non-concise, overly-questiony sentences.
• book When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange
  I wanted to read this book to know what hides behind Google's bright colorful logo, and this was good insight into it. Since I work at this company, I don't think it is a good idea commenting on this further.
• book Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
  Harry Potter-esq book in an alternate universe. It took me all weekend to get through the 9 hours, but this was the first time I sat through an audiobook, and I quite enjoyed the imagination it puts one through.
• book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  This was an okay read. I was brought up with all the insights the books provides as everyday discussions by my mother and father, and reading this just further strengthened them. It is a book that strengthened my belief that the world is a fairly selfish place, and everyone is optimizing for themselves.
• book 1984 by George Orwell
  Great book. A really, really great book! I completely understand Reddit's hype around this book. 2+ years later, I find myself often making references to ideas in this book - for example, the invented language - Newspeak - that limits the individual's ability to think, to understand their own emotions - and how social media is raising a generation of people who lack the same because social media guides how they think, instead of letting people think for themselves.
• book Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson
  Really, I have no shame in saying I read this - it's a book about picking up girls. The advice in the book is not bad per se - it advocates working on yourself, your body, your wardrobe, your knowledge. But the idea of *getting* girls was still a major part of the book that made me realize that isn't my value system. I prefer relationships built on connection, common ground, and shared interest.
• book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1) by Douglas Adams
  The entire book, all I kept thinking was 'What amazing wit!'. I wish to be able to write and speak in the voice of Douglas Adams some day. His writing is witty and hilarious, but also a very, very simple read.