Yearly Reading List

Hopefully, one day I will compile the list of books I have read, and possess in my anti-library. Meanwhile, the books that I recently finished are listed below.

2022

Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World by Ram Guha.
A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy by Joel Mokyr.
Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy by Adam Jentleson.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.
The Last Empire: Final Days of Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy.
Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation by Serhii Plokhy.
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev.
War’s Unwomanly Face by Svetlana Alexievich (Trans. from Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky).
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.
The Inverted World by Christopher Priest.
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World by Adam Tooze.
Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America. September 3, 1929 – September 3, 1939 by Frederick Lewis Allen.
The Deluge: The Great War, America and The Remaking of the World Order. 1914-1931 by Adam Tooze.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman.
Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano (Trans. from French by Barbara Wright).
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr.
The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others’ Eyes by C. S. Lewis.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Japanese Tales collected and edited by Royall Tyler.

2021

Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi.
Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki. Trans. from Japanese by Edwin McClellan.
An Armenian Sketchbook by Vassily Grossman. Trans. from Russian by Robert Chandler.
Whistleblower by Susan Fowler.
A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi by Aman Sethi.
Encounters and Destinies: A Farewell to Europe by Stefan Zweig.
Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao.
A Brief History of the Great Mughals by Bamber Gascoigne.
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, and Strategies by Nick Bostrom.(notes)
A bit underwhelming eventually. Bostrom is a provocative thinker, but I was unpersuaded by the structured, eventually pessimistic arguments against Artificial general intelligence. I loved his Anthropic Principle, this book is a distant second.
On the Abolition of All Political Parties by Simone Weil. Trans. from French by Simon Leys.
Atomic Habits by James Clear. (notes)
Picked it up, as I was piqued by some fairly good reviews from people I like reading. Plus, I also need to cut some bad habits. Built of Duhigg’s book — which James Clear cites at length — this is probably one of the better self-help books around. The book could easily be shorter, but price vs. pages is not a battle that’s won easily.
The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World by Maya Jasanoff.
Milkman by Anna Burns. (notes)
Man Booker Prize-winning novel about ruminations of a middle sister during the Troubles. Somebody McSomebody shot a milkman who may really be a Milkman, a brother-in-law (btw: there is a first and a third) who loves to run more miles, runs around reservoir and clicks in the bushes, some poisonings, tablet girl, longest friend from the primary school, maybe-boyfriend, violence on women, cats hurled around. ad infinitum. An overt exercise in style over substance. Underwhelmed and a hard pass on recommending it to others. After not finishing a couple of other recent Booker winners, I am unimpressed with their choices.
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante. Trans from Italian by Ann Goldstein.
Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else by Jordan Ellenberg.
A Concise History of Spain by William Phillips, Carla Rahn Phillips.
[needs update…]

2020

Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least-Moon.
How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays by Umberto Eco.
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in New China by Evan Osnos.
Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals Secrets of the Universe by Steve Strogatz.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th century by Barbara Tuchman.
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis.
Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild.
The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra. Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell.(notes)
A short book written as thoughts scribbled in one night as the protagonist – a professor – reads his own stories to his step-daughter and waits for his wife to arrive home from her art class. As the night deepens into the darkness, he speculates on how his daughter may remember him. I suspect that its brevity prevents it from realizing its potential. Nevertheless, surprisingly tender meditation on how much of good parenting can disappear into the abyss of perfect memorylessness.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.(notes)
Don’t be put off by the gushing praise from the autodidactism adoring valley talk and be skeptical about the book. Eclipsed by its own popularity, at its core, is a well-written engaging book. The best reason to read a book is its enjoyability. The writing is breezy, crisp, and short.
Murderbot Diaries #1-#3 (All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol) by Martha Wells.
Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring and Stayed Local by Beth Macy.
Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn. (Re-read).
The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir. Translated from French by Bernard Frechtman.
The English and Their History by Robert Tombs. (Review)
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forche. (Notes)
The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis.
A Beginner’s Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations by Pico Iyer.
Working by Robert Caro.
How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett. (Review)
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Sanshiro by Natsume Söseki. Translated from Japanese by Jay Rubin.
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttegieg.
Educated by Tara Westover.
The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India’s New Gilded Age by James Crabtree. (Review)
Vertical Motion by Can Xue.(notes)
Another weird book, again, with imagery like The Vegetarian. Non-human characters, weird angles, sudden terrifying imagery, escalation of cringe — I used to enjoy such deviations when I discovered Bradbury. Can Xue (whose name is a play on words meaning dirty or mountain snow) shows an utter dedication to the narrative. It’s up to you, the reader, to hang on to the ride on which she takes you. As wild as the content of imagery is, the words and sentence constructions are just bleh. They don’t ring and speak. I am either missing its beauty, or its essence is lost in translation.
Notes from China by Barbara Tuchman. (Notes)
Hiking with Nietzsche by John Kaag.
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis.
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. Translated from Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally.
Samskara by U. R. Ananthamurthy. Translated from Kannada by A. K. Ramanujan. (My Notes)
The Bhagavad Gita translated (from Sanskrit) by Eknath Eswaran.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang.(notes)
The Vegetarian is a story about a young woman in South Korea, and the story is told in 4 distinct voices. The weirdest book that I have read in a long, long time. Fascinating premise, deep allegories, nightmarish landscapes, and a vicious focus on disturbing realities. It began like a dreamy David Lynch movie and metamorphosed — hence the comparisons to Kafkaesque style — into an entirely disturbing mixture of nihilist neorealism and psychedelia. It won the prestigious Man Booker Prize, but I am not sure that I can recommend the book to everyone. However, I do think that Han Kang is a fresh, extraordinary voice. I am curious to know what she will cook up next.
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. (Review)
The Anarchy: East India Company, Corporate Violence and Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple. (Review)
Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
Draft No 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee.
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright. (notes)
Texas, like California, shines distinctly as politics and culture increasingly become independent of state-lines. Texas is curiously idiosyncratic, brash and unsure, urban and rural, forward-looking, and retrogressive at the same time. The Kahneman-like Two Levels in Texas explained in the “Culture, explained” chapter is the best highlight of the book: Level One is “aggressive, innovative and self-assured”, and Level Two turns to “humbling work of civilizing itself”, reflected in its architecture and its cities.
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments by Michael Dirda.
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt.
Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa translated from Japanese by John Bester.
DNA: The Story of Genetic Revolution by James Watson (with Andrew Berry and Kevin Davies).
The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang.
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig. Translated from German by Joel Rotenberg.
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China by Paul Theroux. (Review)
Like Death by Guy de Maupassant. Translated by Richard Howard.
The Peregrine by J. A. Baker. (Review)
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Translated by H. T. Willetts.

Late 2016 – 2019

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman.
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik. (Review)
Words are Stones: Impressions of Sicily by Carlo Levi.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson.
Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast by Samanth Subramanian.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. (Review)
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca (translated by Robin Campbell).
The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust by Kevin Werbach.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. A One Book, One Philadelphia selection for 2019. (Review)
How Proust can Change your Life by Alain de Botton.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser. (Contains excellent advice for non-fiction writing).
Gigged: The End of Job and The Future of Work by Sarah Kessler.
Great Operatic Disasters by Hugh Vickers.
Truman by David McCullough. (Review)
India by Madeleine Biardeau and translated by F. Carter. (Review)
Architects of Intelligence: The Truth about AI from the people building it by Martin Ford.
The 1 Hour China Book by Jonathan Woetzel and Jeffrey Towson. (notes)
Does what the book promises to do, a quick 1-hour introduction to large trends in recent China post-1970s. Woetzel and Towson point out six major trends – Urbanization, Rising Chinese Consumers, Scale of Manufacturing, Financial clout and money, Growth of Brainpower, and “Chinese” Internet. Each of them is an interesting macro-trend by itself. The authors have included several tidbits of factoids and trivia (which I love) [For instance, China consumes half of the world’s pork.] and several interesting life-story anecdotes (founders of Huawei, China Vanke, Huayi Brothers, and Tencent). One issue is that writing and updates have been outsourced, led to some inaccuracies: In comparing China to Brazil (BRIC), the authors comment about Chongqin and Cancun(?!).
Overall a pleasurable quick read, a bit like “mental floss” books densely packed with information. Won’t make you an expert of course, but it would be pretty illogical to expect that from a book that is pitched as 1-hour book. The book easily exceeds its set goal. Recommend the book for those who haven’t read much about China and are curious about trends in modern-china.
Does the 21st century belong to China? (Review)
Poorly Made in China: An Insider’s Account of the China Production Game by Paul Midler.
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel.
The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph by Albert O. Hirschman.
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. (notes)
Picked this book on a whim, as my child remarked that I should “expand” on my reading by reading fantasy, which aligned well with introducing serendipitous discovery. I couldn’t have done better than landing up with the book written by Hobb. This is a contemplative book, remarkably well constructed, with layered character-building. Look forward to finishing the farseer trilogy.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (a new translation by Gregory Hays).(notes)
Another translation that I read now. Meditations is a life-affirming treatise. I daresay I like, with preferred indifference, the studious coldness of Marcus Aurelius. Gregory Hays has been recently touted by Bay Area neo-stoics as the translation that is supposed to be read to appreciate Marcus Aurelius better. I am not so sure that I agree. This translation is surely modern and sparse. However, I found both this translation and Robin Campbell’s translation have their own strengths and weaknesses. Pick your own favorite, or not. Marcus doesn’t really care.
A Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (trans. by Maurice Cranston).
White Castle by Orhan Pamuk (translated by Victoria Holbrook).(notes)
Magical journey into one’s identity, wrapped in an absolutely mesmerizing meta-mystery of who’s who. Thank you, OS, for the recommendation. Probably, my favorite Pamuk book, now.
The All of It by Jeanette Haien.
The Great Cities in History edited by John Julius Norwich.
Morocco by Vincent Monteil (translated by Veronica Hull).
Triumph of the city: How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier by Edward Glaeser.
Ireland by Camille Bourniquel. Translated by John Fisher.
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.
A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence by Kartik Hosanagar.
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple.
The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence. (See Books on China)
How Asia Works by Joe Studwell. (See Books on China)
On China by Henry Kissinger. (See Books on China)
Factory Girls: From Village to City in Changing China by Leslie Chang. (See Books on China)
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler. (See Books on China)
Katalin Street by Magda Szabo. Translated by Len Rix. 2018 PEN Translation Prize.
The Way of Life (Tao Te Ching) by Lao Tze. Translated by RB Blakney. (notes)
This thin volume of translation is a classic. In my view, despite its age, it compares favorably to many recent translations. In fact, the dated English version is a great way to study the evolution of English itself. A reader more informed in biblical passages that Blakney describes in parallel may find the comparisons compelling. For me, Tao Te Ching is deep and impenetrable, and “has to be lived through” rather than learned. Understanding it through a coda of religious scriptures may create more holes than fill them. Sometimes, the same crutches that help you walk are the ones that slow you down.
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Translated by Ken Liu.
Connected Strategy by Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch. (Note: Review copy).
Singapore Dream and Other Adventures by Hermann Hesse. Translated by Sherab Kohn. (notes)
The book covers Hesse’s essays, poems, and a short story, written during his trip to Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia, and Ceylon in the 1910s. It is interesting to examine how Singapore was 100+ years back. Hesse won the Nobel prize much later in 1962. Hesse’s writing here is still developing and scratchy, but honest. He comes across as a person who opposes colonization and yet, his ideas are dated. He considers the Chinese from a distance with mild respect and cursory interest and seems to have a low opinion of Malays and Indians. Our reactions to his dated attitude towards colonial subjects is a harbinger of how our own “modern” attitudes may look a hundred years from now. In any case, Hesse’s observations on a rapidly disappearing culture are keen and vivid. He explores his own discomfort and alienated feelings in a distant land in which he is lost and struggling. There is a certain burnishing talent in his essays. The poems, however, are unremarkable. I like Conrad better, warts and all.
A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. (notes)
My kid says I should read more fantasy and I abide. This is a deliciously twisted book, faithful to the lore of fairy tales but brimming with an irreverent take. An enjoyable ride with fairly layered motivations and clear morals. A movie version is apparently being created. It would be a bit like Kill Bill for kids, as many heads roll in the book, and there are passages of absolute mayhem and pandemonium.
Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji by Manu S. Pillai. (notes)
An excellent book on the history of a much under-studied region in India. Deccan is the golden quadrilateral-shaped plateau that is bounded by the coasts and the great plains of the north. Deccan covers most of the hinterlands of current-day Indian states of Karnataka, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Pillai recounts (with ample dose of humour) the history of internecine warfare among the Bahmani sultans in the Deccan plateau, until the rise of Shivaji. It is astounding to read about how global the Deccan economy was — the interchange of trade, culture, and arts — even as much of the history predates the Industrial Revolution. I think the book would have been even better if it had been longer, leisurely, and less frenetic. A great quick read.
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman.
Turing and the Universal Machine: The Making of the Modern Computer by Jon Agar. (notes)
Rich ideas — the book is really about the theory of computing — presented in a readable style. Ending up liking the book more than my priors.
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. (Review)
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit. (notes)
As many split reviews of the book show, it is hard to write a neutral and dispassionate narrative on the Middle East. Every view has its vehement detractors. The steady heat of the sun scorches and lights up the land. Beneath the parched lands, lay interred centuries-old sorrows and grievances, like disintegrating bones. Ari Shavit does a remarkable job of talking to people with different viewpoints. He constantly challenges his own worldview, searching for faults with his own mentors and coherence in the views of those he is repulsed by. This is a moving, troubling and terrific must-read — particularly the autobiographical notes on Gaza Beach — on the aspirations of the peoples and complex history of the region, told from an unabashedly Israeli nation-state viewpoint. I also learned a lot of factoids on the history of Zionism in the early 20th century.
This America: The Case for the Nation by Jill Lepore. (notes)
In this short, concisely argued essay, Jill Lepore argues for patriotism, with several elegant turns of phrase. She traces the history of Nationalism in America through its struggles with slavery, suffrage, and citizenship. America is a unique nation in many ways. Prof. Lepore notes (and I paraphrase) that “many nations become states and even nation-states. In contrast, America became a state before it became a nation. It is a rare “hen’s tooth” — the only state-nation.”
The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie.
The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind by Raghuram Rajan.
Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo. (notes)
The book employs the engineering mindset: solving global problems require locally tailored and implemented solutions. Many of the topics covered already familiar from the papers we have read. This book is a compendium of well-argued positions on taxation, immigration, and poverty particularly with examples from India and the developing world. The book predates their well-deserved Nobel Prize. In fact, the book mentions only one woman has won the prize 🙂 – It would be cool to see how this changed fact gets edited in the next version.
Good and Mad: Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister. (notes)
Rebecca Traister (another Philadelphia native) is the most unique voice in feminist writing today. I came to her book through her articles and interviews. In Good and Mad: Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, she makes a studied and measured case that, far from being considered futile, women’s “anger” and “madness” actually do change the world. This observation never stuck me as starkly before. In the name of stoicism, women are often asked to calm and pipe down, but such channeling of one’s frustration doesn’t change the world. Taleb, whose Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which I read this year, in his routine displays of anger and putdowns on Twitter, is often considered a Stoic by a fair number of people that I know: there is perhaps some truth to this view that anger is expressed in preferred indifference. Women’s anger is often maligned. (Such is the world.) However, it is true that the expression of anger and madness is punctuation in the search for better equilibrium. This is a great book that expounds beyond the days of Me Too events and may become a modern classic. I hope to elaborate a bit more on Traister’s writings on the blog.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan. (Review)
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin.
The Door by Magda Szabo. Translated by Len Rix.
The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits.
The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson.
Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson. [Review]
A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter. [Review]
Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha. [Review]
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. [Review]
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. [Review]
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (trans. Ann Goldstein). [Review]
The Electronic Sweatshop by Barbara Garson. [Review]
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Astoundingly Prescient!
Americana: A 400-year History of American Capitalism by Bhu Srinivasan. [review]
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian.
Janesville by Amy Goldstein.
Conspicuous Consumption by Thorstein Veblen.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
Beyond a Boundary by CLR James.
Enchiridion by Epictetus.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.
Rise of Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford.
Disgrace by JM Coetzee.
This Divided Island: Life, Death, and Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.
Attrib by Eley Williams.
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre by Walter Kaufmann.
Montaigne by Stefan Zweig.
John Adams by David McCullough.
Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy by Nick Bostrom.
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. Trans. by Stephen Snyder.
The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot. Trans. by Michael Chase.
How to be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci.
Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach. Translated by Mike Mitchell.
Prediction Machines: Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence by Ajay Agarwal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb.
The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought by Dennis Rasmussen.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatzky. Trans. by Olena Bormashenko.
Liberty by Virginia Woolf.
Essays in Idleness by Kenk ō and Hōjōki by Ch ō mei. Translated by Meredith McKinney.
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Maureen Feely.
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. (Re-read).
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson.
The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do by Edward Tenner.
The Customer Centricity Playbook by Peter Fader and Sarah Toms.
Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. [Review]
Never Stop Learning by Brad Staats.
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty by Albert O. Hirschman.
How not to be wrong by Jordan Ellenberg.
The Great A&P and Struggle for Small Business in America by Marc Levinson.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari (notes)
A Brief History of Humankind is an audacious title. I was indeed skeptical. How does one condense the history of mankind, into 300 pages? How can such a précis be meaningful? I have to say the provocative hook absolutely pays off, and the book deserves every encomium that has come its way. Harari’s central thesis deals with the role of stories/mythology in how homo sapiens emerged as the superior species. I loved Harari’s distinction between “intelligence” and “consciousness”. This is a book that everyone should read. I hope to write my long review up sometime. Meanwhile, check out Bill Gates’s review of the book.
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta (notes)
Maximum City, very apt to the title, focuses on the extremes in Mumbai (Bollywood, Bar Girls, Encounters, Local right-wing politics, and Migrants among other things). Unfortunately, those apogees are mundanely familiar to readers through news and movies, a fact that reduces the impact of the book’s purported gonzo journalism. Much of my fascination with Mumbai does not intersect with the curiosities of focus in the book. Suketu Mehta truly digs Mumbai and all its rawness. He comes across as observant, and very sympathetic to his interviewees, and there are occasional glimpses of writing brilliance (memories of how the vada pav crumbles in your mouth). However, the best non-fiction book on Mumbai is (the much shorter) Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.
Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (notes)
A brief novel about early German Romantic poet Novalis who fell in love with very young, and barely literate, Sophie von Kuhn, because he believes “nothing is commonplace”. A strange book. It is like explaining the indescribable alien sensation associated with one’s dream filled with commonplace events. The book deals with a considerably obscure topic, coupled with simple writing and enveloped in an intangible “can’t-grab-it” atmosphere.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (notes)
Angela Carter is, for a lack of a better word, amazing: I felt like I had wasted 30 years in not discovering her writing earlier. Her exquisite control of the English language at once searing and sensual, shines through in her extraordinary retelling of fairy tales, in her own unpredictably wicked knock-your-socks-off imagination, gradual ratcheting of suspense teetering on the verge of reckless abandon. She is Bette Davis on paper.
Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood(notes)
Clearly a modern classic. Illegitimi non carborundum is important advice to daughters (and sons).To those folks who live in “blank white spaces at the edge of the print”, it is true that evil and intemperance arrive subtly and in shadows. They may even look like weeping angels. As a famous Doctor said, “Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good Luck.”
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky).
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
All the Light We cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates(notes)
I think that folks who find Ta-Nehisi Coates’ style overtly polemical miss the importance of the argument he makes. The argument calls attention to iniquities in society processing in a slow, crushing momentum of a juggernaut that is fueled entirely by the air of indifference of the passersby. I have been reading him on the Atlantic for many years now, amazed by his voice and musicality in his diction. Truly, Mr. Coates’s writing is like Heifetz on violin. For whatever smidgen my opinion is worth, he is the best current writer on American Society. Shamefully, I still do not know the full import of the history and the tragedy of the African American experience, but I have learned a lot through Mr. Coates’s writings. Between the World and Me is about how a black parent deals with the brutality and deaths of young Americans on the streets. But, it is also easily more than a ledger of personal recounting. The book is a lyrical elegy sung in modern words but held together by ancient dreams. As the repetitions of tragic pasts weigh down, the book tackles a deep sense of mournfulness about a resigned acceptance of many tragic futures.
Dark Money by Jane Meyer(notes)
A deep dive by a reputed journalist into the Business of Political “Philanthropy.” This is a topic beset with politics. My main takeaway from the book is how the definition of a non-profit is now curiously amorphous and broad.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (notes)
I learn more each time I read Marcus Aurelius. Pithy, deep, and layered. I will let a couple of passages speak for themselves. Aurelius says, “Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will have forgotten you”. Reminded me of the beautiful short story by Jorge Luis Borges’ 300-word story “The Witness.” “Look at the speed of universal oblivion, the gulf of immeasurable time both before and after, the vacuity of applause, the indiscriminate fickleness of your apparent supporters, the tiny room in which all this is confined.” – This is Marcus Aurelius, the man who ruled the known world, all subjects and slaves under his command.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (One of the best books I’ve read. Great research.)
On Shortness of Life by Seneca
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar
Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey (notes)
Loved the pulpy space operatic nature of the book. Adroitly combines detective noir fiction with Heinleinian love for a space adventure. Even with the high-tech Epstein Drive looming around, the blue-collar, low-tech world reminded me of Bob Shaw’s The Wooden Spaceships. The last third of the book felt somewhat hurriedly written.
Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter (notes)
To my surprise, I found the book at Denver Airport, after a hiking trip to Colorado. Two outstanding stories in this collection, both quintessentially American, but narrated in Angela Carter’s inimitable style. First, “The Fall River Axe Murders” – the story of Lizzie Borden, with its slow-burn in the stifling summer heat of Northeast, told from the murderer’s point-of-view. Second, “Mary” – the utterly desperate tale of an English orphan who went to live with the Indians.
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (trans. by Archibald Colquhoun) (notes)
How could one not find interesting, a man in love with the stars? The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, which translates to civet) is a melancholic story of a Sicilian prince — the man who loves astronomy — in the dying days of royalty, during the birth of the Italian Republic. The book is full of keen observations of human frailty, the weight of the past, and the futility of future plans, as the slow summers under the Sicilian sun sediments under the fast onslaught of the future unknown. As I ambled along the corridors of palatial museums of the Vadodara, India, I was struck by the very comparable life of Sayajirao Gaekwad, a progressive prince (for those times) who saw the princely states of British India, hurtling towards the democratic future of Modern India. (There are also some broad parallels to the story of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, although the conclusion in the Leopard is less dire). Like Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, The Leopard was published posthumously, as Lampedusa had no luck in getting publishers to agree to publish during his lifetime. The book has since gone on to become one of the most remarkable novels of 20th century Italian Literature.
The Outsourced Self by Arlie Hochschild (notes)
The role of outsourcing in a firm’s operations is a big component in the Wharton Operations Strategy Class (OIDD 615). The boundary between what a firm should do and what is to be outsourced is porous, shifting, and seemingly ever-expanding.In Hochschild’s classic book, one can see compelling parallels between roles of “the firm” and “the self”, as she explores families and people who have outsourced various personal roles such as caring for elderly parents, scheduling dating lives, pregnancy, childcare, and wedding planning. All roles that were, like manufacturing and planning in firms, originally done “in-house”.
How to Live, or A Life of Montaigne: in One Question and Twenty attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell (notes)
Montaigne was probably the first “modern” blogger. He discussed issues profound and mundane, profane and exalted, in his freewheeling style, covering topics involving stoicism, kidney stones, French politics, wine, travel-writing, how to educate children, the role of conflicts, his sex life, etc. He also, from what I glean, did not worry about consistency and “overarching story” in his writings – wrote for writing’s sake. Very much a big influence on this blog. Sarah Bakewell writes beautifully synthesizing the disparate themes in Montaigne’s writings both chronologically and thematically. For an “Essays” amateur like me, the categorization into 20 answers makes Montaigne’s writings accessible and compelling. I would strongly recommend the books for folks with STEM backgrounds (like me) trying to understand philosophy.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon (notes)
Summer Novels are one of my favorite Fiction sub-genres. I lived not very far from the “cloud factory” in Pittsburgh, where the novel is set, during my years in Grad School. The novel is very reminiscent of that sentimental time and place. I have always wanted to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and loved watching Wonderboys, but TMP is my first Chabon novel. It is also his first work, evident from the rough edges all over the book. TMP also owes much to Great Gatsby. But, which modern “summer” novel doesn’t? I also loved Chabon’s nod to Homer in the beautiful turn-of-phrase, “sea-dark wine”.
Revenge of the Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax (notes)
In the Operations Strategy elective (now a semi-core class) at Wharton, I sometimes talk about the value of physical goods in an increasingly digital world.It took relatively little time for streaming videos to replace DVDs and other physical video formats. Blockbuster had more than 9000 stores in 2004. (Around 2007, I recall that there was even an HBO Entourage episode in a Blockbuster store). Netflix started streaming movies only in 2008. Within 5 years, by 2013, Blockbuster stores were almost all gone. The same fate was argued for e-books replacing physical books. Amazon introduced the first-generation Kindle in 2007. In fact, it has taken longer for e-books to scale, and in 2017, in some markets physical books have made a comeback of sorts.So, how is Analog surviving, or even thriving? David Sax explores the rising popularity of Analog in specific industries. The writing is sunny and upbeat. David has a genuinely acute sense of American entrepreneurial spirit, and the integrated role of culture in how products are consumed. As we gain a more nuanced understanding of Tech, smartphones and digital world in the recent days, it appears that Analog — from record players to board games — is here to stay for a while.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (notes)
A Christian contemplation of writing and meaning of life, filled with a pervading sense of quiet joy. Reminded me of the gentle rhythm of prose in Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
Persuasion by Jane Austen (notes)
Probably the best Jane Austen book that I have read (I haven’t read Northhanger Abbey). I will leave it to the experts to explain Austen’s enduring appeal. If you are a data geek, here is an interesting NYT UpShot article on how distinct Austen’s word choices are compared to all her contemporary authors.
Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand (notes)
A short, well-researched history of hopes and tragedies behind Kohinoor, India’s most famous diamond. Starting with the legend of the Syamanthaka stone, the book covers a history that is more violent than GoT, traversing the harsh landscapes of Persia, Afghanistan, erstwhile Punjab, India and Britain, before the diamond lands on the British crown. Vignettes of Indian history always amaze me. In this book, I learned of Garcia da Orto (1501-69), who abandoned his Professor of Medicine position in Portugal and settled in Goa, then a Portuguese Territory. da Orto was in fact a practicing Sephardic Jew by the name Avraham ben Yitzhak, who escaped from the inquisition in Portugal, to seek the (relative) safety of India. Once his identity came to the light after his death, his remains were disinterred and incinerated by the Portuguese.
Shoe Dog: A memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Harari(notes)
A follow-up to Sapiens. A speculative exploration of humanity’s search to live longer, live happier and live all-knowingly (immortality, bliss, and divinity). Thought provoking, but less cohesive than Sapiens.
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder(notes)
It is well known that Retail sales are highly seasonal, and the staffing for peaks in seasonality is hard (another Operations concept that we cover in core class at Wharton). Where does Amazon get a large proportion of its huge temporary labor that it needs for the holiday season? Ans. Camperforce – A large group of retirees roaming the American landscape in their “recreational” vehicles (RVs). Jessica Bruder does significant legwork working for factories – including a stint at an Amazon factory with Kiva robots. She covers the trials and tribulations in the lives of retirees who never retired in gonzo journalism style. (One of my favorite characters among those Jessica covered in the book rigged up his Toyota Prius in his efforts to live as a camping nomad). In the book, Bruder covers more issues other than Camperforce and offers some insights into how Warehouse labor tasks are like. The book is a very thoughtful exploration of what it means to get old in America, and understanding exploration of a uniquely American subculture of camping travelers.
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil.
Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity by Amartya Sen.
Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James Carse
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google by Scott Galloway
One Child: Story of China’s most radical experiment by Mei Fong
Zama by Antonio di Benedetto (trans by Esther Green).
Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (trans by Philip Gabriel).
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (trans by Jay Rubin).
The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor.
Girl on the train by Paula Hawkins (guilty as charged)
Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek (trans. Paul Selver) – An incredible precursor to Heller’s Catch-22.