India After Gandhi

2023 has been a good year with regard to reading. This has been year of History, Memoirs and Mythology. Some books I liked and would recommend are: 1) Nothing To Fear - This book is about the Great Depression in the USA and how president JFK took steps to bring the economy back. 2) Digital Minimalism - This is one book I would like to revisit every two years. About digital distractions and how to minimize it. 3) The Odyssey By Emily Wilson- This was a surprising easy read with author's notes on the backdrop. Helps you understand Greek mythology and some unraveling of human emotions. Pretty deep. Highly recommend. 4) Long Walk to Freedom - Autobiography of Nelson Mandela plus a good history of events in South Africa during his time. 5) Lies My Teacher Told me - This is about lies that usually are represented in US high school history and the author debunks some myths. This is also a USA history primer, but all the tones associated are negative. 6) India After Gandhi - Sneak peak into some Indian History and political environment after Independence, events leading to formation of states etc.…

* Factfulness and Thinking Fast And Slow. The latter helped me internalise that my thinking, like most humans, is biased. Even being aware of those biases doesn’t always help. We need to go above and beyond to overcome our biases. Factfulness goes into detail about what those biases are and how they lead to a distorted world view. Rather than taking the easy way out by blaming journalists/politicians/rich people, he turns the focus onto us and our biases and speaks about how to look at the world in an objective fact based manner. * The Dictator’s Handbook. One simple axiom - leaders do what is necessary to stay in power. Using that idea they explain the basis of all political systems, whether autocracy or democracy or somewhere in between. I didn’t really understand politics before I read this. CGPGrey has a video where he summarises the book. [1]…

Update: added a few lines about the books than just a name listing From the ones I read in 2017, I would highly recommend (non-IT): 1. The hidden life of trees- Peter Wohlleben Why forest trees are different than the ones you plant, how the communicate, how they care for their friends when they are not well, how mother trees protect their young ones by not letting them grow too fast, the fungi network, etc. The book is very easy to read- there is no scientific terminology overload. Things are told very simply. Not restricted to students of the subject. Learned something interesting every couple of pages. Another aspect is that the love shows. It is very clear that the author is in love with the subject. The author manages a wild forest in Germany and talks mainly about trees in terms of beeches, firs, oaks, etc. The author is politely insistent that we should protect the natural wild forests and let them be. 2. Why the allies won- Richard Overy Probably the best book I read on WW2. So many more factors went into winning the war than actual fight. Probably appealed to my analytical mind.…

India specific : India after Gandhi, India Unbound Computer Science : GEB( still reading), Mahout in Action General : Cryptonomicon