Read/Write

I do not claim to be a voracious reader; nor you would accept that I am a good writer. Still, in this post, I am going to write about the books I have read last year. But don't worry, this is not going to be like the typical book reviews.

Blink. The White Tiger. Something Like An Autobiography. Imagining India, in parts. Outliers. A Short History Of Nearly Everything. In that order. Interspersed with a few other booklet-books.

The White Tiger was like an entertaining movie. I finished the book in three sittings. (Of course, I am not going to tell you how long each of my sittings were) The beauty of the book lies in its innovative narration and Adiga's lucid, simple writing. The story is presented as a series of letters by the protagonist, a successful entrepreneur, about his rags-to-riches story, to the Chinese premier. And unlike the autobiographies/biographies on the success stories of Ambani, Biyani etc, the fictional The White Tiger exposes the darker shades of a man who wants to make it big in life in India; and for whom any means could justify the ultimate end called - success. And success, for a man from a deprived circle, is only about money. If you are one of those who avoid Award-winning books presuming the awards are given only to those ones that have lots of abstract concepts and hundreds of Spell Bee-type words - please grab a copy of TWT. Your idea will change, just like it happened with me.

"I wish I had come across this book during my school days!". Not very frequently one has that kind of a feeling after reading a book. In fact I never ever had that feeling, until I came I came across A Short History Of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson, published by Black Swan) In one word this book is just a - classic.

As the name says it all, this 680-page book gives you very interesting insights about things ranging from the tiny atoms to the galaxies that are huge enough to be beyond our imagination. ABHONE is can be classified as a book on the history of science that also doubles up as a repository of wonderful facts, interesting stories behind great discoveries and inventions. This is book that tells us, in a remarkably captivating way, about the way we went about questioning things around us and attempted solving the world mysteries.

The book starts with a section on the creation of universe and goes to to talk about the omnipotent atoms, archeological studies and the size of the earth, cells and the origin of life, before finally ending with the chapter "Goodbye" that talks about the privilege we human beings have had in the planet and the responsibilities that are to be taken with it. The book is also loaded with facts and the facts are presented in a dramatic, yet, well... a factual way. For example while talking about the size of protons he says Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like that dot on this "i" can hold something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of them, or rather more than the number of seconds it takes to make a half a million years.

All I knew about Newton was that he had given us those three famous laws; and even when his pet dog Diamond spoiled his research papers involving sleepless nights of work, he did not get angry with that cute doggy. Had read that story in one of my school English prose books. Well Bryson's chapter on Newton (just like the portions on scores of other scientists/inventors) is a lot more interesting and insightful. Newton's curiosity knew no bounds and it is said he inserted a bodkin - a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather - into his eye socket and rubbed it around "betwixt my eye and the bone as near to [the] backside of my eye as I could" just to see what would happen.

Some of us curse Newton for his destructive invention called, the calculus. Even I have been a victim of this highly destructive device termed calculus; unlike other areas in Maths, calculus consumed an unimaginably huge portion of my memory during Class XII. The engineering days were a nightmare as in a course called AdCal (Advanced Calculus), we were introduced to an intimidating species named "triple integration". Actually that course took away even the tiny bit of reverance I had for Newton; his calculus made me spend sleepless nights. Now, having got to know what made Newton invent calculus, my animosity towards Newton is only increasing...it is said that Newton invented this new form of mathematics - as he was frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics (!!) But I am happy that in a way I share something with Newton - while he was frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, I am frustrated by mathematics as a whole.

The book's bibliography/notes alone run for 100+ pages. In the true sense this book is an eye-opener. I really had not thought that science/history of science could be dealt in such a wonderful way, without compromising on facts.

I think our schools need such books; or at least a few lines from such books.

(PS: Continuing with the opening lines of this post, last year I even managed to write a book and get it published)