Rutger Bregman
On one hand, I really hoped Humankind would be meaningful, and on the other, I am quite a cynic. Bregman writes towards the end of the book that cynicism is just another name for laziness, an excuse not to take responsibility. I am not sure I agree completely because I do feel the rage against injustice, and do take action sometimes, but largely my question has been ‘what is the point?’
(more…)I have to admit that I began reading Nexus with a bias – courtesy Harari’s earlier works. While I liked them when I first read them, further reading and critical takes reduced the good impression considerably.
So, while I really liked the first two chapters, I did find irony in him writing about information and truth after bring rebutted by experts on agricultural revolution and various other things he is not an expert on. And while I really like reading history, his meandering on Niall Ferguson mode in the first part of the book didn’t endear himself to me at all.
(more…)Oliver Sacks
The River of Consciousness is the final collection that Oliver Sacks oversaw, assembled just two weeks before his death in 2015. Ten essays across diverse subjects such as botany, chemistry, evolution, medicine, neuroscience, and even the arts. They are connected by the title – an exploration of how the river of consciousness has moved through evolution, and how it continues to manifest itself in ways beyond what we normally look at.
(more…)Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
Just so we are clear, the scope of this book is only the US, the rest of the world will have to figure its own way to abundance, though we might learn a few tricks from this. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson wonder why, for all its enormous wealth and technological capability, the US cannot address the fundamental human problems of hunger, homelessness, life-threatening diseases, and fuel an equitable world with clean energy.
Indeed, the introductory chapter ‘Beyond scarcity’ does imagine an utopian world really well. And it’s clear that it isn’t technology that is stopping us. Sigh.
(more…)Benjamín Labatut (translated by Adrian Nathan West)
When we cease to understand the world is one of the most unique books I’ve read in a while. Though it can broadly be classified as historical fiction, that would fail to capture the essence of the book, because the subject is science, mathematics and the deep mysteries underlying reality. Almost philosophy.
Featuring real historic figures and events, it could even be non-fiction as it explores the lives and discoveries of scientists and mathematicians who changed the way we understood the world. More interestingly, it also puts focus on the moral consequences of their work, the effect it had on themselves, and the impact it had on the world. Apparently, the scientists and their discoveries are all factual, the personal lives include some fiction.
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