Books this half year - Jan 2018 to June 2018

I am pleased that joining goodreads groups has helped me increase the number of books I read. Not that I read all the month book suggestions - my reading speed is not that high. One math / science book a month is the rate right now.

Still I did sneak in other topic books as my 'read' book shelf shows.  These are some of the books that have stayed on my mind. They are in no specific order.

1. Impro : Improvisation and the Theatre  by Keith Johnstone 

This is an unusual book for me but I am very happy to have read it. Theater and the art of dramatization is far from my sphere and I wondered if I would even perceive anything in this book. However interactions with people is part of everybody's sphere, it is after all the language that one uses to communicate with the world.

It was the chapter on "Status" that was an eye opener for me.  I realized why some acquaintances have remained so !!

As the author says -

Once you understand that every sound and posture implies a status, then you perceive the world quite differently, and the change is probably permanent.

A big part of the book is about getting back in touch with our emotions to spark that flicker of creativity via the theater.  To not be afraid of failure. To realize that perhaps peasants who stare at the night sky may feel more. That valuing a person solely by their intelligence is a fallacy. That the person who can dance is probably more superior than word-and-thought-bound people who are unable to dance.

The author cites an example where he views the drawings of kindergarten children and those of adults who were given the same exercise. He was blown away by the creativity displayed by the children. And that is when the thought process changed - that perhaps - children are not to be viewed as immature adults, but that adults should be viewed as atrophied children.

The chapter on the art of the mask is shocking and to some extent I don't think I fully understood it. However the author mentions that mask work is something almost anyone can learn to enjoy and this is because it is very refreshing to be able to shed the personality thrust on oneself by other people.

The part that details how really horrible we are at being original and imaginative is a not surprising but excruciating to read because it is easy to identify how much of creativity is lost in the process of education.

Some quotes -

• When a very high-status person is wiped out, everyone feels pleasure as they experience the feeling of moving up a step.

• Sanity has nothing directly to do with the way you think. It's a matter of presenting yourself as safe.

• Imagination is as effortless as perception, unless we think it might be 'wrong', which is what our education encourages us to believe. Then we experience ourselves as 'imagining', as 'thinking up an idea', but what we're really doing is faking up the sort of imagination we think we ought to have.

My take : Read if you want to view the world differently, improve creativity and recognize human nature.

2. Chaos by James Gleick

I had to google quite a bit to grasp the terms in this book - 'Sierpiński carpets' , 'Menger sponge',  'Peano curves', 'Koch curves', 'strange attractor' to name a few. Less scientific and more historic the book shows how chaos impacted nearly all fields of scientific explorations with its surprising effects.

It was intriguing to read the consternation and incredulity of scientists towards this locally-unstable-but-globally-stable phenomena across different domains !

The beauty of the mandelbrot designs was when I first came to know about fractals and their infinite variations. There was a time when writing screensavers with just a few lines of code to display these amazing drawings was fun. It just had to respect a few boundary conditions. It was fabulous the infinite variety of shapes - still resembling the original that would be rendered.

It is the contradiction of results that holds one's attention - like 'Menger sponge' - solid lattice that has infinite surface area but zero volume ! Infinite length within finite space - 'Koch curve'.

My only grievance was, chaos theory itself is not delved into in this book. I will have to read another book or perhaps check out youtube for a series on chaos. May be I will finally get to doing that chaos course by Stephen Strogatz which has interested me ever since I read his math articles on nytimes.

My take : Read if you are curious about the journey of how chaos theory was discovered by scientific pioneers.

3. Quiet by Susan Cain

This book is a much needed breath of fresh air !!! In a world filled with type-A personality success stories it was refreshing to read about quiet introverts who nevertheless achieve success and are in fact responsible for some of the great contributions to society.

Studies show that one third to one half of us are introverts. That means if you are not an introvert (I consider myself one) someone around you is. The world needs both types. However it also needs to value its introverts which it does very poorly.

This book answered this question for me - Why I feel recharged after spending time on my own when some of my friends seem to recharge after going out in a group.

Why I talk more in situations where it is more of a one-to-one (or perhaps a 2 - 3) rather than a big group. I tend to stay silent in groups even though I enjoy being part of one.

Nobody belongs to one type all the time. Some of the personality traits are situational. People are not 100% introverted or extroverted always.

However it is shown very clearly that being an introvert cannot be used as a crutch to be unsuccessful. There are many who are introverts and who succeed; the ways are are varied.

I would say the biggest take away from the book is that to be an introvert is not a liability. It is just a different way of interacting with the world and if you recognize your strengths you can definitely achieve your notion of success.

Some quotes -

• Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas

• There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas. I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas. It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent.

• We don't need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.

My take : Must read.

4. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson 

Okay what is a book on death cleaning doing here ? I liked the premise.

What is death-cleaning ? It is a new way of downsizing and organizing (generally for people above 50) but can be undertaken at any age really. The key point which caught my attention was this - to purge items so that your children will not be overburdened with your belongings when you are gone.

I sincerely hope that I am not going to keel over dead soon but to me it is a wonderful to live only with possessions that bring joy and happiness. [Marie Kondo - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up]

Since I am still not going to be carted off to a nursing home yet (I hope life also agrees with this!! ) I juxtapose my minimalism with living with a family. Towards this - I now believe it is the experiences that count more than possessions which may give only fleeting joy.

My take : Read if you like book's premise and minimalism. 

5. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

This book was in my TBR pile forever I think. I resisted reading it for a long time fearing it would be very disheartening.

I have visited both Dachau and Auschwitz and have seen the gas concentration chambers - the entire experience was haunting and disturbing. The gruesome holocaust exhibits, the stark art, the bleak landscape will leave an unforgettable impression. My friends and I were mostly silent throughout our visit. It was just so horrifying. And to add insult to injury - "Arbeit macht frei" - "Work sets you free" at the entrance of each camp. Awful !

With this background, reading about how the author found meaning even in such a horrendous situation was astonishing. The author's experience in the concentration camps is harrowing even though it feels as if it is not written with impact in mind. A book that could have been depressing and yet the author finds meaning in 'suffering'.  This is what makes the profound impression - that there can be meaning in suffering.

Some of the lessons - 

• Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, or a quest for power, but a quest for meaning.

• Three possible sources for meaning - Love, Work and Dignity in Suffering. In work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.

• Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

• Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.

My take : Must read. 

6. Distributed Ledger Technology: The Science of the Blockchain by Roger Wattenhofer

So this was the book of the month in my goodreads group and it was a mind bender !! This book so far is the book for which I had to google the most. I watched quite a few videos to follow the theorems and proofs. I am not entirely sure I grasped all the ideas in the book though. My rate of digesting the material was glacial.

This is no introductory book and I think the real audience is probably math and computer science master/doctoral students. It is a deep dive (sink or swim) into distributed systems technologies and the mathematical underpinnings for the same. In fact the 2nd heading should read - "The Math of the Blockchain" and not "Science of the Blockchain"

On a very broad perspective I like the lead up in the chapters from Paxos to Distributed storage. It got me thinking about the math behind decentralized systems with the requirements of integrity, consistency and availability. (Kind of take these things for granted when making an ATM withdrawal !)

My take : Read if working/studying in this technology space. This is more of a study/text book.

7. Entanglement by Amir Aczel

Quantum theory and mechanics is very very weird. Just reading about some of the things that happen at quantum level is mind boggling. It helped to read in the beginning of the book that it confounds the scientists themselves and they do not always 'get it' ! 

This book talks about entanglement which was detected due to mathematical considerations. Entangled particles transcend space. These particles even if separated by space (miles or light years), what happens to one of them happens to the other instantaneously ! (Remember the gravitational waves in the movie 'Interstellar' ?)

Plus a single quantum particle can interfere with itself. To quote the author - 

"The weirdness of quantum mechanics really kicks in when a particle is superposed with itself.

An electron, a neutron, or even an atom, when faced with a barrier with two slits in it, will go through both of them at once."

See ? Mind boggling !!!

My take : A fun and easy book - read if interested in the subject.

Other notable books I read 

8. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

A Bill Gates recommendation (he calls it his new favorite book) and I will link directly to his review here.

My take : Read if you would like to see the world in a more balanced light with the big picture in mind.

9. Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil

This book highlights that we live in a world where the algorithms increasingly
define our lives - getting a loan, getting a job, insurance premiums, admission into schools/colleges and these algorithms are black boxes that are not always fair and are definitely not held accountable for the decisions they make.

With real life stories the author shows how an algorithm can exacerbate any discrimination on the basis of poverty, neighborhood and race. This is the dark underbelly of big data and it is far from the utopia of 'algorithms will be more fair and unbiased' story that gets spun in the media.

Ultimately it asks that we make the companies using these algorithms to be more held more accountable and that there be some feedback mechanism that be used to make mathematical models more fair and non-discriminatory.

My take : Read if you want to get an idea about the dark side of big data/algorithms.

10. Nudge by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein

This book is by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics - and it highlights how small nudges can help us make better decisions (Institutions or a person). To some extent the non-thinking choices we make reminds me of System 1 behavior (Daniel Kahneman - Thinking Fast and Slow).

Basically we are not rational humans as depicted by economics but are mostly lazy, inconsistent and averse to making decisions that require a lot of thought. Nudges are small behavior changes that can be incorporated by companies, governments, institutions and people to help make a better choice. There are no neutral and non-biased choices in life.

My take : Read if you want to engineer default choices that are good for you. 

11. Invisibles by David Zweig

I came across this book after reading 'The Quiet" and it was the reference to anesthesiologists that made me want to read it. It made me think of people who do not feel the need of the limelight and yet do their work so well they disappear because their satisfaction comes from the work itself. Anonymous geniuses who do not mind being so !

My take : Read to know about incredibly talented people who do not feel the need for the spotlight. 

12. Creation by Adam Rutherford

This book is about synthetic biology. The creation / engineering of different forms of life by manipulating genes. The first part of the book is the journey from how life began and codified itself into DNA.

The second part deals with the application of genetic code manipulation. Areas where it can been used to solve the world's problems - food shortages, disease outbreaks and climate change.

My take : Read if you want to appreciate synthetic biology. The author has made complex information comprehensible.

13. A Mind For Numbers by Barbara Oakley

I took the online course and read the book too. Learning is no longer something we do only in school. Today every one has to be a life long learner and the course as well as the book clearly elucidate what works and what approaches we need to eliminate to learn effectively.

My take : Read to learn the effective methods to be a life long learner. 

14. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

This was a re-read for me and it still has the same freshness that I associated with reading it the first time. A sense of the joy of flight and a longing for something beyond the daily grind.

My take : Read for the joy of going beyond for no reason other than the exhilaration of the act itself.

Change in the blog URL

I have changed the URL for this blog from vidyab.blogspot.com to vidyabhandary.blogspot.com.

Sridevi

Hearing of Sridevi's demise was a shock. Just like many - at first I dismissed it as a hoax. When it turned out to be true I thought - she was way way ... too young.

Psychologists would say I loved her image and of course it is true. It is not like I knew her personally. The sadness and 'sadma' nonetheless is not a piece of imagination. In my eyes - she was a queen.

Paeans can be written about her but I am going to write about the minor riot she incited ! Truly. It happened in my childhood and to say I found it astonishing is an understatement. You see these people who would be the last people you would think would get so heated up.

Let me start at the beginning. In my childhood TV was not as common as it is now, so most people gathered at the house of the neighbor who had a TV. Started with black & white and later color TV. These gatherings were only to watch relevant programs - Chitrahaar, Mahabharat, Ramayan or movies etc

The neighborhood I used to watch in at that time was of Jain Merchants. These people do not eat garlic, onions or eat after 7pm. [Alcohol is not even a thought !!]. Not aggressive unless it was to do with business; these were peace loving folk.

It was a Sunday afternoon and we were looking forward to watching Mr. India. Everybody in the neighborhood was watching the movie for Sridevi.

The parody song with the football, the eternal kate nahin kat te, the song about loving an invisible man were all over. We were eagerly waiting for the denouement of the movie along with the other famous song 'Hawa Hawaii'.

Everyday there would be power cuts and Sundays were no exception. It so happened however on that day - the power cut did not happen at the regular time. So the crowd was buoyed into thinking that perhaps there would be no power cut. There was some kind of vague idea that everybody knew 'Mr India' was being broadcast so the EB would not schedule a power cut. What a hope.

And just when everyone was looking forward to watching the movie till the end - the power went off. OMG !! The crowd in that home got enraged ! These people who I have never seen get too hassled about anything were livid.

They decided to go to the EB and demand that the power be restored. The EB was about 4 min away. I tagged along; curious.

So this horde of mostly middle aged men with a scraggly number of children whipped up to the EB. Alas that being a Sunday - there were no EB officials. For a minute they were taken aback and then the anger grew.  Suddenly like dervishes they took stones and started pelting the EB office. I was stunned. I think I must have stared with my mouth open - at the spectacle of these uncles who so espoused middle age respectability that they were boring - were behaving like mindless hooligans.

After sometime no idea how long I quickly ran back home. [Mom's admonitions in general].

Nothing came of the mini riot of stone pelting and thank God no person was hurt. I used to see the EB office on my way to school and it took a long time for the broken windows to be replaced.

The main lesson I learnt though - people take their entertainment seriously. And if it is to do with a beloved actor - BEWARE. No logic works here. Even mild mannered people can turn into voracious mobs hell bent on destruction. Phew !!!

In the movie ''Sadma" there's a scene with Kamal Hassan in front of the diety Ganesha under a tree. Of all the so-called-mandir scenes this to me is the epitome of poignancy that captures his anguish,  fear and also his humble appeal and prayer to God. Hell, he is in his shoes. Yet you feel the incipient pain. He re-lights the extinguished diya from the other lit diya. No words.

I pray to God she is happy wherever she is.

All time favorite books ...

Reading is a personal journey and if it is really good an odyssey that brings joy, knowledge, a sense of wonder and imagination and of course entertainment.

There's a stage when reading coalesces into something that is more than the sum of the whole. I have definitely not reached this stage. It is going to take a long time before my reading will help me intuit across different genres of reading material.

Right now my reading is still like a reading within a silo bin. I am yet to see cross connections between my reading finance, science, tech, fiction, biology, physics, math, self help etc books. It is the glimmer of wisdom that drives one on. It is my vice.

Still there are some books that stand out and right now with my reading still in infancy according to me - they reflect the same. Nevertheless wisdom can come from the most simple words (koans anyone?) or even an early reader book. I do not belong to the supercilious group that thinks wisdom comes only from philosophy ! Ultimately, deep thinking is what brings wisdom and that can be done even without books !

These books made an impact in my early reading journey. Perhaps I was very impressionable then because while I have read many more books after that I have not added many to this list.

So here goes. In no particular order --

Non-fiction books

1. The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

This book made me come back to reading non-fiction. At that time I had had enough of reading shallow pop psychology books with their cookie cutter answers to everything in sight. They were not true non-fiction and their 'this-solution-fits-all-problems' of life, as if life were a single and simple mathematical construct; annoyed me no end. I had figuratively put my hands in the air and given up finding worthwhile non-fiction! I knew I was definitely not ready to read heavy philosophical tomes either.

Then this book was recommended to me. I was skeptical - I had been burned many times before but I decided to give it a shot. And I did not regret it.

Finally !!! A book that made sense. A book that did not give formulaic answers to the problems in life. Instead it gives you a philosophical framework to work within. All the 7 tenets make sense and they are timeless. The first 3 habits address the individual. The next 3 are interpersonal. And the last one is about self-renewal. The circle of influence vs the circle of concern, the 4 quadrants - to identify goals that are worth pursuing, emotional bank account  - topics that are enduring and relevant.

The line that resonated the most was "Love is a verb". What use is love that does not show itself in loving actions to the beloved? What use are empty words that only talk of feelings not held up by actions?

If I were to write the synopsis here I think I would end up regurgitating the entire book. Better to go and read the book instead !

My take: A must read - bar any qualifications. 

2. The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck

"Life is difficult" - First line of this the iconic book. I was hooked. In a culture where everything is looked at through rose-colored glasses and denial is paramount, this line was refreshing.

Self-control, self-discipline, delay of gratification are the corner stones of Dr Peck's brand of philosophy.  The roles of responsibility,  truth, important role of parents, suffering and empathy are well elucidated in the book. What stands out however is - the journey from facing one's problems to a path of grace - spiritual growth.

The most important section in the book is on Love (seems like a recurring thread eh ?). He clearly enlightens that love is not dependency, self-sacrifice, sensation or being-in-love.

According to Dr Peck -

"Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth."

In the section on Love - one description of marital problems stood out.

To quote -

"A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without his assuming any responsibility for its maintenance."

"An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that the goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or empathize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealousy and never-ending demands that he devote increasingly more energy to the home."

"Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth."

The entire section on Love is amazing but this description of marriage was superb.

My take: A must read - bar any qualifications (but of course - I am writing about my favorite books after all). 

3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

I have not yet read much straight forward philosophy. So I am yet to read the books by philosophers - Kant, Schopenhauer, Descartes, Socrates, Foucault, Nietzsche or the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita etc . I do have them in my TBR pile but no idea when I will get to them.

So for me this is a difficult book to condense because each reading of the book makes me think very differently. I had a tough time reading this book. The first 2 times I read a few pages and chucked it aside. The 3rd time (after 1.5 years) - it took me 6 months to finish reading it. And it was the only non-fiction book I was reading then. You see the book is a thinking book. A deep thinking book. (Considering the author went insane thinking about these philosophical investigations it is no wonder.) One goes back and forth in the narrative of a motorcycle trip to reacquaint oneself with one's thoughts.

It is a fictionalized autobiography of the author who is mentally ill.  At the end of the book it is revealed that he is subjected to electric shock therapy and his personality changes. However he sees the same behavior in his son Chris and realizes that his son could end up like him. (Chris gets institutionalized too).

Phaedrus is the part of the author that delves into the philosophical questions about quality and life in general. Phaedrus talks about the metaphysics of quality and the entire narrative is about quality and how to approach it. He considers quality as something that cannot be defined completely but must be experienced. The two approaches to life and quality are the "romantic" - which focus on the moment and the "rational" - which look at details, try to understand the workings and try to make rational analysis. In the end he tries to integrate the subjective and objective views of quality into a holistic view.

I re-read this book about 5 years ago and once again its philosophical underpinnings transcend the everyday chaos of life. To me it is a book to philosophy that does not make my head hurt and and yet is not shallow. And in the end it makes me think beyond every day concerns.

What stood out for me -

“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” should “in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles either.”

“Blind alley, though. If someone’s ungrateful and you tell him he’s ungrateful, okay, you’ve called him a name. You haven’t solved anything.”

My take: A must read - if you want to delve into an approachable way to philosophy - especially western philosophy.

Those are my non-fiction favorites - they have stood the test of time and I always look forward to adding more to the list. 

Fiction books

This can devolve into writing many many but I will restrict myself to list only a few that have influenced me into opening up my mental perspectives. The craft of story telling is amazing and a good story is a joy by itself. So those I will list separately on some other day perhaps.

1. Calvin and Hobbes - Yes this is a comic strip ! But some of the most profound thoughts come from this precocious recalcitrant 6-year old with a stupendous (if you have read Calvin you will get this pun!) vocabulary.

Calvin: “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in
the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”

Mrs. Wormwood: "What state do you live in?"
Calvin: "Denial."

Calvin: I’m yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you’re old and weak. Am I scary, or what?

Calvin: Everybody seeks happiness! Not me, though! That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world. Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

I think though Bill Watterson's (The creator of Calvin and Hobbes) finest quote was this  - 

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

2. Pride and Prejudice / Count of Monte Cristo / Sherlock Holmes / A Tale of Two Cities   - Classics which should be read in the original form. Did not read the French original but read the English Translation for Count of Monte Cristo.

3. The Fountainhead / Atlas Shrugged - One will either love Ayn Rand or hate her; there is no in between !

4. Love Story - I started reading this book with a smirk in my mind ! Truly ! The idea that a book spanning hardly 100 pages would be eloquent and expressive of love; was something I found impossible. The reviews also indicated there were no maudlin words in the book. Mentally scoffing - I finished this book and was simply swept away.

The story itself is heartrending and poignant but never again did I underestimate the power of few words to move. I learnt that length of a book did not necessarily equate to its power.  A humbling experience for which I was truly grateful.