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 and NED, 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