Reading now: The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of its Greatest Inventors, John Gribbin
| good | 2012/05/07: India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking, Anand Giridharadas: Initially thought I would not like this book. As I started reading it, I started to like it more than I expected. Although the book surmises many things about India, I did observe few of those things during my visits to India. |
| great | 2012/04/25: Chess Story, Stefan Zweig: Must Read. Enjoyed the book. At 84 pages a great quick page turner. What a book! The book has an amazing contrast between nothingness and mental overstimulation. |
| good | 2012/04/15: Rework, Jason Fried: Okay read. This book questions the traditional style of management in startups. Although a good quick read, I did not get much out of it. |
| great | 2012/04/10: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes: Nice read. The book has an unreliable narrator. The book questions the fact that whether memory is reliable or not. Raises the question whether we remember what actually transpired. |
| great | 2012/01/14: The Academic Job Search HandBook, Mary Morris Heiberger and Julia Miller Vick: Milo suggested me to read this book to help my job search. This is a great book for people interested in an academic job in the US. |
| good | 2012/01/13: Noon, Aatish Taseer: Parts of the book were very good. Nice story portraying the changes in the mindset in India and Pakistan. Aatish has a nice style of writing but few things in this book seemed disconnected. |
| good | 2012/01/12: Everyman, Philip Roth: A quick read. This is a book about getting old. The loneliness, dread and despondency about the stage of the life in the character was well portrayed. |
| average | 2012/01/06: The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators, Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen: Average read. First part of the book was okay. Highlighted connecting the dots, questioning, observing, networking and experimenting as attributes of the innovators. I found the back-end to be too repetitive. |
| great | 2011/12/31: Steve Jobs, Walter Issacson: With MacBook, iPod and iPhone changing the way I interact with the world everyday, I had to read it. It was a great read. Describes the quirky character of Jobs and his quest for simplicity in the products in great detail. |
| good | 2011/12/27: The New Professor's Handbook, Cliff I. Davidson and Susan A. Ambrose: Good read for people interested in academia. First part of the book emphasizing teaching in research and mentoring was useful to me. |
| great | 2011/12/14: The Big Short, Michael Lewis: Interesting read. Got to know more about the subprime mortagage crisis. This book makes you loathe investment bankers. |
| great | 2011/3/06: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee: Captivating read. A mesmerizing journey of several hundreds/thousands of years studying cancer, battles fought to control it, understand it and provide a cure for it. I love reading about the history of science in general and it tingled the right chords for me. Description of progress of different kinds of treatment plans involving surgery, radiation, chemo and directed therapies fascinated me. Brought out the fact that great insightful discoveries coupled with some activism is required for progresss of a scientific field (think Mary Lasker and Sidney Farber efforts). |
| great | 2011/2/08: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days, Jessica Livingston: Amazing read. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Amazing pep talk with the founders of various startups. |
| great | 2011/1/28: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, Steven Johnson: Interesting read. Explores how some environments are productive for innovation while others are not. I could relate the "adjacent possible" argument with Thomas Kuhn's argument in Structure of Scientific Revolutions book. |
| great | 2010/12/7: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, Elyn R. Saks: Awesome book. Saks does a great job of describing her experiences during psychotic episodes, her struggle to lead a normal life and the role of her family and friends in her life. |
| great | 2010/11/12: India after Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha: Awesome. Never thought history can be so engrossing. Made me remember Sukumar Sen (First CEC), Vappala Pangunni Menon (Man behind unification of princely states). |
| good | 2010/10/10: A Ph.D. Is Not Enough!, Peter J. Feibelman: A short book. Quick read. |
| great | 2010/09/08: Man's search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl: Apart from explaining the conditions in the concentration camp, explores why humans survive even worst of worst situations. Book concludes that a meaning for survival is necessary. When a person loses meaning for his existence, survival is seldom possible. Was an interesting read. Enjoyed the first part of the book. Skimmed through the logotherapy part. A short book, worth it. |
| good | 2010/08/01: The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga: Quick page turner. |