Category: Spectrum -My Book reviews

Book Review 2025.04: A Brief History of Intelligence, Why the Evolution of the Brain Hold the Key to the Future of AI, 369 pages, 2023 -March 1, 2025 I consider myself extremely lucky for having found this book as an introduction to the complex subject of evolution of intelligence in life on our planet. The attractive title combined with my current interest in understanding the potential of AI and its limitations was probably a key factor that made me pick …

Book Review 2025.03: Kamal Haasan A Cinematic Journey, 252 pages, 2024 -February 27, 2025 As an ardent Kamal fan, my nephew gave me this book having completed it during his round trip from Bangalore to Delhi. Having watched my first Kamal movie-Apoorva Raagangal in 1975 and following his work for over five decades, it took me longer than expected, three full days to be precise to complete this book. On reflection, it is the depth of the author’s analysis that …

Book Review 2025.02: Information, Entropy, and Progress, A New Evolutionary Paradigm, 291 pages, 1994 -January 28, 2025 A key resolution for the year 2025 is to read the unread books in my collection. This is the first of those books completed that was with me for more than ten years. After reading it over the last twenty-five days, I realized why I had not progressed despite picking it up more than a dozen times. This book is abstract, introducing more …

Book Review 2025.01: Karma, A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny, Paperback, 236 pages, 2021 -January 18, 2025 This is my first book review for the year 2025, a year in which I have resolved to consciously internalize at least one or two ideas from each of the book that I read. Starting the year reading simultaneously four books, I am quite surprised to complete this book first, despite picking it up the last. A possible reason for it could …

Book Review 2024.19: Deep Work, Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport, Paperback, 263 pages, 2016 -December 31, 2024 It is a sheer coincidence that I picked up Deep Work immediately after reading the book Grit, for there is a link between the two that supplemented and reinforced my learning: the concept of Deliberate Practice in both developing grit and the ability to do deep work. At the outset the author makes it clear that Deep Work …

Book Review 2024.18: Grit, Why Passion and resilience are the secrets to success, Angela Duckworth, Paperback, 2016 -December 21, 2024 This is a very essential book at the current phase of my life, where in the last two years I have started more projects and given up midway without completing it than in the last four decades of my life combined. The appeal of this book is in its ability to educate the reader in an engaging mode on Grit, …

Book Review 2024.17: What I Learnt About Investing From Darwin, Pulak Prasad, 298 pages, Hardbound, 2023 -December 9, 2024 A sublime blend of Animal Planet, National Geography, and the CNBC, this book fuses the distinct expertise required in each one of these fields to make it an extremely insightful, readable, and engaging read on investment. The author’s personal investing experience adds a distinct color to the narration making it a practical lesson for anyone interested in equity markets. The investment …

Book Review 2024.16: Good Strategy Bad Strategy Richard Rumelt, 298 pages, Paperback, 2011 -December 2, 2024 Strategy as a concept always interested me, for I believe that if we have to accomplish anything ambitious beyond our existing abilities and available resources, we need to do something unique or different that leverages what we have to help us achieve our goals, which is my definition of the word strategy. I picked up this book after seeing very good reviews and to …

Book Review 2024.15: Originals, Adam Grant, 254 pages, Paperback, 2016 Picked up this book during my routine quarterly visits to Blossoms book shop on Church Street, Bangalore earlier this month. I was quickly hooked on to this book while browsing through it the Metro ride back home. I finished this book in two weeks, much longer than I expected, which is a result of the numerous triggers in the book that led me explore new concepts and topics in the …

Book Review 2024.14: Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal, 214 pages, Paperback, 2019 -November 11, 2024 This is a short and insightful book, that is invaluable for anyone interested in digital products design. How I wish I had read this book a decade earlier when our team was designing a digital portal to automate corporate law compliances for Indian corporates secretarial automation. The utility of this book is not only in the crip framework it prescribes, but also …

Book Review 2024.13: 50 Philosophical Classics, Tom Butler-Bowdon, 317 pages, Paperback, 2022 -November 2, 2024 A book to be savored, to be read at leisure and when required reread more than once, as it offers new insights to reevaluate our views on issues that appeared crystal clear like democracy, meritocracy and scientific method, in addition to revealing new lights on feminism and the impact of social media. I read this book on influential western philosophers in over three months, in …

Book Review 2024.12: The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak, 350 pages, Paperback, 2011 Reading a blog on Sufism I came across a reference to this book that was highly recommended for its engaging narration of the life of Rumi, the Sufi poet. As an ardent lover of Sufi qawwalis it was impossible for me not to order this book. This book lay in my library for more than a month, before I picked it up three days ago and …