The Dead Are Arising by Les Payne

Is it better to read a well researched biography or an autobiography?

Whatever be the answer, both of them come with the writer's bias. Even if a well researched biography may tend to omit some details or it is less likely to gloss over the things.

So, I picked up a biography over an autobiography. And it confirmed when it tells you the incomplete or missing or inflated incidents in the narrative.

It is difficult to judge a person who comes from a different time but one thing which we can see is that Malcolm made the wrong choices. He was always a hustler with intelligence, wit and oratory. However, he just couldn't choose the right path. Even after the early life situations/mistakes, he ended up choosing a religion with a misplaced identity of a leader. He was devoted to this leader and its cause but blind to a lot of obvious points which he chose to ignore. Violence was never a solution which is why civil movement was far more successful as compared to any other armed conflict. It is a long way but a one worth following.

And even after that he still ended up thinking of choosing a religion to be the answer of a problem which was more civic in nature than religious. He ended up being the opposite of King with a different religion and violent approach but same goal. The idea of choosing a religion to solve the problem of 22 million people looks more of an emotional choice, and raises the doubt if these thoughts were well evolved before it were put into action.

An intelligent man with the right motives who could have changed the history of America as we know it couldn't outrun his past.

After reading this, reading the autobiography may not be required.

Peace

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Of course I'm reading it for the one word Meta. Just out of curiosity for the origin of the word Metaverse I picked this up.

This is a sci-fi and like most of books in the genre it is a mix of speculations, history, and mythology which is a bit deceptive mix. Deceptive because an inattentive reader will end up mixing all of them with reality, and getting the inaccurate view of the things.

For the book, it has fairly standard narrative with a lot of loose threads which generally leaves the fans of this genre curious for the next in the series.

From a non-sci-fi fan, I've read better unless curiosity for the one word gets you.

Love

Puneet

How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future by Vaclav Smil

This is not a guide to how world works. That is a really complicated topic.

This is more focused on how the industrialisation and science has evolved and contributed to the current state of mankind.

It talks largely covers four important drivers which are steel, food, ammonia, and fuel. But it focuses on a lot of myth busting. The ideas that take root in our understanding without knowing much about how we reached it. And that is the beauty of rationality. It has a lot of number crunching to drive a point why something is different (not better) than other.

It doesn't take side, and just put some arguments based on the numbers. We can always contest the data but that should not stop a discussion. This discussion is important to give us different perspective.

E.g. technical and chemical advances helped in delivering the food requirement of world's rapidly growing population or we can take the example of crude oil/coal as how it contributed a lot to how we live today (a lot of dependence on energy obtained from fossil fuel). But from the advances in both the fields, we saw equally negative effect on environment. Plus this was unevenly distributed which created a myopic view.

We can't turn the clock back and go back to how we were surviving in Palaeolithic age but there are still a lot of things that we can do not only at a global level but also at an individual level.

The world is not coming to an end but we don't have a magic pill either so rather then going for any extreme measure, it would require a more balanced approach and a dedication towards what we want to achieve. Announcing the goals to be achieved in the years which end in 0 or 5 without real action is just a gimmick.

Peace

The Gate by Natsume Soseki

Of course its a classic.

It takes good time to build up an emotion and when it delivers, it doesn't feel like it is some sort of high moment in the story. It goes more like a narrative of a day to day life of a clerk Sosuke and his wife Oyone. A life as ordinary on surface but scarred with its own demons.

Sosuke and Oyone looks like an ordinary couple (this was so made for each other) with their own past. A couple who carry the burden of their love and what it led to. And the story doesn't go into a lot of details, but just drop few hints here and there.

Is it possible that a single decision in life set the whole course for you, and you accept it with no resistance? Is it possible that you can stay passive (stoic) in the face of all the complexities that life brings? A different couple in a different time/place could have chosen otherwise but then it wouldn't have been the same story.

It is difficult to move on, and it could take a lifetime but is the resignation to the fate a solution?

Love

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan

It was just a coincident that I read this one after reading Piketty's 'A Brief History of Equality'

This one is a collection of essays, and I got to know about Amia from her essay with the same name which I read earlier. That essay (part of this book) was not very clear in communicating any idea but I was curious to read some more from her.

Rest of the essays in the book fails equally to deliver any clear concept. It quotes a lot of other writers, and famous court cases but doesn't really provide any original thought. It sounded so ambivalent that it can be interpreted in any direction, which is not an ideal format when you are talking about such topics.

On top of it, the whole narrative is so narrow that it just doesn't go beyond a preconceived notion of injustice, society, traits and politics. It promptly negates the other views which are not inline with the books concepts.

Maybe not the best one to start with but the readers can come back to it after some more mature work on the topics covered in these essays to see for themselves.

Peace

A Brief History of Equality by Thomas Piketty

Equality is a bit of abstract idea. And it is defined differently by different people based on their achievements and lifestyle. So, if a billionaire thinks that his wealth is well deserved due to what he created and the others are not there because they lack something (nobody knows what). Or, a man being the highest earning member of a family can treat others as a lesser being.

Piketty is an amazing writer and I didn't read the other two books just because of the sheer number of pages :) and I'm glad I found this one. And, yes, most of his arguments are based on the data.

The unequal ownership of wealth, real estate and what not vs the contribution to the taxes. Sharing with the larger society vs the philanthropy facade. Speaking of equal rights for all, irrespective of gender, class, colour, citizenship, but lacking the action. Being on the top of consumption chain (maximum contribution to Carbon emission, indirectly to global warming) but reluctant to the take responsibility for the plans. And, yes, the repatriation.

They are all forms of inequality. And even after seeing the march towards equality progressing, it still sounds like a utopia.

Can a world with inequality will function as it does now? Most likely yes. But the larger problem is that anything that brings us closer to the equality hurts the vested interests of the people who are responsible for this inequality. Its more of a personal barrier that needs to be overcome here by the larger wealth holders. Top 10% people holding 70% of the wealth (in US but other countries have the similar ratios) are the biggest levers to make it happen but vested interest is a big word and a bigger idea which needs different understanding/treatment.

Unfortunately, inequality is going to stay.

Peace

Pachinko by Lee Min-jin

This was on the list for quite some time now, and glad to finish this one.

Of course, its a tragic novel. Most of the characters are at low points in their lives or suffering from negativity.

And, there is God. Not as an influencer but more like the fall back for the characters.

Life is full of choices, and it is sad to see that some end up making the negative ones which lead to the downfall, more moral in nature. The over thought about non-existing things and not being thankful to what the characters had is the core of every single character in the whole story. Life is tough due to different factors be it being an immigrant, poor, war or the other moral dilemmas which narrow down the vision to look at the brighter side of the things.

It is a long one but it covers many generations, and does have many sub plots running in parallel. So, don't complain if the book looks thick.

Love

Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk

The title is the acronym for EGBDF in case the non-musicians don't know :) 

This an autobiography where Jeremy, a pianist (I didn't know he is so famous :) ) recalls his music learning journey, and literally starts from his childhood teachers.

He talks about his different teachers and yes, the family also shows up strongly in the first half. However, it focuses more on how the teachers in advanced learning affected his learning. With being well known and all, I believe it worked out really well for him.

He does talk about his struggles with love and competitions but those are the natural parts of an autobiography. Of course, he mentions his success more often. Being a prodigy he has the bragging rights deservedly.

It was difficult to imagine a lot of points around the music where a particular piece is mentioned and he talks about the intricacies because most likely a non-musician has not heard those pieces.

You may actually end up with a playlist if not the best autobiography.

Love

Mother Night Kurt Vonnegut Jr

If a reader doesn't know it then it is easy to end up believing it to be a true story which it is not.

This is the story of Howard, a budding writer who became a short time spy. While on the mission his cover was being the person responsible for propaganda. Apparently, he did so well that the people who didn't know his cover ended up hating him eventually.

Now, a 70 year old Howard which nothing much left to look forward to in life wants a trial. This small whim can lead to the gallows, and that's where he tells his story.

It is a bit of a dark account of a person on death row with humour and some moral questions. The idea of being right or wrong. The area which is beyond black and white. It can be in-between and could have been called grey but what if it was a different colour altogether?

The blank eyes of a person who doesn't know what to do. The only thing he can think of doing is what others tell him to do, and in that moment he will do anything.

Peace

A Molecule Away From Madness Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin

A body is a complicated structure irrespective of which biological family it belongs to.

The whole DNA which writes down the future of a living being has do to the best balancing act that nobody sees until it goes off balance. In humans, it gets a lot complicated because a bigger brain comes into the picture. This solves and creates a lot of thought problems but it is also so prone be adversely affected by a change at the molecular level.

A molecule as small as a protein (and it is just not the one you consume after a training session) can cause havoc in life. It can make you go weak, forget, imagine and even cause fatalities.

Only Medical science has the potential to answer the questions posed by these life altering changes. Dementia and Alzheimer's are just more famous, and this books gives you a wider range of neurological complications that can be caused by the tiniest changes, or the one which are already ticking like a time bomb in you DNA.

This is an amazing read which gives a lot of complicated information in easier terms and does tell a lot about how the Neurology as a field has evolved over a period of time. It might be the youngest of all the -logy but it is going to make the maximum impact on our understanding a lot of things that have been unanswered for decades.

Recommend for anyone who is interested in the scientific advances of neurology and its history but don't start looking for the symptoms on your own.

Peace

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Camus is a different kind of writer. He goes from philosophy to myth and back in a lyrical writing style. It is sometimes so fluent to read that only going through those complicated phrases amazes you with the beauty of it.

The title comes from the story for Sisyphus but he doesn't really appear until the end where the whole thought around the idea of staying alive in the face of absurdity of life comes to a full circle.

Camus starts with the idea of suicide (why people do it) and moves from one character to the other (Don Juan may not be the right choice) explaining what should be idea of life for any person. What keeps us going through the monotony of life and what happens when one sees the absurdity of this rhythmic living. Does this evoke a question of why life exists or what is the point in being alive while you are destined to roll your own stone daily like Sisyphus?

There is no simple answer to existential doubts but here we can read what Camus has to suggest. The problem with such questions is that they are all unique and there is no general answer which fits all, and that is the beauty of it.

This is a quick read until you start contemplating on these thoughts, which is a chore for lifetime.

Peace

The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi

I fall for the game in the title.

It is really long, repetitive and takes a lot of assumptions.

This is not a real analysis but withdraws conclusions in the light of different events, and the response against those events. It repeats a lot of terms like trifecta, blunting, coercion, power and strategy. And, it does have a lot of instances where it over analyses the things or maybe don't have the best assumptions.

Foreign policies are not a very exciting subject, and this is actually my first one on this subject. But I can say that it is not a long game, it is more of an eternal game. There are just different players in a given time frame. And, yes, different levers to pull but they always follow more or less same illusion of being the best.

Sad thing is that everyone thinks to be picking the right side without knowing what it means. It's not the best place to discuss what a nation state is supposed to do with it's foreign policies or growth strategies. It doesn't matter if you are going to sketch a bigger line to shorten the others or going to take care of your own line irrespective of the size. The important thing is what these states contribute to the betterment of its citizens and world without hurting the efforts of others. But again, it is a good thing to say but rarely followed.

Not worth a read until you are into these subjects.

Peace

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World by Riley Black

Of course it has a catchy title.

But it is not really a scientific record. It is a mix of the information that we have from decades of research packed in a fun way with imagination. And it does a great job.

Dinosaurs have a special image that attracts a lot of people. The mystery around these giant creatures (not all of them are giants), which got a boost by Jurassic Park franchise, is a real crowd puller. You build a good story around that and you will have the audiences.

The narration mostly revolves around the events post the asteroid strike. And it puts the details in a very illustrative format. This was actually one of the times when I went through the elaborated post scripts.

In the last chapters the writer also shared what caused her fascination with dinosaurs, and she end up connecting some personal/philosophical/existential thoughts and it was really nice to read them.

With the new discoveries old facts will go outdated and our understanding of a lot of historic events will keep changing. Which means there is nothing set in stone, and you can stay flexible in your understanding. Carbon dating is just 70 odd years old and it is already answering a lot of million year old questions. You throw in the genome sequencing and all the upcoming technologies in it and it is going to open up new windows if not the doors.

If you are looking for a more rational account with a lot of facts and figures then this might not be the right choice but if you are looking for a lighter way to read about the events which caused dinosaurs going extinct, then this is a good place to start.

Love

Rembrandt's Whore by Sylvie Matton

This is such a sad piece to read but those were the days when the woman was considered a sub-human and can be labelled as whore for taking independent decisions.

This one was more revolutionary because Hendrickje was actually a servant girl who chose to live on her own terms. There is no doubt that Rembrandt himself was not considered the best artist of his own time and led a miserable life (of poverty and personal losses) but never he was awarded such a nickname.

The church treated her equally bad. Given that a larger part of narrative talks about god, and a strong faith in his judgement, this was lost to church officials who couldn't accept the fact that a christian woman is living with a man out of marriage. A man in a similar position could have caused nothing more than a few raised eyebrows.

Hendrickje longed for the recognition which she never got but that doesn't mean she didn't live a fulfilled life. This narrative is a mix of facts and imagination but she is immortal now in the paintings of her lover. A lover who couldn't provide for what she wanted apart from honesty which she accepted.

There are Hendrickje in our time also and I hope they wish for the right thing (not the social recognition) and live their life on their own terms because love is sufficient to make a life worth living, even if sounds like a cliche.

Love

First, They Erased Our Name: a Rohingya Speaks by Habiburahman, Sophie Ansel

Statelessness is a modern curse but it looks too small compared to prejudice.

The people who are hated for the otherness go through a lot of hardship and this one is an account of the same.

It is difficult to think of it as a story but more of a journal of a refugee. There are always perpetrators but the sad part is the people who lost their sympathy and their help comes with a price.

It was difficult to digest the stand of the peace politicians but we never know the full truth about a person or situation.

The other surprise was how this all stayed hidden and it took a mass exodus of half a million people to bring the word out that there is something wrong.

Unfortunately, this is not the last such instance. We will find a way to hate each other for one reason or the other. If not, someone will feed it to us.

Peace

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn

This is such a conflicting account to read.

It has so many opposite thoughts that it doesn't move beyond the cover page.

The first problem is why people worry so much about holocaust and not the people who survived it. I agree there is a lot of literature available but that doesn't justify the point that the Jewish literature doesn't get enough spotlight. People love Anne Frank because it is a sane voice even if one believes that the tragic end pumps its emotional quotient.

Secondly, it is full of anger against the people who don't agree or think otherwise. It is again an irrational line of thoughts.

Thirdly, a different line of thought which tries to establish that rationality or open argument is a religion specific trait. Following any religion doesn't increase boost anybody's mental faculties.

Lastly, belittling the efforts of a lot of people by calling it a whim or not enough or behavioural issue sets a wrong precedence. All the myths should always be busted but not just the ones which look convenient. 

Holocaust was an unimaginable event of history, and it is not a wonder that a lot of post analysis drown all the other voices. There will always be the people who imagine and believe in different ideas/theories. The way out is to have an argument which is as generic as possible without favouring anyone. This sounds difficult to accept and even more challenging to propagate but this is where anyone can start.

Peace

The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World Arthur Herman

Let's start with correction in the title Scandinavians 'did not' conquered the world.

This the problem with writing popular history. You take some pointers from history, and try to make them popular. And, how do you make them popular? You cherry pick and sensationalise the events. And the second thing is the imagination, which you use in absence of a concrete evidence/narrative.

It might be quite a pressure to keep writing the bestsellers but after reading the 484 pages (cover to cover) I can say that this sounds more of a propaganda then an actual book which has anything to do with actual history. The book starts with the history of vikings (Scandinavians) which was dominantly blood and raids (can call it pirates), followed by the political unrest (kings, queens, princes like everywhere else), and lastly the new age people (inventors, generals, scientists and daredevils).

The writer has picked the people to paint a picture of a clan of people who come with a special heart (what is a viking heart??) and did unimaginable things. There is a brief mention of the very first acts of barbarism which has been glossed over with tough living conditions (slaves, decimated cities, brutally killed people and what not).

It will not be an exaggeration to say that any person who has not been exposed to the world history will end up thinking that the Scandinavians built the world we see today. This can give an artificial sense of pride for belonging to such an inheritance. Which in turn results into the superiority complex which has been proved catastrophic historically. And there is no point in arguing that the history can't repeat itself.

Lastly, it quotes a lot of great people who have been phenomenal in different fields but the larger point is that, were they able to do it because they come from a particular lineage. Unfortunately, the book ends up pressing this point too much. It ends up labelling all the great achievements to one thing, the lineage.

These amazing people did change the course of history and world can't thank them enough but this has nothing to do with their lineage. It is always the circumstances which brings the best or the worst out of a person. And it is an injustice to attribute their feats to a single lineage because once they reach the pinnacle of their lives they stopped belonging to anything apart from humanity. Any effort to prove otherwise is dubious and should be looked at cautiously.

This is too big a book (obviously given the scope) but should be seen in a larger context of history, and the popular part should be read carefully before it starts putting the wrong ideas.

Peace

Islamic Fascism Hamed Abdel-Samad

First thing, not all the things in this book can be agreed upon.

This is a good book when it comes to the references and the citations it has used but this doesn't provide a  solution, not even in directional terms. But the plus point is that some of the points made here can be the starting point.

Religion is a sensitive matter irrespective of which one we are talking about. It gets more complicated where this is less about religion but more about the power equations. The complications involved are very difficult to understand for a well trained mind (academically or otherwise) forget about the people who have surrendered their critical faculty and open to take orders from others. These orders are well crafted in terms of promising something which goes beyond this life. A bait for the people who are in a vulnerable situation in their lives.

Afterlife is an absurd thought to analyse rationally. It is beyond comprehension which makes it more abstract and lucrative for the people who are dependent only on trust/faith. But this is where the the shortcoming lies.

Education is the only way forward which can enable people to look at things from an independent point of view and debate about it. Till then, keep the hopes high.

Peace

Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future Haroon Moghul

It lost me at Starwars and Jedi for such an important topic.

It is such an incoherent text which is written backwards. The conclusion was made first and rest of the text was put together to make it look worth it. And, the title is just a rhetoric.

There are better books around this topic as this falls into is a page filler with no substantial line of thought to offer.

Peace

We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter, Ruth Martin