Readings

Scale by Geoffery West

A unique non-fiction book offering an interesting perspective on animals, cities and companies. All these are complex systems - several individual constituents(cells, people,employees) interacting with one another with resulting in something greater than whole. Trillions of cells interact with each other with transfer of energy and other resources and form a body. Millions of people in cities engage in various interactions leading to exchange of resources and information, forming a city.

If you plot log of metabolic rate vs. log of mass of animals, you see a straight line with slope nearly 2/3

If mass of an animal is double(2x or increased by 100%), the energy required will not be doubled, but only increased by 1.6 times. A bigger animal utilises energy more efficiently taking advantage of economies of scale(This is similar to how a big factory can produce things at cheaper cost).That is why the heaviest animals have the longest lifespans. An animal living longer is basically its cells are efficient, so they don’t wear and tear off early. Ageing is essentially due to wear and tear of cells! Even though animals are of different sizes, there is a steady pattern in how some properties scale with size of the animal. In Geoffrey West’s way, an elephant is a large scale version of a mouse. Further, he shows that such patterned scaling laws are possible because all animals have evolved to achieve one common thing - distribute energy and resources from one point to all cells.

Similarly, one can think a city as an organism evolved to distribute energy(electrical energy) and resources(water) to individuals. So, cities also exhibit such scaling laws. Plot log of number of gas stations vs log of people, you get a straight line with slope less than 1(nearly 0.15). A city’s population is doubled, the number of gas stations are less than doubled(nearly 1.85x), taking advantage of economies of scale. But if you plot log of crimes vs log of population, the slope is greater than one(nearly 1.15). That means, if population doubles, the crime rate is more than double(nearly 2.2x). As number of possible interactions grow, resource distribution becomes efficient, but the increased number of interactions causes the crime to increase at a faster rate than population. Later, the book also helps develop basic intuition on why some things scale sub linearly while some scale super linearly.

The word “emergence” is used when we want to describe phenomenon that are bigger than linear sum of their parts, a hallmark of complex systems like animals and cities. It is nearly impossible to track the individual constituents(each cell in body or each person in city) and predict how they give rise to behaviour. To me the most beautiful part of the book has been that by examining this outward properties of such complex systems(metabolic rate of animals, crime rate of cities) could offer a deeper understanding of the common goals and tasks of different systems(different animals or different cities) within a framework. Distribution of resources and energy efficiently to individual constituents.

The book is just more than data and plots. Causes and consequences of scaling patterns is well discussed. If you regularly work with plots and data, this is a a must-read book.

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

This was Ian McEwan’s second book. I picked it up to explore my new favourite author McEwan’s earlier works. After completing the book, it felt very weird and understood why McEwan was initially referred to as Ian Macabre. I enjoyed the writing until things took a strange turn. Read it if you want to experience the macabre side of Ian McEwan.

On Chisel Beach by Ian McEwan

Impressed by Saturday, I picked another book of McEwan. This was impressive too. A short novel with a unique setting - In 1962, two young virgins, who loved each other are by themselves in a honeymoon suite. One of them is excited and other is fearful. Ian McEwan’s writing, non-linear narration, all of it makes this book a page turner. But there are some interesting aspects that I want to talk about this book.

— SPOILER ALERT —

Edward’s regret:

We see Edward’s tendency to behave impulsively in the fights outside the club. The same impulsive behaviour causes him to loose Florence forever from his life on his wedding night. But what was the cause of Edward’s regret of doing nothing at such a later stage in life? Had he felt the regret earlier, was there a chance of him keeping away his pride and writing to Florence?

If he had found someone else he loved, would he still have the regret. Or all his youthful life, he was chasing only sensual pleasures. And when he is old and lacks strength to experience such pleasures. And this weakness makes him long for someone who understands him as human like Florence not merely satisfy physical needs.

A personal lesson about reading proactively and why is Florence that way?

As I discovered that Florence’s disgust/disinterest towards sex in the book, I wondered the reason and was actively looking for clues to find that. At couple of places, I could find the author hinting to her father sexually abusing her.

• Solo trips on boats, without the mother
• While Edward was undressing, the belt clinking sound reminding of her father undressing

I found another clue online. Edward considered briefly that her father was rather too keen to give her away. He was keen to give away his daughter because she reminds him of the guilt. So, he was eager to marry her off with the first guy, she was close with irrespective of the fact that Edward had no job or proper career plans and was not from a affluent family.

I initially dismissed my assumptions, but was excited to find out that there were other readers who had observed similar things. It also saddens me about how many such subtle clues I might have missed in other good novels. The best way to the most out of a book, is to proactively keep asking questions and look for the possible answers hidden in the sentences.

The tragedy:

The most tragic part of the novel is Edward not realising or caring about addressing why Florence behaved way despite Florence openly admitting her faults, making him the offer of staying with her and to find pleasure in other women if he wants to; trying herself to reduce the weight of such a serious and painful conversation by a joke(was that joke or a Freudian slip- marry my father? referring to sexual abuse). Both Florence and Edward were raised in a conventional culture. But Florence was ready to give up her conventional ideas about life and society and propose plans to stay with Edward because she really cared about being with him, not just being married with him. Edward not recognising any of this is the saddest part of this novel for me.

— END of SPOILER —

Behave by Robert Sapolsky

This book is divided into two parts. The first is about the biology of behaviour in a interesting framework. Sapolsky explores the events on different time scale that led to the behaviour- few milliseconds before certain brain regions instructing muscles, the stimuli you were just exposed to which might have affected you subconsciously(seeing coke advertisement making you thirst), kind of events adolescence that shaped your brain, all the way back to when you were in your mother’s womb, or further the traits that you picked genetically or memetically due to your ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. A holistic approach to understand behaviour from level of neurons operating at milliseconds scale to evolution over millions of years.

The second half of the book how the above learned framework can be used to understand different aspects of behaviour - considering us/them, obedience, moral decision making, empathy and behaviours that are observed in humans as whose primitive form is observed in some primates. Throughout the book, you will find interesting experiments and psychological highlights like for example, Macbeth effect - the urge to clean your hands after you have confessed some immoral event.

The chapter on role of neuroscience in judicial system felt the most interesting to me. If someone has a leg fractureed, what is the probability that he cannot run 100%. The cause and effect are direct to see. But can you predict something of that sort to brain and behaviour. If someone had a damage to Frontal cortex, what is the probablity that they will commit a murder(likely, most criminals have damage to frontal cortex). Now additionally, if we also know that the person had an abusive childhood and had an poor socioeconomic background. Now, this additional information contributes to increased chances of such a person committing murder. And suppose we also know that there has been several abnormal “CAG” gene repeats on chromosome 4(Huntington disease). Now the probability of him commiting a murder under a heateed circumstance has much more increased. The best and worst of our behaviours are multi-factorial spanning different scales. This is the crux of the book.

Sapolsky has an enjoyable and natural writing style. He is a very good orator too. His lectures especially on Depression and Biological underpinnings of religiosity are my favorite. I picked up this book because I heard that this was a introductory read in neuroscience lab and wanted to read Sapolsky since I had heard his wonderful lectures. If you ponder regularly about behaviour, this is the best book to explore its underlying biological process.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

I picked this book because Robert Sapolsky called it brilliant in his book Behave, and it really is. This is a compelling read for those interested in intersection of neuroscience and literature. The story revolves around life of a neurosurgeon named Henry on a single Saturday. It’s not just any ordinary Saturday, it is the day of February 15, 2003, protests in London. The author connects how ordinary events on a protest day like traffic diversion can significantly alter a single person’s day.

In this story, a character with Huntington disease is responsible for a turning Henry’s family reunion into a horrifying day. The way this disease affects the state of a mind drives the story’s suspense. However, the suspense begins after nearly 200 pages into the book. The earlier pages pages, sets the context about the each individual in Henry’s family and exploring their relationships. Since literature was the one of the key themes in the backstory, I enjoyed it.

At times, I resonated with Henry’s opinion on magical realism in literature. To quote Henry, “When anything can happen, nothing matters”. Interestingly, there is a callback to this statement in moments of danger, “When anything can happen, everything matters”. This contrast highlights realist’s perspective on literature and real-life events. If you have read any of Oliver Sachs, Karl Deisseroth, Robert Sapolsky, or any other writer who appreciates both science and literature, you must pick this.

Island by Aldous Huxley

I picked it up as a fan of Huxley. This book doesn’t focus on plot much. Instead, it explores the culture of an utopian island Pala. Several aspects of the culture are inspired by Buddhism and Hinduism. The island practices strict population control, not through restriction, but by freely distributing monthly supplies of contraceptives to each household. Huxley was inspired by Malthus’ theory(Population grows exponentially, resources grow linearly. In times of shortage, war and disease try to bring back the balance). Huxley considers overpopulation as an enemy of freedom(video), as it might lead to an oppressive power in an attempt to bring balance.

A child’s growth in Pala includes unusual practices like Mutual Adoption Clubs, where parents exchange their kids from time to time. So, a child has biological parents and several deputy parents. This prevents children from being overly influenced by a single set of parents. Education begins with practical life-sciences like ecology and applied psychology. Subjects essential to understand oneself and nature, which our schools ensure that they don’t teach.

Just like in Brave New world(BNW), in Pala too, promiscuity and entheogens are prevalent. However, unlike in BNW, there is an emphasis on individual relationships through the ancient Indian practice of love-making called Maithuna. Moksha(Pala’s soma) medicine is not for forgetting the worries like BNW, but to foster communal harmony.

Another motif in Pala’s culture is to teach people to always be aware and conscious. This idea is nicely embodied in bird’s repeated calls Here and Now, Attention!. This concept of being aware of oneself is a popular concept among those who meditate. I have always longed to explore this idea in a right context, in a right place, free from daily concerns.

Huxley’s deep knowledge and interest in Hinduism and Buddhism are reflected throughout the book. However, at several points, the discussions can be long and abstract. Yet, this book can is worth exploring for its ideas that Huxley considered essential for Utopian society.

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

I had plans of finishing all the 6 Frank Herbert’s books. But after this book, I decided it was enough! Most of the book contains Leto’s vague philosophical ramblings. Majority of the plot takes place in the end, but motives and actions don’t at all seem to match for me. I felt frustrated, when I find that this book is considered the top book. In retrospect, it feels a good idea to stop at book 3, but since it ends with a beginning of a new era, you feel compelled to pick book 4. By the same logic, I picked book 3 after reading book 2. Hence, I made up my mind to recommend to stop at book 1. I have several problems with the series, which I will mention in a blog post.

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune part 3 book has all the kind of action that you enjoyed in part 1 and missed in part 2. The book chronicles adventures of Paul’s twin children. A lot of places, character’s intentions are unclear. It is mostly characters playing 4D chess against each other. Weird things happen in the book, if you have still some fuel left for Dune after reading part 2, you should try this.

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

This book was hard to read. At many places, it is wordy and vague. Online forums were Jagurutu were a great aid. I am still frustrated by the fact that fantasy elements like prescience have played a major role in key parts of a “sci-fi” book. Yet, I will continue with the next part because I have more questions that haven’t been answered.

Why we die by Venki Ramakrishnan

I picked this book because I loved Venki’s first book- The Gene Machine. This book repeatedly proves the point that a good writing on an unfamiliar topic is much more enjoyable bad writing on a exciting topic.

The book can be considered as a crash course in cell biology. The author explains different causes of aging and death at the level of activities that go wrong within a cell - accumulation of waste, too many misfolded proteins, DNA damage etc. Even though you are not enthusiastic about biological details, Venki’s writing spurs great interest. I believe it is due to these 2 pedagogical techiques:

a) Explaining from a historical perspective. Venki doesn’t just drop you that this fact about cell exists and was discovered by so and so scientist. He walks through all the key discoveries in chronological order that led to it. This narrative helps narrator think about the ideas in a more organised way. This should be a lesson taught to every teacher - find a way to put ideas in the students’ head in a organised way instead of shooting with facts. (But a more fundamental reason for many bad teachers is not that this a secret they are yet to discover, but because they themselves lack clarity in the subject)

b) Einstein once said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. Once Venki explains a point. He adds a couple of sentences more to emphasise the important point. He sometimes simplifies it, for example, “improve life expectancy faster than age” is followed by “life expectancy increases by more than year annually.” Or he puts a useful analogy to daily life objects.

In addition to the above, Venki makes the last but one paragraph of each chapter as a concise summary of the present chapter and the last paragraph gives you an direction of next chapter. Each chapter begins with small personal story before embarking on complex cellular details discussion. Such good writing preserves the human side of details filled science.

Chris Olah once mentioned that reason there is friction that complex ideas are difficult to communicate from writer to the reader is that in his/her working memory, the writer has the context set, which the reader lacks. Good writers realise this cognitive load and they try to make the road smoother for reader instead of diverting them to a messy shortcut.

Another quality that makes this book qualify as an good book is provides a new perspective for an outsider in the field. As you read along, one develops a perspective of how processes inside the tiny cell has consequences for what we see and experience as ageing(Douglas Hofstadter provides such a perspective on about consciousness and neurons). Irrespective of your interest in biology, if you enjoy good writing and have an interesting understanding details of life, pick this book.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Picked this book after watching the movies(Part-1,2) and this interview, where Herbert tells that his book tries to convey a message about the dangers of charismatic leaders. As I read the book, I felt great appreciation for Denis V. for cutting down parts and making necessary changes to adapt the book for the screen.

Though the book is labelled as science fiction, the aspect of “prescience” makes it feel like a fantasy book which I avoid. However, it seems that Herbert was inspired by the idea of Laplace’s demon - a creature that knew everything about individual atoms and physical laws and hence could calculate the future. At one point, I convinced myself that Spice could heighten abilities like making such absurd amount of computation in human beings that have evolved after thousands of years.

Reading a book after watching the movie suppress the thrill because you already know what is going to happen(“prescience”). Nevertheless, I had to read this book to read the next part so that I get the interesting message that Herbert wanted to convey.

How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan

An interesting topic for people in psychology is “altered state of mind.” Accounts of it in diseased states are explored well in Oliver Sacks’ Hallucinations. Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception is one of the best personal accounts of achieving an altered state through a substance.

In this book, Pollan covers the literature of Psychedelics in all 3 aspects - historic, scientific, personal accounts. In historical part, he discusses different psychedelic substances were discovered, how scientists saw the potential to cure mental health diseases or over death anxiety in terminally ill patients with these, how some people saw it as a way to unlock human potential and elevate human society. Lastly, how one man(Timothy Leary) could be held responsible for these substances becoming anti-culture. A laudable thing about Pollan is that his writing covers different aspects of an argument(like it was not Leary’s fault completely!).

In the scientific part, Pollan explores the neural correlates of psychedelics’ famous effect ego-death. The other fascinating part of this book is author’s personal trips on different substances. In each of his trip, he sees his family emotions amplified and you come across funny things like watching the hollow mask illusion while high.

If you have read Huxley’s Doors of Perception, this book should be definitely on your list!

The Hitchiker’s guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The reading experience would have been much more fun if I wasn’t aware of the best parts of the book like planet’s destruction, 42 and Heart of Gold. A short book worth reading. A couple of disappointments - a)at places, complex sci-fi words were used without much explanation b)I feel there are jokes in the book require a peculiar thought process to understand them. Such jokes are hard to appreciate without any hint given to the reader. For example, see the digital watches joke.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

An overrated classic. The book has a natural storyline depicting the inner conflicts of a woman(probably narcissistic?) who ends up in an affair. But there are several long pieces of text, that had zero contribution to the story and hamper the reading experience.

Genius Makers by Cade Metz

Ideas that change the course of history mostly face an early resistance from the community. It requires huge intellectual courage to work on the ideas at a time, when majority in the field find it silly and unpromising. James Gleick captures one such narrative in his book “Chaos”, chronicling the evolution of Non-Linear dynamics. Genius Makers by Cade Metz is another such book. A book about the rise of AI, more specifically deep learning. Starting from Rosenblatt’s perceptron to Google’s BERT Language model, the book covers historic moments in the field of AI and stories of people behind it.

Note that books like these are not just about technologies and ideas, but also the people behind them. It is interesting to see how the big names in the field had started their journey that was so different what they would achieve. As we are being bombarded with AI achievements, I think it is the right time to read this book before a sequel comes out. (This book doesn’t have anything about GPT!)

A thousand brains by Jeff Hawkins

Jeff Hawkins is an entrepreneur-turned-self-taught neuroscientist, who built a company named “Numenta” to understand the workings of neocortex, the component of our brain responsible for higher cognitive tasks. He wrote ‘A thousand brains’ book to explain his work and ideas about the neocortex to the general public.

While the first half of this book has many bold ideas, I found myself sceptical of them as they lacked experimental evidence. Although Jeff and his colleagues have produced journal papers to support their work, those papers provide a computational model built on basis of their ideas. I am not against computational model work, but with a play of parameters and many assumptions can lead to a model that aligns with researcher’s expectations but not objective reality.

I believe that a genuine testament to a theory’s validity lies either in experimental evidence or its tangible application. A good example of the latter is ChatGPT. You don’t need any benchmark tests to show that the billion parameter model is good. People buy it and use it in their day-to-day life because it adds value. It is useful!. In Ilya Sutskever’s works, usefulness is the best metric.

The latter half of the book contains interesting futuristic discussions about preserving human knowledge and extraterrestrial communication. Hawkins suggests some new ideas humans might convey a message in space, that other forms of life can decipher. While I came for the brain theories, I liked this part of the book!

Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A short story written by Dostoevsky three years before his exile. While I have always been an admirer of Dostoevsky’s work, I didn’t enjoy this one. The events surround protagonist’s double and story’s conclusion were hard to reconcile. The writing style contrasts from his other popular works like Notes from Underground, where Dostoevsky masterfully dissects a man’s thoughts. I felt ‘The Double’ lacked that. Maybe this one requires a re-reading to get a clearer perspective, but I feel like revisiting “Notes from underground” to experience the Dostoevsky I cherish.

Gene Machine by Venki Ramakrishnan

The book chronicles the journey of Venki Ramakrishnan from a graduate student in theoretical physics to a Nobel Prize-winning Ribosome structural biologist. This book is an essential reading for anyone involved in research for two reasons. Firstly, it offers valuable insights into the inner workings of effective scientific research, including the work culture at MRC London Institute (home to 12 Nobel laureates, including Watson and Crick), the significance of an enthusiastic work environment, and how top researchers select their problems to work on, as well as the role of luck. Secondly, as a personal account of Ramakrishnan’s journey, the book exposes the insecurities that even the best researchers face, making it relatable and reassuring for others in the field. Although the book contains substantial structural biology content, readers from diverse backgrounds will still be able to appreciate and enjoy the narrative.

Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

I have always been captivated by the diverse experiences that the human brain can generate, and this book offers a plethora of such instances. On a personal level, this book has reinforced my belief that ultimately the underlying physiology dictates an individual’s experiences and behaviours. Full blog post here

The Elephant in the Brain by Simler and Hanson

This book can be summarized with the quote - A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and a real reason. The book talks about the hidden motives behind our actions. Hidden motives as in not just unknown to other people, but also to you(your consciousness). Through evolution, our brains have learnt to deceive ourselves before deceiving others. This is perfect for survival because if you are unaware of it, then you won’t express it and your real selfish motive will remain hidden. Any Freud fan would surely be attracted to such an idea that explores the unconscious side of the brain.

This first part of this book does a great job in explaining how such a self-deception came into existence and why it is necessary for survival. The second part of the book explore implications of this idea in large scale institutions like Education, Politics, Religion, Medicine, Art. The book uncovers the hidden motives by showing the discrepancy between the apparent intention and action. These discussions are also backed by evolutionary arguments and experiments on animals. I was really impressed by this aspect of the book.

This is an interesting book explaining one of the less explored aspects of human nature. Reading this might help to highten your self-perception.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Despite being unfinished, Kafka’s novels have a great popularity. To understand the true legacy of Kafka, I picked up this book(this is my 3rd Kafka book. After Metamorphosis and Amerika). A sense of guilt still haunts me for not having understood Kafka’s celebrated genius in all of his books. The book has a good start, but over time, I felt chapters ended abruptly and many scenes were unnecessary. May be it requires more patience, skill and literary intelligence to appreciate Kafka and his work.

Black Swan by N. N. Taleb

A wonderful reading experience! The book deals with randomness and human perception of it. One can find many good discussions on broad range of topics(yet related to central theme of the book) like human bias, career advice, philosophy, baloney, Gaussian curve. The most important effect of this book is that it tries to make the reader aware of one’s own limitations(anti-library,narrative fallacy,ludic fallacy,epistemic arrogance, Popper’s disproving, effect of the unseen, GIF, Locke’s madman, END(Evidence of No Disease) and NED(No Evidence of Disease), mediocristan vs extremistan ) and teaches to accept the key role of uncertainty(Black swans) and if possible try to take advantage of it(barbell strategy, Appelles the painter,stochastic tinkering, practitioner, empiricist).

Many words marked in bold are the things that will hit you hard when you read the book.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

An important take away for me from the book is with discipline and meticulous planning, how one can improve one’s character(chapter - Plan for attaining Moral Perfection). I picked up this book when I came across Franklin’s efforts to improve his elegance in writing, mentioned in the book Peak(one of the most important Psychology books in my opinion). At places, some witty insights like these are enjoyable

A man being sometimes more generous when he has but little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have little.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do

a benevolent man should allow a few defaults in himself to keep his friends in countenance

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happened, as by little advantages that occur every day

For someone super organized like Franklin, no doubt that having small things in order leaves a room for lot of time and cognitive space to do more important things. But I confess that at times, I skimmed over parts where too many details of anecdotes were mentioned.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

The book’s main aim is to explain evolution of life from Gene’s perspective. Personally, the most impactful parts of the book were where Dawkins explains how several aspects of animal behaviour like preference for relatives over others, males’ efforts to attract females arise from genes acting in their selfish interest. On reflection, this makes us feel how strongly evolutionary wiring influences our daily actions and decisions.

Yet, the book also points out that only we humans are capable of acting against our evolutionary hard wiring. Evolution by giving rise to consciousness in humans made a machine(human), which could understand how it was built. Humans using a contraceptive is an example of an action against the gene’s dictatorship.

We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators

The chapter on Memes(Mimeme, unit of cultural transmission) explains evolution of life from a cultural perspective. A thought-provoking explanation for questions like why traditions exist?, how are they passed on from generation to generation?, why some traditions last so long? Somehow the book has left me with the impression that with proper usage of Gene’s and/or Meme’s point of view, one could explain the reason behind every single human action.

At several places in the book, well-written lines force the reader to pause and ponder its implications in one’s own life. When you pick up the book, give the longest pause when you see the below lines.

…. When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: genes and memes. We were built as gene machines, created to pass on our genes. But that aspect of us will be forgotten in three generations. Your child, even your grandchild, may bear a resemblance to you, perhaps in facial features, in a talent for music, in the colour of her hair. But as each generation passes, the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long to reach negligible proportions. Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away. Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. Yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the old king’s genes.

We should not seek immortality in reproduction. But if you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a sparking plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, as G. C. Williams has remarked, but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong.

Life Lessons From Freud by Brett Kahr

Picked this book because “Freud” was in the title. Essays where some of the interesting Freud’s ideas are discussed - relation of filial piety and complacency, Freudian Slips, Freud’s respect for patients’ privacy, affect of past on the unconscious mind, Freud’s theories on jokes and narcissism. A good book to get introduced to some of Freud’s ideas.

Slaughterhouse 5: The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut

Things that I loved about this book - interesting non-linear story narration, neat writing style with lack of pomp and most importantly philosophical lessons about freewill by Tralfamadorians(an alien species). A classic book that every literature enthusiast ought to read.

Amerika by Franz Kafka

This is a Kafka’s unfinished novel. I picked up this book with a hope that I might recognize Kafka’s genius elements at least in this book. To my disappointment, I could not. I admit that I dragged myself hard to finish this novel. But it was a good read.

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Kafka though never achieved fame during his lifetime continued to write(the works that made Kafka popular are published after his death). This, I felt is a true sign of love for writing. Hence I started picking up Kafka’s books. Metamorphosis is a short and good read with a simple writing style. I confess that I couldn’t grasp the genius elements of the book.

Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

Huxley is a writer with a deadly combination of Scientific knowledge and literary talents. After reading the essay, the reader is forced to think about the question - do my everyday perception of the outer world reflect reality?. Our brain filters a lot of sensory inputs as a lot of it is unnecessary for survival purpose. What would happen if you could somehow inhibit the filter in the brain and look at things as they are -Ding an Sich.

Essays by Orwell

Having read 1984 and Animal Farm, it is difficult to not to be mesmerized by Orwell’s simple yet powerful style of writing. The lack of pretense and urge to convey an idea is evident in his essays. Here are the list of the essays that you will enjoy

1. Why I write
2. Good Bad Books
3. English and Political Language
4. Shooting an Elephant
5. Such, such were the joys
6. Bookshop Memories
7. Confessions of a Book Reviewer
8. Books vs Cigarettes

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The true genius of Orwell lies in the fact that this book can be read by anyone regardless of age and background and still get the core message - revolution that caused shifting of power from oppressor to oppressed might not necessarily improve conditions; power can corrupt the ideals.

Why don’t Students like School by Daniel T. Willingham

An excellent book about cognition of learning. Every teacher should be given a physical copy of the book and asked to read it atleast twice. The book not only explains learning from psychological perspective but also provides practical advice in bringing psychological findings into practice.

For some of the readings before 2022, you can check this blog