The Synagogue of Satan by Andrew Carrington Hitchcock

There are some books which give you a feeling that you shouldn't have picked it. But this book gave it away in like first ten lines.

I should have never picked it up but then we all fall for those curious titles.

If this ever gets mentioned anywhere just don't fall for it. Not worth a thought.

Peace

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

I don't even remember where I got the reference for this book, and how long it was lying there.

Finally, I picked it up and finished but not so fast.

This is about how the mythologies are created, and specially how the heroes are created in it. It tells that on a larger level the journey of hero in any culture can be broadly divided into three stages Separation, Transformation, and Return.

The examples in the book are really covering the whole world and they do make you think that all the heroes in the mythic lores have similar journey. Even if these myths look different from outside, a closer look will bring all the similarities right into your face. These stories created the heroes as saviour or gods or even created a whole new religion or cult. But all this boils down to a same pattern.

The whole narrative is not really judging any story or hero but throws light on the overall narratives. It doesn't verify or reject any of them but look at them from a holistic point of view to understand what they want to tell us.

Worth reading!

Peace

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This one is a novella or short novel but I'll like to call it a long story. I don't remember where I got the reference for this one but this was on shelf for quite some time.

This was real quick, and I was wondering why I didn't pick it up earlier.

This is one of those stories that go a long way with you after it is over. I read it fast, and honestly I can still see the two main characters George and Lennie in my head.

It's a story of constant struggle in life, loneliness, dreams (seen, broken, and killed). We all have a dream of owning that life of contentment and peace, but like Crooks said this world is full of such dreamers but no one ever finds such a place.

We'll be fortunate if we get a chance to live our dreams even for a brief time but the worst thing that can happen is the death of those dreams. And unfortunately death of those dreams is something that we all can relate to.

Peace

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner

This is also the one which was on shelf from quite some time. And glad that I finished it.

As the title suggests this is about how anybody can predict the future based on the knowledge of current events, and a little bit of digging. This gives the confidence that you don't have to be a maths genius or global policy expert or a head of so called think-tanks to predict about some future events.

The best thing about this book is that it gives you a framework, and gives a lot of examples how the actual participants benefited or found a solution.

I'm not really a fan of Tom Friedman but I did read two of his books which are around future predictions. He has an excellent writing style but I will agree to the point that a lot of things can go either way.

For a lot of people prediction is a full time job, and it can damage the reputation if their predictions turn out to be incorrect. The point is that this is not an absolute science, and even if there are signs in the favour of an event it can still not happen due to a lot of complexities being involved.

So you make them, and own them even if they turn out to be incorrect. Use them as an opportunity to fine tune your understanding.

Prostitutes and Polygamists: A Look at Love, Old Testament Style by David T. Lamb

No prizes for guessing that I picked this up only for the title.

This was a fun read, and positively honest about the stories in Old Testament around prostitutes and polygamists.

It puts emphasis on the point that due to the timeline differences we can't real justify the pros and cons of a controversial laws of the olden time. But it is always beneficial that we know them and try to treat them reasonably. Rejecting them without any thought is as bad as accepting them. Also, the golden rule is "do not imagine", if it is not there it's better to leave it as is rather than putting a lot of imagination.

Really good part of the book is that it shows the controversial stories around a lot of the prime characters from the Old Testament like David, Solomon etc as is, and doesn't really try to euphemize or sweep them under the carpet.

Definitely a worth read, and surprisingly quick!

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

I don't know why I picked this up but let's just say I read this book.

No thoughts!

The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil

A lot of the books end up being classified under the category Science-Tech, or Nonfiction or futurism (which is a relatively new in the market).

 I didn't care much about such classification but this particular book is not an easy read. It needs relatively much open mindedness, and critic. All the beliefs that have been the way of life or very close to your heart are challenged here in the most rational way possible.

The problem with such a topic is that not all the readers have the level of awareness required to understand some complicated topics covered here (in the very plain language with minimum to no jargon). A lot of people who don't have it may end up rejecting everything as a work of fiction.

So if you have an open mind to explore new ideas, and hypothesis plus some patience for fat books than this one is for you.

You don't need to be a super techie or even a tech enthusiast to follow a lot of content but be prepared to be challenged. This may end up changing your way of looking at future.

Peace

Simply Tolstoy by Donna Tussing Orwin

This was one of the occasions when I felt like cheating. I wanted to read Tolstoy's biography, and this one seemed like a quick one. And yes this was super quick.

It was so quick that Anna Karenina, and War and Peace got just ten odd pages. And I immediately regretted picking this up.

So if you're not a student in trouble who is looking for some quick content to write that stupid exams of your's on your favourite writer (which happened to be Tolstoy) than don't read this book.

This is going to spoil you to get over with things faster which actually need more time.

Looking forward to an actual biography or autobiography.

Love

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie

Not a fan of Rushdie but I do enjoy his writings, and yes I've read all the good ones (and some are still on list).

This was on the list for sometime, and was not a quick read.

It's full of Rushdie's signature style magical-realism, and a modern take on Cervantes' Don Quixote (one of may all time favourite).

I'll not get too much into the plot because more than the storyline it's the whole book itself which needs to be read.

Well it will not disappoint you but 400 pages may exhaust you :)

Love

Jesus or Muhammad? by Steven Masood

My reading has improved these days.

So this is what you picked when the title sounds scandalous. I thought this to be on of those propaganda books that try to prove their points against the others.

I'll say this in not really propaganda but yes this is heavily biased. The narrative is stretched a lot for driving the same point, and after finishing it I realised that I could have just read the epilogue to save the effort without missing out anything the author wants to drive.

You can read this with an open mind as it has a lot of good comparison, and points covered.

However, I'd recommend Reza Aslan (Zealot and No God but God) for the better understanding of things. I read them long back but looks still a good read on similar topics.

Peace

Why I am a Hindu by Shashi Tharoor

I always liked him speaking, and tweeting because of the style but I never read any of his books.

So I picked up this one not because this has a catchy title but I guess this was the one which was available.

I can say that I really liked the way whole narrative flows specially in the initial part which explains Hindu. This puts forward a lot of rational points, and calls out the absurdities in the same breath.

The later part condemns the current status of Hinduism, and sounds like a political commentary on government in power.

Religion is a very personal choice and state should not have any say into it. But then there is a thin line where politics get into the religion and vice versa. To cross it or not is a very important question and there is no right answer to that. But if you have to choose, choose one which is more human.

Peace

P.S. - Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, and Mahabharat are not the right references if you're looking for answers.

Koh-I-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple, Anita Anand

The first memory that I had was that of a condom and a basmati brand Koh-i-noor. And for quite some time I believed that, that was what it meant.

Over a period of time I realised that these products were named after the biggest diamond the world has ever seen. Which got busted later when I came to know that there are at least 80 more diamonds which are known to world, and bigger, brighter, better than Kohinoor.

So what makes this diamond such a legend? The most common reason is that the myth which were told around it by the owners of this diamond.

As in case of all the historical things the history of Kohioor is also not very clear, and it does comes in bits and pieces from different sources reliable or otherwise.

This book tries to put all the myths in a sequence which make the book legible but doesn't really guarantee a lot of points where we can't separate facts from fiction.

One thing which this book points out is that Kohinoor was the reason of a lot bloodshed, and it changed many hands before it ended up in London. The value of this stone was also calculated differently by different owners.

But one thing we can be sure of is that most of the people who had it in their possession were not really poor. They owned enormous amount of wealth. So when there are incidents of its theft or fight for its ownership it was not because of the value of it but the status attached to it. They didn't want it because this was valuable but this give them the satisfaction of owning something which other people can never aspire for. It fulfils the ego of ownership, and nothing else.

Worth a read if you're into history otherwise the larger part of Kohinoor's journey can be filled into a well written article.

When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald

After so much heavy lifting recently I just wanted to tone down the things so I picked this one up.

I didn't read the reviews but was interested in the name "Viking". Of course I was not expecting Norse mythology but this did meet my expectations.

The story is a 21 year old girl Zelda (Zee) who was born on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Spectrum (this is a new word I learned).

Since, she has this cognitive issues she is supposed to be having problems in growing up, and living independently without any support.

The whole plot revolves around how a believer of Viking heroes ended up rising to heroism in her own sense.

It's a feel good read, and if you're feeling low or think that life is not treating you well, this will give you some reason to cheer up!

Love!

The Evolution of Desire by David M Buss

So this is one book which came as a suggestion when I was reading "Sex at Dawn".

This is one of those things (why I don't call it a book???) which are supposedly came out of a lot of research which I disagree.

But here it is and what I feel after finishing this book is that this is written backwards. You might have heard of reverse engineering. This one is written with in the same way.

The conclusions are reached first, and than the arguments were cherry picked to prove them right.

The most common things (there is not much beyond that) are these:

V-shaped torso (this is a super personal choice)
Mating markets (like a fish market)
My lab (sounds like go to some shady place, mix three chemicals in a test tube and I made my results. I didn't really get them)
200 college going students said (I'm not a statistician but really your whole argument is based on what the supercharged young people think about sex)

My points are V-shaped torso has more to do with our evolution to walk on 2 legs. There is no mating market, this is how you demean the whole desire of a person which is really beyond getting laid, and make babies. You can't really compare it with our dietary habits for sure.

The last thing that I would like to say is that this book was not worth the read but if you want to understand what the whole narrative mean than you can read just the last chapter, and save efforts of reading rest of it.

And yes, this is super repetitive.

Khrushchev by Edward Crankshaw

I don't know why I started with this one but I think this might have been mentioned somewhere, and got stuck in my head.

Anyways I finished it, and the first thought is that this is a bit biased. This doesn't mean that I'm in favour of Khurshchev but this put the other world leaders in a brighter light which was a bit far from the truth.

As the name suggests, anybody who follow a global politics, and trend will know that this is about Nikita Sergei Khrushchev. This is not really a biography, and more like a commentary of his career. The rise and fall of Khurshchev, and the conditions of Soviet Empire in the first half of 20th century.

The narrative moves around the Khurshchev's rise from a child of peasant to become a close aide of Stalin, and eventually surpass him in taking up the highest power in contemporary Russia.

He took up various roles, and successful or not he did take the advantage of the situation to get whatever he could to advance himself. Given the situation in Russia at that point of time where Stalin was changing the whole Russia. and everybody who was part of the apparatus was trying to grab as much as they can, he was not very different from his peer.

There are a lot of instances where he is portrayed as a mastermind who was plotting unimaginable things but I think that he was more like a person who stood up when he saw the opportunity, and took his chances, and came out successful. Given the history was bloody, marked with many purges but immensely significant, he could have been simply written him off but he made his place as a statesman who ushered his country in a new age which he himself could not witness.

Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

Science is believed to be the best field given it's strong basis in logic, and proof of subjects.

It is the fundamental block of everything that we understand, and it puts the rationality in all the discussions.

However, as it evolved it grew into multiple branches and each of these branches started defining their own rational. This was largely due to the inexplicability of few aspects which were more qualitative in nature, and can't be measured in exact numbers/logic.

There was nothing wrong in it as the whole phenomenon was still developing but this give way for a lot of people pushing their own ideas to be approved as science.

The problem started when some of these people started propagating their hidden agenda in the name of science. That's how race science came into the picture. Something which started as to identify the differences between different cultures and nationalities ended up being the science of proving which one is better than other.

This was more like an anthropology or biology but the largest of the voices came up to prove their own justification or claim to genetically or otherwise inherited greatness.

The scientific community which was true to it's founding principles opposed any such deviation but there were a lot of powerful people involved to prove the things otherwise.

I believe that calling such differences in the name of science had more to do in terms of building that myth, and creating the acceptability of such ideas. This has nothing to do with logic, and reason. Somehow people ended up believing that if their ideas get some credibility as scientifically accepted truth than they can put some rationality in their stupidity.

Time and again they were proved wrong but they keep coming under different names. I don't see this stopping in the future given the line between the real and fake/made-up getting blurred day by day, and it will depend on the rationality of the people who choose to be or not be driven by these.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This is one I picked after I heard about death of Toni Morrison last year.

I was planning to read this and "Tar Baby" next but it took too long to finish this one.

The primary reason for the delay was that this one was a bit difficult to read. Not that the plot is difficult to follow or the language is cryptic. This is a story of African American slave, and her hardships in life after she got her freedom.

This is a real tragic one, and leaves you with the thought of what slavery did to those "Sixty Million and more" people. It was over but it left the scars that even time can't heal. You can be anybody but you can't leave your past behind you. It stays with you, and reminds you what you have been through. This makes you who you're today.

Specially, the bad things in life are difficult to forget. The best thing is to learn how to live with them.

Sethe could never did it but by the end you wish that Denver will turn out to be better than her about the things you can or can not forget.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

So here is one of the longest novels I've been through. It took like 44 hours which I guess is slow given there are 1300+ pages, and 600K words.

Unfortunately or otherwise the whole narrative doesn't go very well which may be due to the length of the book. There is one main plot of Lata's marriage, and there are a lot of sub, and sub-sub plots too. Some of them complement, and gel well while other looks more like random musings.

But definitely there could have been some editing, and this could have cut down by at least 200 pages if not more.

I wouldn’t really recommend it. But I'd just point out that I picked up in peer pressure. There were a lot of people in my circle were talking about it (some of them have just read the summary) but I went to go ahead with it, and yes, I did regret.

Finally, this will be a mini series on TV and I think that would do more justice to it.

It has drama, emotion, comedy, tragedy, poetry and what not (it got some sex too). It would have better been a TV series or a movie rather than a book.

Peace

In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

So this took a bit longer than I expected to finish, and not because the length of the book but due to me committing less time to reading.

I completed the book but there seems to be no ending to it. The book revolves around two larger disjointed narratives one from the personal experience of the hero, and the other one where our hero is doing research for his doctoral thesis.

The narrative keep moving between the two plots, and there are times when the reader can get lost what he was reading (happened to me couple of times actually when I didn't realise that this was a different plot).

The book is full of warmth, and nostalgia. There are some really funny instances of our hero trying to answer the questions from the locals. And this actually highlights the point that we all have our natural curiosity, and prejudices when we heard of the things we're not acquainted with.

Well it was a good read but a lot of the people may not enjoy this style of writing.

If you're an Amitav fan, than just go for it.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

This one I opted to read because I was looking for something from a Nobel prize winner, and this came around at the right time. However, this one is quite old.

This is one of the amazing read I had. The narrative was so soft, and this remains beautifully poised between a love story and a life story.

The plot revolves around a butler from England Stevens who dedicated all his life to served his master with honor. The whole narrative flows around his life, and the housekeeper Miss Kenton.

There were clear incidences where we can see that Miss Kenton admires or even romanticize her time with Stevens, of course with some tension around it. However, Stevens was so much serious about his duties that he forgot to take note of things around him. His whole life was to keep his duties, and dignity.

Later in his life he starts on a journey post getting a letter from Miss Kenton. When he slowed down a bit in life, and looked back, he realized that he had a chance to be happy, and be with somebody whom he loved/liked but couldn't realize.

He ends up with a thought that taking a pause is actually not that bad, and it gives you an opportunity to look, enjoy, and appreciate things in your life which make it worth one.