In many ways, the books I read are my mind’s zeitgeist, and naturally the favourites reflect this. This year, the list is along broad lines of History & Culture, Mind & Philosophy, Systems of the World, and Fiction. And with that little prologue, as per tradition – from 2019, 2020, and 2021, and 2022 – we have this year’s list of ten (plus a few 🙈). From the 65 books I read in 2023…
Joan Didion
“We never know we go,—when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.” ~ Emily Dickinson
Death and illness is around us, and as we grow older, even more so. Or maybe we become even more conscious of it. And yet, it is as Yudhishtira answered the Yaksha’s question – “What is the greatest wonder?” with “Day after day countless people die. Yet the living wish to think they will live forever. O Lord, what can be a greater wonder?”
(more…)Geoffrey West
I am quite a fan of patterns. It is difficult to look around and not believe that there is some grand order in the scheme of things. But it becomes even more difficult when one does not have the luxury of faith. And thus it is a pleasure when science points to a possible unifying theory that brings some amount of order to what could be mistaken for randomness. Scale begins with showing how ‘there are scaling relationships that quantitatively describe how almost any measurable characteristic of animals, plants, ecosystems, cities and companies scales with size.‘ We are talking of things as varied as metabolic rate, patents, and companies’ income and assets! The simplicity underlying the complexity is what this book is about.
(more…)Cory Doctorow
I like science fiction, but I absolutely love it when it gets into worldview and philosophy! Walkaway is set in a post-scarcity world, where anyone can design and print basic necessities – food, clothing, and even shelter. And in this world, there are broadly three kinds of folks – the elite oligarchs, who as usual want power and the ability to bend the world to their rules, the ‘default’ who continue to abide by rules and work for a living, and the ‘walkaways’, who walk away from this default reality.
They aren’t walking away from society, but understanding that in the zotta (elite) world, they’re problems to be solved, not citizens. As more and more people decide to turn ‘walkaway’, the elite have a problem with the drastic social changes that follow.
(more…)Daniel Z. Lieberman, Michael E. Long
The ‘molecule of more’ whose machinations make you desire what you don’t have, and drives you to seek new things. That which offers rewards when you obey it, and punishes you when you don’t. Dopamine, whose fingerprint is visible in most of the thoughts and actions we do on a daily basis, is the subject of the book. Discovered in 1957 by Kathleen Montagu, and first thought of as a pleasure molecule, only .0005% of brain cells produce it, but it has a disproportionate influence on us.
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