[promit]

Originally Posted by sandeepmdas

Inviting the attention of fellow TBHPians; Indica—A Deep Natural History Of The Indian Subcontinent:
Highly recommended!

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

I regret buying the same book in Kindle. This book deserves to read in hardcopy only.

Originally Posted by shashanka

Thanks sandeepmdas,

Definitely on my list.

I came here to write about Pranay Lal. Not surprised to see you guy's have beaten me to it. I had an amazing guest session with him on Tuesday at the Sanskriti museum as a part of my Fellowship programme. It was quite an eye opener and extremely interesting. He spoke a lot about life on earth from millions of years ago, and how India has a rich reserve of fossils all over. He spoke about how Rajasthan was under water at some point, and about the fossils recovered in the Narmada area. He spoke about many little little things like the interconnection of humans and reptiles and why the Delhi Metro is elevated after Saket etc etc. He brought a long a bunch of fossils to show us too. I am sure the book is fabulous. It am going to order it soon.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by promit

He spoke about many little little things like the...

That's the beauty of his book too, full of trivia. For example, we'll know that during the Jurassic age, a Dino could walk from the present-day Chennai to Perth in Australia in just one day, but it needed to walk briskly because a day then had only 21 hours.

A scientist or trained geologist may not even notice those little little facts but that's where the fun is.

[srikanthns]

I just started reading "Ready to Fire" by S Nambi Narayanan, a senior ISRO scientist, the pioneering brain behind the start of acquiring Cryogenic rocket engine technology.
Not yet done 50 pages, but shocked to know the machinations in the media and political arena which unfortunately ended in completely messing up with the life of a towering scientist who was finally acquitted by all the courts! And these agencies put india back by 15 years in acquiring the technology.
I will complete the book and come back again. But just to think of the agony and cruelty meted out to one of the top scientists, who or what will compensate for that?

[Eddy]

Saurav Ganguly's autobiography - A Century is Not Enough

Rating = 1.5 / 5

What a huge disappointment! Nothing new in this book - no inside stories, no anecdotes, no details of what happens behind the scenes, no quotable quotes. It's either Saurav praising himself or blaming the selectors for dropping him.

Even the Greg Chappel chapter has nothing interesting or unknown.

[GTO]

Good read if you want to know more about our country's leader. Author seems to be his fanboy though and is biased in his favour. Will give it 3.5 / 5 stars.

[shashanka]

I recently re-read Lyall Watson's "Lifetide"...... a celebration of biology which, says the author "fills me with fierce pride and with a constant sense of wonder and delight that we should be part of anything so profound".

Dr. Watson, an established biologist in his own right, has written extensively on the anomalies in main stream biology, giving examples in his various books that border on the paranormal.

Engrossing stuff for the layman interested in everything!

[Iyencar]

The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane by B. Raman
A recommendation for fans of geopolitics. Written by the late B. Raman, one of our foremost spies, this book covers the inception and the early days of R&AW through various PMs and governments. The term Kaoboys is derived from R.N. Kao, the founder and first chief of R&AW. The author happened to be his protege and has played a very important role in the organization since inception. A well written book (and probably the only one on this topic) which gives a lot of inside information about behind the scenes incidents which have shaped our country. However, there does seem to be a small hint of bias in the writing. Rating it 4/5. P.S. Fans of geopolitics please check out http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/. It was started by the author and has some amazing insights into happenings across the world and what they mean for our country with contributions from the foremost minds in the field.

[ritzy]

Read a review of Yuval Noah Harari's new book - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Bill gates. It made me order the book immediately. I'd receive it tomorrow and hope to finish it ASAP.

From the review

In his fascinating new book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” the historian Yuval Noah Harari creates a useful framework for confronting these fears. While his previous best sellers, “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” covered the past and future respectively, his new book is all about the present. The trick for putting an end to our anxieties, he suggests, is not to stop worrying. It’s to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them. As he writes in his introduction: “What are today’s greatest challenges and most important changes? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids?”

I, like many here, absolutely loved Sapiens. Although I have not yet read Homo Deus, I would rather first read about his take on current times in this new book, before moving on to Homo Deus, which anyways talks about future.

[GTO]

Behind the Cloud - The story of SalesForce. A truly revolutionary, game-changing company. Book written by the founder himself (so expect a little bias). Recommending it to BHPians & rating the book 4 / 5 stars.

[Samurai]

I just finished reading Fear: Trump in the Whitehouse by Bob Woodward. It is a terrifying book. I sincerely hope we can survive Trump presidency. Yes, I know he is not our President. But I lost count of the number of times he was at the brink of WW-III. The world was saved by some of his staffers every time. And all those staffers have now left the administration.

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I just finished reading Fear: Trump in the Whitehouse by Bob Woodward. It is a terrifying book. I sincerely hope we can survive Trump presidency. Yes, I know he is not our President. But I lost count of the number of times he was at the brink of WW-III. The world was saved by some of his staffers every time. And all those staffers have now left the administration.

I have been reading "Fire and Fury - Inside the Trump white house" by Michael Wolff and am half way through. Compared to POTUS, our politicians appear so refined and modest .

Did the world deserve this guy as president of USA? And yes, many of his staff are doing a great service to the world by scuttling his brain fade ideas from getting implemented.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I just finished reading Fear: Trump in the Whitehouse by Bob Woodward.

Amazing how Trump thinks he can discredit someone of Woodward's stature so easily. Trouble is, if there weren't enough people that do believe him, he wouldn't be where he is. Trump is scary; America is scary!

And all those staffers have now left the administration.

And this week's will have left, been thrown out, etc, by next week.

[roamer012]

Amazon has recently launched Prime Reads for prime subscription holders.

https://www.amazon.in/kindle-dbs/hz/...ref_=sv_kinc_2

Quoting from the website

"Prime Reading Benefits. As an active Amazon.in Prime Member, you are entitled to access or download eligible e-books made available under Prime Reading, subject to a limit of 10 books (which may be increased at Amazon’s sole discretion) at any given point of time. Amazon has the sole right to determine the eligibility of the books included in Prime Reading. You will not be charged incremental fees for using the Prime Reading benefit from Amazon."

[ritzy]

Originally Posted by ritzy

Read a review of Yuval Noah Harari's new book - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Bill gates. It made me order the book immediately. I'd receive it tomorrow and hope to finish it ASAP.

I finished this book quite quickly. It's a great read with lots of historical references. Harari's book touches upon almost all the important topics of our time. While he remains unbiased in his observation and criticism of all the established isms and dogmas, I could sense his slight admiration for liberal thought process in those 318 pages.
He offers solution to some of the challenges and completely discards some systems, like religion and nationalism, to provide any solution to the global issues we are currently facing or will face in the near future.

My favorite part of the book is 'The Technological Challenge' where he dwells upon work, liberty & equality. I particularly liked chapters on Justice, Disillusionment and Meaning.
This book is certainly a collectible item and some chapters are worth reading multiple times.

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I just finished reading Fear: Trump in the Whitehouse by Bob Woodward. It is a terrifying book. I sincerely hope we can survive Trump presidency. Yes, I know he is not our President. But I lost count of the number of times he was at the brink of WW-III. The world was saved by some of his staffers every time. And all those staffers have now left the administration.

I agree in toto - anyone who scratches the Trump surface & gets a glimpse of the creepy-crawlies underneath is bound to find it terrifying. And Mr.Woodward with his vast experience as an investigative journalist, is the ideal candidate for this work. Being at the brink of WW3 may be Trump's happy state-of-mind. Finding the "bull in a china shop" analogy is too simplistic. One an go further & find analogies in Nostradamus and his anti-christ visions, which many believe is nearer the mark where Trump is concerned.

I find the RT channel (Russia Times) and their continuing harping on the Syrian situation (Idlib, supposedly the last ISIL & Qaeda stronghold) certainly scary. Whatever the geo-politico-econo compulsions, the fact that the Trump administration - as per RT reporting - seems to be looking for fig-leaf excuses (chemical WMDs with the Syrian-Russian forces) to start something colossal for defending Idlib. For defending ISIL ??
One more step closer to WW3.