Friday, February 17, 2017

Mrityunjaya by Shivaji Sawant

This is one of the books which I read in a hardcopy and not an ebook. I heard a lot about this book and finally ordered it to take a break from ebooks.

And I'm glad that I did order it. It is a great book which is an autobiography of Karn (from Mahabharat), and I believe if Karn might have written it himself, he'd have written more or less on similar lines.

Mahabharat is such an epic that every single character can have a book on his/her story. In fact, a lot of such books are in the market but it's a bit difficult to bring something new on table.

So here was this book, and I was able to finish in three odd weeks (given the size it was a bit faster, on top of it I read in Hindi).

The book is full of philosophy, musings, thoughts etc. And the best part is that the author has not dedicated a lot of pages to mere description of characters. The book is full of narration without missing the plot.

Since I've read the story of Mahabharat a lot many times, and I was aware how the things going to end. However, I was looking for a new point of view, and this book didn't disappoint.

Amazing book, and a must read irrespective of your taste for mythological stories or not.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

To start with I want to say that this book is pretty boring. It is full of descriptions of visiting places/sites/museums, and interviewing people. And further putting it all together in not so coherent narrative.

I believe that being a journalist Elizabeth missed a lot of points which should have been provided as facts, and not just passing on remarks from the researchers she interviewed. I'm not really degrading the efforts but what I'm trying to say is that this could have been much better with a good researcher as a co-author.

The very reason I picked this book was the title, and it didn't do justice to the book.

Anyways, the book gives good examples of how the species are getting extinct around us along with the possible causes. The book has a lot of scientific jargon, and may sound difficult for a reader with non-science background.

Overall, the book is a good start if you're interested in how the current conditions climatic or otherwise can lead to the next wave of mass extinction, and probably this time humans will be on the receiving side. The book definitely ends on a positive note for all of us.