Goodreads challenge 2016

Against a target of 25 books to read this year, I somehow managed to read 36 books, totaling about 12000 pages. That averages to 3 books / 1000 pages a month. Not too bad, but still quite a long way to catch up with my icon Bill Gates, who reads, on an average, a book per week. And he is much more a busy person than the most of us.

हाच माझा मार्ग (Haach Maajha Marg) - Sachin Pilgaonkar

हाच माझा मार्ग (Haach Maajha Marg), the autobiography of Sachin Pilgaonkar is perhaps one of the most detailed memoirs written by a contemporary Indian film star, and rightly so… His repertoire across Hindi and Marathi films spans a staggering 50+ years. 

The book measures about 320 pages and almost each page has a photo, many of them quite rare ones. Text is lucid and we get to read many behind-the-scenes, personal stories about movies and movie legends. The author shares his feelings, views and thoughts candidly and at times bluntly, which is great for a book about film industry notorious for its hypocrite ways.

The problem with this book is, after a while, it starts sounding a bit too much of "I, Me, Myself". At first glance, this may seem inevitable in an autobiography, but in the hands of a good editor, so many sentences could have been written in a much better way to make Mr. Pilgaonkar appear less of a narcissist. 

Secondly, and more importantly,  nowhere in the book does the author offer any deep, substantially meaningful insights into the soul of the industry he worked in for 50 years. The book reads more like a chronology of films and events than a retrospection of a thoughtful veteran.  

Daemon and Freedom - Daniel Suarez

Do you love technology-focused, fast-paced thrillers with multiple plots converging at the conclusion? 
Did you enjoy the movie "Transcendence" but wanted the story to be on a grander scale? 
Do you feel -- or rather, fear -- that rogue artificial intelligence (AI) will one day overpower humanity? 

You should read these two novels. 

And if you are a fan of FPS and MMORPG type video games, you must definitely read them.

AI has been featured in many books and movies, but the one in these novels is truly novel, something we haven't seen before. What makes it even more terrifying is, unlike other sci-fi components that require a leap of technology (wormhole, quantum computing, time machine), this one practically exists in our modern world. The author worked as cyber security adviser to many Fortune-500 companies, and he draws on all his expertise in depicting the technical details.

"Daemon" and "Freedom" constitute a two-novel series. If you read one, you gotta read the other.

Economics books by Tim Harford

Economics wasn't a subject we had much exposure to in our school and college, and as a result, the concepts of monetary economics remain rather fuzzy. However, its cousin seems much more interesting and exciting: The Behavioural Economics, partly because it relates more to our day-to-day lives and contains intriguing stuff such as Game Theory (developed by John Nash of " A Beautiful Mind").
During the last three weeks, I have been reading two superb books by a British economist, Mr. Tim Harford, and enjoying them thoroughly.

[Book] The Productivity Project: Chris Bailey

It's ironic that a book about productivity should turn out to be a colossal waste of our time. The author claims to have spent one YEAR trying out and refining the productivity tips and techniques, but I am sorry to report that he shouldn't have bothered. 

The few worthwhile pointers the book contains are either covered in other books in much better detail (Getting Things Done by David Allen, for example) or are really common sense (meditate, don't procrastinate, etc.) 
Many of the ideas are downright detrimental. To discuss a few...

• The author suggests to turn off the phone during sleeping hours.
  Really? What if our parents need to call us? Or a friend needs urgent help in the middle of the night?
• The author recommends 'forcing' ourselves to check email just thrice a day.
  Oh, poor you! If email is so bothersome, you should actually reconsider whether to work in a place that uses email.
• The author suggests declining any meetings that go beyond our 'predefined weekly meeting quota' (say, 4 hours).
  Seriously? Try telling your boss that you can't attend a meeting, or try telling a client that you won't participate in an escalation discussion because "it's beyond my weekly meeting quota".

There's no denying the point that emails, smartphones, meetings can be distracting and a time-hog, but if a 'productivity technique' relies upon just ignoring them or shutting them off, it needs to be scrutinized closely. 

• I could go on, but here's just one more:
  The author suggests having an assistant, someone who can be paid $15-30 per hour -- or even more, if h/she is good enough. Dude, that turns out to be about two thousand rupees per hour!

And there are contradictions galore… At the beginning, the author suggests allocating less time for important tasks (yeah, you read it right), so that we would 'focus more on them'. But what about the associated stress? And what about "single tasking for extended duration' that you preach later on? And what to do with the spare time 'saved' by not working on the tasks that matter? 

Usually, I don't post negative reviews. But it is books like this that taint the productivity genre as a whole.

[Book] Dark Sun - Richard Rhodes

You know that a book is going to keep you busy reading for a while when the page count is 750, excluding the 40 pages with photographs. You know that the book is likely to be well-researched when the list of books referenced (bibliography) runs 35 pages and footnotes for chapters take up 110 pages. You know that the author has done a splendid job with writing when, after finishing an 850-page book you are desperate enough to immediately order another 800-page beast of a book by him. 

"Dark Sun" is that book, and Richard Rhodes is the author. His "Making of Atomic Bomb" chronicled the invention of nuclear weapons; in the "Dark Sun" he takes us further, to the dawn of thermonuclear... The hydrogen bomb. It's a script apt for a movie thriller, full of espionage, betrayal, works of genius, and torture. It tells the story of spies like Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs, the brilliance of physicists like Ulam and Kurchatov, the belligerence of military leaders like LeMay and Beria. 

The sinister shadow of mushroom cloud looms large across each page, and it doesn't even have a silver lining... Instead, it ends in the heartbreaking tragedy of espionage trial of a giant of science like Robert Oppenheimer by paranoid bureaucrats and jealous colleagues. 

[Book] Faces - Gautam Rajadhyaksha

As a teenager, whenever I browsed through film magazines, there was a class of photos that stood out distinctively. The photos, mostly -- but not always -- in black & white, had their subject glowing in a soft focus, seemingly at peace with themselves and the world. They were shot at such a close range that threatened to expose every pimple and every mole, but instead made them look even more serene. And, no matter which magazine, one thing was common: The tagline that said "Photograph by: Gautam Rajadhyaksha"

Some of us friends had a rare chance to get a glimpse of the maestro himself during a photo exhibition titled "Faces" in Goa, the year was 2000. Fast forward a decade, and many of those photos had made it into a coffee table book with the same name. (Marathi edition is similarly titled "चेहरे"). For five years I tried to get the book but in vain. Apparently, only a limited copies were printed and most of them for private circulation only.

At last this year, I found it with a vendor at National Book Exhibition, but only after fighting tooth and nail with another customer. I felt sorry for him, but I deserved this one... After all, I have waited 15 years.

[Book] Algorithms to live by: The Computer Science of human decisions

Do you like algorithms? And, like me, do you often get confused and frustrated with how to deal with humans in a rational, logical way? And.. Do you often wish there were computer algorithms to deal with human behaviour and interactions? 

If your answer to these questions is No, then don't read this book.

"Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions" attempts to reduce complex, often chaotic human actions and decision-making processes to a set of well-defined mathematical rules. 
For example, how many houses you should look at before deciding which one to buy? (Short answer: 37%). Or which is the best way to sort your books? Or to schedule interviews of candidates so that you get the best person in shortest time? Or how to use the concept of caching to organize your papers in an optimum manner?

The book is full of such examples of how to use the mathematical theories that are commonly used in computer algorithms, into our day to day lives. The authors, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, have taken care not to faze and daze the reader with too much jargon, which makes this book an easy read. 

The only complaint I have about this one is: Even after reading 370 pages, I wanted more of it. That, perhaps, is less of a complaint and more of an acknowledgement of how good this book is. 

Books on Project Apollo

My fascination with the Project Apollo Moon landing missions started in 1992 when my father handed me a book titled The Story of Apollo 11. Over the last 20+ years, I have read every book, every NASA publication and every astronaut biography I could get; and yet, two of the best books I read were just last two weeks. 

"Apollo: The Race to the Moon" by Catherin Cox / Charles Murray and "A Man on the Moon: Voyages of Apollo" by Andrew Chaikin are two most comprehensive, detailed accounts of what is widely considered one of the most notable achievements of human race. 

The two books, each running 500+ pages cover the same subject, but from two different perspectives. Chaikin interviewed all the astronauts, and he focuses on their careers, their selection into NASA, the fierce competition among them, rigorous training and details each Moon mission in detail. Cox and Murray provide a detailed account of the NASA technology management for Apollo program, development of Saturn V, Apollo spacecraft and the art & science of mission control. 

There is practically no overlap between the two books, and each one stands as a must-read book on its own. 

[Book] The Making of Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

There are books; there are good books, and then there are masterpieces. But "The Making of Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes is a not just an ordinary masterpiece; it's a magnum opus of epic proportions. 

There are scores of tomes written about the Manhattan Project, but this book is universally acknowledged as THE definitive history of the subject. And rightfully so, because it is multiple books rolled into one:  Scientific discoveries, political intrigue, technological and engineering difficulties, and the thoughts and actions of political leaders, scientists and military staff associated with the project. 

It's a beast of a book, 800 pages of text (set in small typeset) plus 60 pages of photos, and it covers a huge time span, from the beginning of 20th century culminating in the atomic bombs that literally obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

While you feel a sense of wonder and excitement reading about giants of physics, such as Einstein, Fermi, Oppenheimer and many others and how they solved complex issues, the last hundred pages make you weep reading about the immense suffering of civilians that were slaughtered by bomb. 

Like a true historian, the author narrates actions and events in a non-partisan way, without taking sides or assigning blame. It should come as no surprise that the book has won a number of literary awards, including Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction . 

Thing Explainer - Randall Munroe

This was a book, which, after I finished reading it, filled me with an overwhelming sense of regret: I should have read this 20 years ago... Never mind the fact that the book was only published last year (2015)

From nuclear bombs, computer data centers to tectonic plates, from dishwashers, space shuttles to Large Hadron Collider, from animal cells to skyscrappers... This book explains more than 60 complex technical, physical or biological phenomena using just a thousand common words, and beautiful line drawings. It distills the essence of each of these topics to its bare bones and teaches us about them without using incomprehensible jargon.

And, what makes it even more enjoyable is the wry humor that fills every page. For example, consider this entry for the Saturn V rocket, describing its rocket nozzles: "Fire comes out of here. These should point to the ground when you're going to space. If they start pointing to space, you're having a bad problem, and you will not go to space today."

This book is truly one of its kind, and worth every penny. I love pizza and often use it as a standard to compare prices. Skip a medium-size pizza and buy this book; the knowledge gained will last a life time, for you and your kids.

O Jerusalem!

Just finished reading "O Jerusalem!" by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins; and also its Marathi counterpart "इस्रायेल छळाकडून बळाकडे" .

Both these books portray a chilling, intriguing story of how the state of Israel came into being; its struggle to maintain its independence against the wrath of Arab countries and its victory in the Sixty Day War. Reading this history reveals a stark contrast between the iron will and pragmatic vision of Israeli leaders as against the ghastly errors of judgement made by the Indian national leadership at the time of our independence. 
These books are not an easy read; but exactly for this reason, they should be read.

Hindustani Classical on YouTube

Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki

Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki in his prime years, performing two bandishes (ए री सखी आज मोहे व रंग से रंग दि) for a Mumbai Doordarshan programme in early 1980s. 
He is accompanied by my mama Pdt Raghunath Phadke on taanpura.And it turns out that the other person on taanpura is also my mama: Jayant Phadke!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8zxusv04OM

Pdt Prabhakar Karekar

"प्रिये पहा, रात्रीचा समय सरुनी येत उष:काल हा!"....
'संगीत सौभद्र' मधील हे एक अजरामर नाट्यगीत. अनेक गायक -- गायिकांनी आपल्या गान-वैशिष्ट्यानुसार ते सादर केले आहे. पण पं. प्रभाकर कारेकर यांच्या खुल्या, दाणेदार आवाजात हे गाणे एक आगळावेगळा अनुभव देऊन जाते. जरूर ऐका.

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