I read 3 books in March, 1 fiction, 2 non-fiction (actually there was some spillover into April, but, lets ignore that)
For last months update, please go here
Inadvertently, I seem to be reading in themes, One of the non-fiction books and the fiction book were related to geology - a topic I’ve been meaning to read a lot more of.
These were tough books to read at times, anyway, these were the books I read in March:
Books:
Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages - Doug Macdougall
I was initially overtly critical of this book purely because I expected a lot more from it.
My current view on this book is that it is an excellent one for someone like me just looking to learn the basics and history of geology.
The author runs through the story right from the days of Louis Agassiz to just over 15 years ago. He also does a decent job of explaining the scientific advancements and what I’ve decided to think of as unsupported (by people) jumps in logic based on (mostly) anecdotal evidence. I don’t think as a science it is anywhere near as rigorous as say, physics, but, it is fascinating.
Most things we know about the ice ages and geology came to us because someone sometime looked at some rocks and thought “Hey, those rocks shouldn’t be here”
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy #1) - Kim Stanley Robinson
I looked through my recently read books and realised after reading this that I’ve only read 2 SciFi books over the past year, for someone who absolutely loves the genre this is embarrassingly low. SciFi books very rarely disappoint, because they are in a sense separate from the path that we’re currently on, they start at a point where leaps in science and technology have either crushed humanity or set it free. Anyway, I’m digressing.
This is book 1 of the Mars trilogy (the next book in the series is Green Mars, which I will be starting soon)
I read this along with a friend who decided to read a scifi book as well.
This book does a few things really well: The setup is excellent, the ending is perfect for book 1 in a trilogy, the philosophical and psychological debates on the human condition is presented very well, the technicalities behind the science are described beautifully. I also loved that the author chose to present each chapter through a different characters lens, really put some of the central ideas of the book in focus, some great meta-writing there.
This book does a couple of things wrong that might put people off (it put me off for a bit) : the technicalities behind the science are repeated by each character in almost every chapter, there’s not enough variance/opinions possible on just the details, while there are variances in what the tech is meant for or should be used for. Another thing that I thought it got wrong, maybe as a result of how it was written, it didn’t let me explore any single character enough, I didn’t get their perspective for long enough, maybe that’ll change in the other 2 books.
Definitely worth reading, I’m diving straight into Green Mars next.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter
I knew about the existence of this author from my quizzing days in school and college. Some trivia: One of his other books “Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies” was the first ever book sold on Amazon.com
Quite a few people have recommended this book to me over the past 5 years especially because I’ve indicated a passive interest in picking up math again.
This book goes well beyond ‘math’ its starts with an overview of the artist Escher, musician Bach and the mathematician Godel - more specifically, his incompleteness theorem. It then goes from the basics of number theory and logic ( which I appreciated, I’ve been away from it for a long time ) to the underlying concepts behind intelligence and artificial intelligence.
I was initially hooked after the first ten pages and then needed to plough my way through for a bit (mostly because it reminded me too much of high school math - which I now have a far greater appreciation for) and the rest of the book was like autopilot, almost undroppable - which is a feat since its quite a heavy book (literally and figuratively)
Very enjoyable, but, I don’t know if I would recommend it to everyone, it requires some work to read and it helps if you’re already interested in these topics.
Currently Reading
Cancer Ward - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
The Rebel - Albert Camus
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Thank you for reading
Sainath