Dozen Good Books I read in the first half of this year

This list is not my ‘Best’ Reading list. There can never be a best, or even most-liked books list for anyone. An intensely personal choice, the love for a particular book depends on the reader’s upbringing, experiences, and the prevailing mood at any given time.

This list is a result of a common request from people, more likely from the ones who have visited my home library, and have frequently asked me about a recommended reading list. I have always discussed but never ended up compiling one.

In no particular order, here I have prepared this Dozen Good Books list. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them during the first half of this year, despite the overall gloom of the pandemic. In no way is this list exclusive. I can draw out a few more Dozen Good Books lists for the same period, if anyone cares.

ONE: The Prosperity Paradox - Clayton Christensen, Eros’s Ojomo and Karen Dillon

Only Prof. Christensen can do this - take an ultra-difficult topic and simplify it so that even I can understand it lucidly.

Why has direct assistance to poor-countries have not been as successful as many one of us would like? What if we could see this problem through a different lens of “a job getting done”, and focused instead on creating lasting prosperity? How not all innovation is created equal, and why should countries adopt market-creating innovation instead of the ones that focus on just efficiency, for nation-building? What’s the takeaway for private businesses as much as for the governments?

Well given that my current work is mostly in this area and I became a student taking copious notes while I read this book. This one makes it to the top of my pile for now.

TWO: The Bottom Billion - Paul Collier

This book is a great companion to the book above. It discusses why the poorest countries are failing and the recourses possible to rectify the situation. An outstanding book to understand international relations, this sharply refocuses our attention to details that may not get adequately captured in the realms of macroeconomic studies.

Given my current growing interest in Africa, this book is a great companion to understand what works or would work, and what wouldn’t.

THREE: Behave - Robert Sapolsky

It’s an excellent book, and despite being a difficult read for me (never studied biology beyond grade 10), I did manage to finish it comprehensively last month.

Why do humans behave the way we do? Why are we capable of savage acts of violence but also show spectacular kindness? Which side of our nature is destined to win over the other? This treatise examines the biology of Humans at our best and worst.

If you have scientific curiosity and patience, this is a great masterpiece to savour.

FOUR: Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark

What is being human in the age of Artificial Intelligence? It rivets the reader upfront with the fictional story of the Omega team and its do-good software Prometheus, an uncanny too hard to miss similarity with many large tech companies and even democratic governments in the world.

This one squarely makes us ponder to the toughest question yet the hidden gorilla in the room, what happens when humans are no longer the smartest species on the planet?

FIVE: Chaos - James Gleick

This book describes the astonishing science of the unpredictable, tying together unrelated kinds of wilderness and irregularities.

It’s a book that takes time to absorb, and hence I suggest you read it slowly by regularly. Let the mind soak it in. This book reminded me of the famous quote by Galileo Galilei: Mathematics is the language of the universe. Similarly, Chaos is what you study when you cross over the definition of the regularity of nature and dive into its irregularities.

SIX: The Notebook Trilogy (Le Grand Cahier) - Agota Kristof

I was introduced to this book by my French teacher Gunjan. Thanks to her, I discovered a new vista of European fiction, post the world wars, and different from the French and the German genre of authors that I am familiar with.

With a fractured and painful fairy tale, the trilogy tells the story of twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, locked in an agonising bond of gripping allegory for the forces that have divided “brothers” in much of Europe since the world wars. It’s still relevant as the same nefarious history is unfurling its fangs across the world.

SEVEN: The Stranger - Albert Camus

I reread this book (in English) as I started to read the original one in French for the first time. I realised how important is the role of the transcriber to bring a book to life in another language. Like what Gregory Rabassa is to Garcia Marquez, Matthew Ward is to Camus.

This novel was Camus’ first novel, and its haunting simplicity can create shudders down the spine. Written in a matter of fact style of short blunt sentences, much like Hemingway and Falkner, Camus depicts here the life of Mersault as “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.”

PS. I am still reading the French original but without the English aid.

EIGHT: The Things We Left Unsaid - Emma Kennedy

One of my dear friends from France recommended me this book and introduced me to the work of Emma. This book is her fiction debut and has great promise: a light and fast read, a story of hope and possibilities, of love and simple flow.

The title sums the book up beautifully. It’s about taking nothing for granted and taking the time to connect with loved ones. It’s about love and loss, relationships, secrets, and revelations.

The main characters are Eleanor, a renowned artist and her daughter Rachel. It is written in dual timelines of “then” and “now” and from both characters point of view. Both women are going through heartbreak, however, they don’t reach out to each other even though they are living under the same roof. Their relationship is strained, awkward and distant.

Emma is also an actress, a chef and a Guinness World Record holder.

NINE: The Anarchy - William Dalrymple

Many people have written about the East India Company, but few have been able to weave history with perfect storytelling that makes you live the time, as Dalrymple. It a story of the how and then, but also a story of now. Leo Tolstoy noted about them in 1908 as “commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred million people.”

A company that institutionalised the word loot in the English lexicon was founded by Sir Thomas’ Auditor’ Smith in 1616, and well subscribed by the wealthy Londoners. Its history of plunder, justifications in the name of the law, and ruthlessness is an essential reminder of what can go wrong when only the shareholder interest reigns supreme.

Ironically the brand name of the East India Company is now owned by two brothers from Kerala who use it to sell condiments and fine foods from a showroom in London’s West End.

TEN: A Very Easy Death (Une morte très douce) - Simone de Beauvoir

I am biased when it comes to de Beauvoir. So biased that I named my daughter after her. I have read this book for the nth time now and still feel as if it’s for the first time.

I reread this book as I was referring this to someone and realised that I have forgotten parts of the book. It was fantastic to read this masterpiece once again. De Beauvoir writes about her mother’s death in moving assimilation of extreme compassion married with her acute intelligence. This compelling story, sometimes shocking narrative, is an unforgettable end-of-life account that is impossible to forget.

ELEVEN: The Perfect Nanny - Leila Slimani

This book won the most prestigious prize in French literature, the Goncourt. Slimani is the face of the French literature across the Francophonie, and this book tells you exactly how she deserves every bit of that honour and more.

This book explores all the nooks and crannies of human frailty, the clash of race, gender, and class, all packaged in a gripping psychological thriller. Gruesome at its start, it moves away from what and how, to why, right at the beginning of the novel.

TWELVE: Quichotte - Salman Rushdie

A modern take on the original classic Don Quixote by Cervantes, in this book Rushdie, takes us on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse.

I find Rushdie fascinating. I keep wishing that he gets the Nobel prize for literature someday though I sincerely don’t think that it’s the best accolade for a writer. No award is more important than the love and acceptance from us readers.

I’ll throw in another great book in the mix. My list is like the baker’s dozen.

THE LUCKY THIRTEEN: Range - David Epstein

This book aptly summarises what I have genuinely believed and espoused for many years, that to do well in a specialised world, one must become a super generalist. Most of the specialised skills can be taken over by a machine; eventually, for specialisation is immensely susceptible to an “algorithm”.

We, humans, thrive on our basic instincts, our five senses, and our critical thinking, that will help us see trends beyond the obvious, and give us our ability to connect the dots.

Epstein goes further with his research and espouses the process of excellence by sampling widely, gaining a breadth of experiences, taking detours, experimenting relentlessly, juggling many interests - in other words, by developing the range.