Freakonomics – Book Review

Freakonomics – By Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner: is a damn freaky book. It describes the theories of an atypical economist (Levitt). The theories are absolutely non obvious and very convincingly argued to be 100% correct.

Levitt and Dubner put forward some interesting questions like -

• What led to the sudden and lasting decline of crime in America?
• Why would a teacher cheat? And if she/he teaches, how to catch em?
• What do online daters lie about?
• How much money is there in the drug business?
• Does parenting really matter???

The answers to these questions are as obscure as the questions themselves. But of course I won’t get into them.

On the whole, I felt this book was awesome. Taught me a lot about the American education system, sumo wrestling, online dating, abortion, the Ku Klux Klan, crack, parenting and naming a child! Most of all it instilled in me a questioning attitude.

It confirmed what I have always believed in, ‘conventional wisdom is bullshit‘.

A must read for anyone who wants to get a perspective of seeing things differently!

The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (A Trilogy in 4 parts) : Douglas Adams : Some Doubts!!!

Aha I just finished reading ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy’ (A trilogy in four parts).

It was fascinating. I am not sure how many parts are there in the trilogy but I read the following 4:-

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

2. The Restaurant at the end of the Universe

3. Life, the Universe and Everything

4. So Long, And Thanks for all the Fish

It’s wonderfully written. Its light, imaginative and humorous. Anyways, A lot must have been written about the series any way so I’ll not add yet another review. But its entertaining to the core! I like the narrative that Douglas Adams uses. The art of repeating something that has been mentioned earlier… I just loved it!

I have a few questions that are left unanswered though.

1. I did read something about the earth being replaced soon after it was demolished. From where came the earth that exists in ‘So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish’?

2. What did Arthur Dent really do that made him famous? As in made him ‘the Arthur Dent’?

3. I am really curious to know what was the great insight that ‘Fenchurch’ got?

If you can throw some light, then please do

Thanks.

5 books that I read in Feb!

I had amazing fun trying to continue my budding habit of reading at least 5 books every month. And I succeed . Thanks to a 2 day train journey from Bangalore to Bhopal. I nearly cheated, (the last one being less of a book and more of a booklet) but I’ll count it in none the less.

Here are the 5 I had the pleasure of reading.

1. ‘Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman’ by Richard Feynman: I have written a small review of the book here.

2. ‘Just for Fun’ by Linus Trovalds and David Diamond: This has been another fascinating read. Linus, he is such a wonderfully frank man. Reading his semi autobiography of sorts gives amazing insights into the mind of a great man. A simple man who is not simplistic. It was really inspiring to read his version of how Linux came up. All the time till now I was thinking that Linus was a student of Andrew Tanenbaum (check spelling). And its just so good to know the inside story of the biggest and the most successful open source project – Linux. The book is written on a very light note, with Linus being pretty frank and open about his idiosyncrasies, about his being a typical nerd in the days when being a nerd was not all that cool, about his family and the [birth, adolescence and maturity] of Linux. Another enjoyable read.

3. ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams: Need I say much about this one. It has been in my ‘to read’ list for a long long time. But I had never gotten my hands on it because I was always struggling with time. But those were my college and working days. Reading in general and reading this book (which was one among my 10+ ‘to read soon’ books) was pretty low in the priority. But now life has changed and both fun and reading fare pretty high in my priority list. Ok, coming back to the book, Its different. Its a sci-fi classic. Its HILLARIOUS. Not much of science in it though. But well they did call ‘War of the Worlds’ a Sci-Fi as well didn’t they? I am not sure. But I am sure the meaning is conveyed.

4. ‘The Restaurant at the end of the Universe’ by Douglas Adams: This is part 2 of the book mentioned above it. Something suggests that there might be another book between the two of them but I haven’t read that yet anyways. I don’t remember anything worth remembering from this one, but for the fact that it was just as enjoyable as the 1^st one. Well that could be because the next in the series ‘Life, The Universe and Everything’ (Which I have now read) was incredibly entertaining and most of my memories are associated with that one.

5. Next comes ‘Skill with People’ by Les Gibson: Now this one is a small booklet. And I like books like these. Small and to the point. It wraps up all its fundas in 47 pages, most of them containing an average of 10-12 sentences. Its a quick fix book on improving your skill (communication skill mostly) with people. Its full of common sense insights (that are not so common) and manipulative techniques for getting things done. Even though the book is full of techniques and strategies, I think implementing these strategies in real life will require whatever it takes to be a human being who is genuinely interested in people. Given that the author wanted to wrap the book up in as few words as possible (maybe to gain a word to price ratio record), he couldn’t have afforded to bore the readers with the detailed life altering processes that other self help books are full of. The author starts with stating “People are primarily interested in themselves, not in you” which makes perfect sense. And the rest of the book is based on how to use this knowledge towards improving your skill with people. Handy if you are giving the domain a serious shot.

Book Review: Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman

Surely you’re Joking Mr Feynman – Adventures of a curious character : By Richard P Feynman.

Richard P Feynman is a celebrated Physicist. A noble laureate for his work on quantum electrodynamics, he exhibited amazing qualities contrasting with the stereotypical scientist that we imagine. His books called Feynman Lectures are a hot shot favorite in our IITs and among the physicists of the world. Feynman was a genius in every sense of the word. He was a creative genius and a maths + physics guru. He had a special ability to visualize a problem and break down the mathematics involving its characteristics into its physical form. (Did you understand what I just said?) But he was also, a cool dancer, a great drummer, a brilliant nude artist, a safe cracker, a hard core prankster and a celebrated GENIUS. Someone who could create fun, anywhere any time. I am so inspired by this curious character. Hats off.

Anyways, so much so for the introduction. Coming to the book.

This book is semi autobiographical and describes his lighter side. There are no equations in it but a wealth of knowledge. Feynman keeps attributing much of his success to his luck, (he does this not in an IMHO way, but in a ‘can you believe it!!!’ manner) but sparks of his sheer genius can be seen despite the overall modesty. This book is funny, I don’t know how many times I have caught myself smiling my way to glory while reading it in public places. Absolutely entertaining.

In the book he shares about some 20-30 incidents of his life. Each of them have a lot of spice in them. Reading this book, I have surrendered to the fact that there is no full stop to learning. Look at this man, he would have qualified as an amateurish-expert in maybe 10 different fields! The closest we get to “Jack of all, King of quite a few as well”.

He shares his childhood experiences with repairing radios, his fervor for maths, his days at MIT, his days at Princeton, his days of making the first atomic bomb to becoming a professor in Caltech. And in between come lots of practical jokes, the insights of a genius mind, the funny side of some very serious things, adventures with hot club girls, playing in the Rio Carnival and reluctance to take a Nobel Prize.

All in all this is a hilarious book coming from the mind of a damn mischievous man. You can’t help but chuckle all through out.

What I am taking back from this book is

• Have fun all all all along
• Enjoying every moment
• Know the basics well
• The imaginative side of maths and theoretical problems
• Investigating and going till the bottom

I am all inspired to read “The Feynman Lectures” (if I can understand them).

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a light and inspiring read.

Richard P Feynman, was for sure a free man and my now favorite genius of all times! My earlier favorites were Da Vinci and Newton. But well, I haven’t read their biographies yet! (Now, I am not comparing renaissance geniuses to the modern day ones, its just that if I would fantasize my life as a genius, it would be closer to Feynman’s than Da Vinci’s.)

The books that I have read in January

I read the following books in Jan :-

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: JK Rowling - This book was a good ending. I was disappointed with HP-6. But Deathly Hollows really turned the plot upside down. An amazing read. I loved it.
2. Illusions – “The adventures of a reluctant Messiah” – Richard Bach : This is one hell of a book. Anyone who indulges in spirituality and ontology will instantly connect with the book. My favorite quote from the book is “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours”.
3. Before You Quit Your Job : Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon Letcher : Another sexy book from Robert Kiyosaki. Most recommended for anyone who is planning to be an entrepreneur. I learned many things that I really needed to know before starting my business. I am gonna write a big review for this book soon. I have also taken on reading all of the “Rich Dad Series” books and buying the CashFlow game this year.
4. Megaliving – Robin Sharma: Need I say more about this one
5. Angels and Demons – Dan Brown: I liked “The Da Vinci Code”. Being a conspiracy theories’ buff myself. I thought this one would really be (as many have told me), better than “The Da Vinci Code”. It was entertaining but not as good as the former. I personally didn’t like the degree of luck that Robert Langdon enjoyed. It was not digestible. But I have become a fan of the guy who painted the ambigrams. Pure genius.
6. I also reviewd a book by my graphology teacher “Keith Rozario“. I look forward to picking up Handwriting Analysis again.

Megaliving by Robin Sharma

I see a lot of people coming to this page from Google, so if you want to find what I could achieve out of reading and implementing Megaliving by Robin Sharma, read this post. (21/03/08) The original post follows.

Its my friend Kiran NG, who gifted me this book called Megaliving by the celebrated author Robin Sharma. Kiran was my buddy at Landmark Education’s SELP program. I got a great deal from Landmark and will speak of the same in due course of time, now coming back to Megaliving. I was no fan of Sharma’s. I had tried reading “The Monk who Sold his Ferrari” and didn’t have the enthusiasm to finish it off. I love such books. I read studied Steven Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.. I can say that that book impacted the quality of my life in a very significant way. So when Kiran gave Megaliving to me I felt great about the gift but did not think I will read it in a lot of time to come.

Well something happened and I did happen to read it. And my opinion about Mr Sharma’s works has changed. I feel Megaliving is a gem and I am following the 30 day plan that it speaks about.

I am on day 8 right now, and some results have started showing. I never thought I had the discipline to carry out the program but now I think that I will really follow make it happen.

The book blends the East and the West to come up with an elaborate set of practices and techniques that (if followed properly) promise to take your life to a level you never ever imagined. Something like making you life 80 to 1000 times better. Well I can surely say that mine has gotten 1.5 times better. I am more disciplined, work more diligently towards my goals, eat my food relatively properly, focus on things that are actually important and dont get disappointed easily.

I shall write more about Megaliving in the days to come.

PS. (09/02/08 – I have completed my megaliving journey and it has been mind blowing) Click on the Megaliving Tag to view the highs and lows of the journey)