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The Honourable Company, John Keay

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte

The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named, John Keay

I think this was a small side-project for the author, but its a great read, nevertheless. I never thought the silly triangulation projects we did way-back-when could be so interesting. And its Everest, not Everest.

Give War a Chance, P. J. O'Rourke

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Vikram Chandra

Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle

Transmission, Hari Kunzru

A great book, with a simple story and wonderful writing - I've never thought about something as mundane as a computer booting up in such fantastic terms (see my misc page). The one part I found jarring was the presence of the amazingly clueless and increasingly asinine Swift character, but given how the rest of the book plays out like a hindi movie, having other randomness isn't so strange...

Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons

My sci-fi fix for this year

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene

A wonderfully written book for the lay-physician (is there such a word?). I've heard/read a lot about relativity, quantom theory, and of course, the latest buzzword: string theory, but the details were always `out there'. This book does a great job of asking the right (leading) questions and answering them in an accessible (to me anyway) manner. I particularly enjoyed the section relating to the 'arrow of time', and there's plenty of random funny references that just pop out make you laugh...

The Impressionist, Hari Kunzru

Intriguing novel about well, the impressionist. I was hooked right from the start -- the protagonist's life upto the time he's discovered and kicked out of his house are hilarious. I think the novel could have ended when the impressionist realizes that all he is is an impressionist, but I'm not the author, and the twist at the end worked out deliciously.

Those Days, Sunil Gangopadhyay

A wonderful novel set in 19th century Bengal. I was a bit wary since this is a translation, and parts of it are a bit odd, but these are minor. The story itself is a mixture of fact and fiction (I could only identify Dwarkanath and Debendranath, bongs will likely find other characters familiar as well), and meanders around a bit, but overall a great read.

The Millennium Problems: The Seven Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time, Keith J. Devlin

I'm ambivalent about this book - the author tries too hard to explain mathematical concepts to the layperson, and ends up showing how difficult it is to replace symbols with plain english. The focus also seems misdirected sometimes, e.g., an exposition of calculus, followed by the Navier-Stokes Equations - he doesn't really explain why they are so hard to solve. Fine for some light reading, I guess....

The Imam and the Indian: Prose Pieces, Amitav Ghosh

Some familar pieces, some new ones (the title refers to a chapter from In an Antique Land). The best is The Baburnama, an article from The Little Magazine and available online.

The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number, Mario Livio

*snore* Too little math and too much debunking stories of Phi....

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, Daniel Yergin

A great book! Our current society is based on oil ofcourse, but I had no idea that it had played such an important role in the happennings of the last few decades as well. Also, its interesting how easily -- and illogically -- public opinion can shift. Government policy, ofcourse, follows the same course :-)

Memories of Madness: Stories of 1947

Train to Pakistan, Kushwant Singh, Tamas, Bhisham Sahni, Stories, Manto

Island of Blood, Anita Pratap

Firstly, in terms of writing, this book is an easy read, though I don't care much about the way the author starts each section with an idyllic scene in the present, and says 'this is so unlike the time when...' and we're in the middle of a riot/war/cyclone/whatever. Also, the latter half seems to loose its way a bit, but these are minor issues. Secondly, this is a must-read for its content. Can anyone justify this terror, this inhumanity, that exists in our supposedly civilized times?

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