A Casual Vacancy

Author: J.K. Rowling


J K Rowling's first foray into adult fiction has been well received by both readers and critics.  The casual vacancy has found it's way into numerous top 10 lists for 2012. However, I have to confess, that this book wasn't able to move the needle for me.

The setting is a small idyllic town in England, Pagford, which is rumored to be similar to the place where J K Rowling spent her formative years.  She assembles a cast of characters which has one of each type: Rich man, poor man, lawyer, doctor, Indian, drug addict, beautiful, ugly, etc. Each one of these is stereotypical in their own right, so it makes for a rather dull read. Nothing much happens in the first half of the book, and then in the latter part there are a series of events that look like choreographed chess moves.

The book is very well written and the prose is a pleasure to read. Another redeeming factor is the narrative from the point of view of the teenage school kids, which comes across as authentic and is a good reminder to all of us on how the teenage mind works. Overall, read this if you are a fan of J K Rowling.

Sweet Tooth

Author: Ian McEwan


Ian McEwan knows how to write and Sweet Tooth is simply a joy to read. Serena Frome is the daughter of a an Anglican Bishop, who is recruited by MI5 after graduating from Cambridge in the early 70s. The book has a little of everything ranging from the romantic exploits of a beautiful young girl, spy stories, the challenge of writing novels and explanations of mathematical puzzles. Ian seemed rather enamored by the "three doors" probability puzzle that has stumped many a mathematics professor in the past. He goes into the depths of this puzzle and evaluates several different angles, that I am sure the casual reader is going to miss. Notwithstanding this, the novel is beautifully written and is one hundred percent pure pleasure to read.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Author: Rachel Joyce


Harold and Maureen Fry are a retired couple living in a small village called Kingsbridge in Southern England. When Harold gets a message from a former colleague he is jolted out of his boring sedentary life, and decides to literally put one foot in front of the other and set out walking to meet the friend from his past life. He is unfazed by the fact that he is 60+ years old, in poor physical shape, has just a light coat on his back and is attempting to walk a disance of 600 kilometers, with a pair of boat shoes on his feet. It would be an understatement to say that he is rather unsuited for this venture.

The premise is very interesting and brings out the joys of taking long walks. Being a long distance runner myself, I enjoy the clarity of thought I experience during a long run. I am able to focus my thoughts and evaluate different angles and points of view. In a similar vein, during his long journey, Harold reminisces about his early years with his co-workers, how he met his wife, his children growing up, and many other anecdotes that make good reading material.

On reading this book, I was so impressed with the idea of walking to a distant place, that I floated the idea of walking from Cupertino to Napa Valley, to my wife. I told her, we could do it over several days and stay at different hotels on the way. She didn't even spend 5 seconds considering it, and scoffed the idea outright. For now, I guess, I will live with reading about Harold's adventure along the way.

This is one of those books where the author has a great idea with the theme, but is unable to generate anything significant along the way to keep your attention. There are some minor twists and turns along the way, but none are noteworthy enough to keep your interest. Overall, it is a pleasant read, and will inspire you to take long walks.

Telegraph Avenue

Author: Michael Chabon


The book is set on Telegraph Ave at the border of Oakland and Berkeley, which is very much in my neck of the woods. It centers on the lives that revolve around the families of the two partners of Brokeland Records, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe. Archy is black and Nat is white (Jewish) and the novel brings out the quintessential diversity that is prevalent in the Berkeley region. Archy and Nat have their own unique personalities and Michael develops their character, flaws and all, very effectively.

Their wives Gwen and Aviva are also partners but in the birthing business and are strong characters on their own accord. I found the mis-adventures of Berkeley Birth Partners to be a more compelling story than the struggling used vinyl business that is Brokeland Records. Overall, Michael paints a picture that is vivid and rich with plenty of entertainment and suspense thrown in. The backdrops seem very authentic and the language is complex and has an eclectic mix of black and white metaphors. My only gripe is the rather convoluted language forced me to re-read several passages just to grasp their message. There is even a 12-page sentence that describes where everyone is from the point of view of a parrot. Sometimes I wonder if Michael is more interested in flexing his muscles and showing off his large vocabulary, instead of just trying to tell this story.

Overall, this is a great book if you can comprehend it.

Where'd you go Bernadette

Author: Maria Sempel

I never quite understood what the genre chick-lit was about until I read this book. It is entertaining, educational, bitchy, humorous, endearing, romantic and a page-turner to boot. Maria Sempel tells the story of Bernadette Fox and her mis-adventures using all kinds of different forms of narration, including emails with her offshore assistant, correspondence with a psychiatrist, FBI documents, letters and many more. What is amazing is how well she stitches all these different formats together while keeping you glued to the storyline and providing laugh-out-loud entertainment along the way.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

Author: David Eagleman

Having read several books on the brain and our cognitive powers, I expected this to be a repetition of sorts, and boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise. Neuroscientist, David Eagleman takes us on a wild ride by bringing to light many of the sub-conscious activities that we take for granted. There are examples of activities that we do on a daily basis, like changing lanes, that we have no clue in the absence of the real world setting.

The book really got me thinking on how impulses are transmitted from our eyes, through the optic nerve and to the brain. Can we splice the output of a video-camera to the optic nerve and be able to visualize in a similar vein as we see through our eyes ? The book doesn't wander into the territory of science fiction, but it definitely gets you thinking.

The other interesting tidbit that I learned from the book is that I will be a happier person if I sit with a pencil in my mouth forcing me to smile all day. I wonder how they measure happiness and I am sure that I will be sore and unhappy when I remove the pencil.

In the latter part of the book David spends a considerable amount of time, debating how we hold people responsible for their actions. He argues that our thoughts and beliefs are not a constant and can vary depending on the environment in which we were brought up, hormones, chemical stimulants, etc. Given the inconstancy of our thought process does it even make sense to talk about what someone believes in ? Does it makes sense to punish people for their actions ?  David seems most passionate about this topic and it shows. I for one, would have preferred the book without the large discourse here. Nevertheless, this is a great book and one that I highly recommend to anyone who is curious about our cognitive process.

Skios

Author: Michael Frayn

Very nice simple comedy of mistaken identities that is probably better appreciated as a movie. There was not much by the way of literary treatment, but it made for a quick and entertaining read.

naked

Author: David Sedaris

On reading the first few pages of this book I was concerned that I was reading the diary of a consummate narcissist. However, very quickly I was taken in the complete opposite direction and was reading about a deranged child with some rather strange behaviors that you definitely wouldn't want in your neighborhood. It is hard to believe that David Sedaris' lived the colorful childhood that he has described in this Biography. However, if you are willing to suspend your disbelief for the few hours that it will take you to read this book, you will be truly entertained. I was reading this on the airplane and laughed out loud several times that the person sitting right next to me felt compelled to write down the title of the book and get one for herself.

Imagine: How Creativity Works

Author: Jonah Lehrer

For those of us who are in the business of Research and Development, creativity is by far, one of the most sought after attributes. You can have all the knowledge on every aspect of your project, but if you aren't able to create something different that your customer will love, you haven't accomplished much.

The book doesn't disappoint. It has many examples from diverse walks of life that will definitely have you thinking, and hopefully lead you down the path to increased creativity. I was sold when the book opened with Bob Dylan who is my most favorite musicians, or more precisely song-writer. The creativity that he has displayed in the many years, writing songs with a variety of themes and spanning multiple genres folk to country and rock and roll, is unmatched in the music industry.

Another example that I was really struck by was Milton Glaser, who is an icon in the field of Graphic Design. Jonah underscores the importance of constantly refining ones work, until it gets better and better. There are numerous examples of great artists constantly in search of something better: Hemingway said that he rewrote the ending of "Farewell to Arms" 39 times before he was satisfied. Milton had already got his work accepted with an "I love New York" logo but he was not satisfied and kept trying to improve on it, and finally had the inspiration for the I ♥ NY logo which is a much copied classic.

Losing your inhibitions is half the battle in getting creative. That is the reason why many of the artists that we know and love have rather eccentric behaviors. In the book Jonah delves into the role of the neocortex in inhibiting creativity. The neocortex develops late in children and this explains why creativity generally reduces as kids cross the third or fourth grade mark. It also explains the correlation between mind-altering/enhancing drugs and creativity.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone who needs a little extra creativity in their lives.

The Lotus Eaters

Author: Tatjana Soli

I have a weakness for historical fiction. A novel that blends some agonizing period in history, which is typically associated with war, with an element of romance thrown in, seems the perfect formula for education and entertainment. The Invisible Bridge is a similar novel that was set in Hungary during WW2, that I loved as well.

In her debut novel, Tatjana jumps in with both feet into war torn Vietnam and chronicles the events that unfold through the eyes of the photo-journalists Helen, Darrow and Linh who are each very different, but come together in their passion to tell the story of the Vietnam War through their camera lens. The narrative is very authentic and you will get an appreciation for the carnage and brutality that must have been prevalent during the Vietnam War. The prose is excellent and the descriptions are vivid and bring to life Vietnamese culture as well as the ravages of war. Tatjana explores what drives journalists to risk their lives to chronicle war stories. There is always the recognition and awards that they chase after, but deep down there is an addiction that can't be shaken off. One of the sub-themes that emerge is how a woman photographer was rather unwelcome during war-time and had to blend in with the men. Since the story is told in flashback the element of surprise is missing many of the events are rather predictable. Nevertheless Tatjana weaves a compelling tale that you will find yourself eagerly turning the pages to uncover. 

The book is very authentic with numerous Vietnamese phrases thrown in, and I got the feeling that it was written by someone who was present and knew the culture and landscape intimately. However both the first and last name of the author seemed somehow out of place in this novel. Only on finishing the book and reading one of her interviews did I learn that Tatjiana was born in Austria picked up some of her knowledge of Vietnam from Little Saigon in Orange County, CA. 

The Virgin Suicides

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey's debut novel, showcases his phenomenal talent at storytelling. The book starts out with a young girl attempting suicide and very soon you are told in no uncertain terms that there are going to be several more to come. Against this macabre backdrop, he describes suburban life as seem from the vantage point of teenage boys going through their adolescent years in a typical American suburb in the seventies. Jeffery has the uncanny ability to intersperse tragedy, romance and humor in the same breath and you will find yourself turning page after page lapping up the developments, however bizarre they may be.

I recently read the graphic novel "My friend Dahmer", and was struck by the interesting contrast of these two books. Both describe rather tragic outcomes of a dysfunctional family, however they are very different. The Dahmer story is true, whereas the "virgin suicides" are a work of fiction; Jeffrey Dahmer is a boy and these are five girls; Dahmer takes others lives, here they take their own lives; the book is dark and serious; this one has black humor; Dahmer's parents ignore him; here the parents don't leave the girls out of their sight. Both books highlight the dangers of neglecting to understand adolescent children and the importance of giving them room to explore their world and express themselves in a safe way.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Author: Susan Cain


In this rather scholarly work, Susan explores the differences between introverts and extroverts. We learn that the definition of these terms are not as simple you think and there are many distinguishing factors to tell them apart. The main message is that introverts are the ones behind most of the discoveries and innovations of the human race, despite which they are a rather under-appreciated bunch. Susan revisits this theme over and over again, like a stuck record, presumably with the intention of making half the world who are introverts feel good about themselves. There are brief references to extroverts, mainly to provide some contrast, but the treatment of this is very superficial. There is hardly any mention of significant accomplishments of extroverts, maybe because Susan feels society has rewarded them enough.

Susan analyzes the different ways that introverts and extroverts deal with conflict resolution. There is also a chapter for parents of introverts that is meant to be a guidebook on how to raise children who have difficulty socializing with their classmates and friends in school. While the book is rather dry and humorless, it will definitely get you thinking. Are your spouse, children, siblings, friends, introverts or extroverts? Do some of their behaviors make more sense when analyzed through the lens of "intro/extro-version" ?

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

Author: A.J. Jacobs

This book reads like a stand up comic act on what you need to do to stay healthy. The first few chapters  will have you laughing until your sides hurt, which by the way, is healthy in itself. AJ not only researches all the exotic and esoteric diet fads, but also tries them out on himself. The results are a hilarious romp through the jungle of healthy regimens, many of which are bordering on insanity. However, the book is not only humorous but also packs a good dose of information that you will find useful if you care about a healthy diet. The jokes run thin after a while and I was thankful that AJ didn't go much above a couple of hundred pages in his attempt to educate and entertain us on our health habits. 

My Friend Dahmer

Author: Derf Backderf

The radio was on, and one of the pleasures of NPR is that they have such pleasant and soothing voices that are easy to let in one ear and out the other. Derf Backderf's voice is made for NPR and it was hard to tell the difference between the interviewer and the author, but one thing caught my attention: Jeffrey Dahmer grew up near Richfield, OH. This might not mean anything to most of you, but to me, it was startling, because one of my engineering teams is located in Richfield, and no-one had told me about this little trivia before.

The novel is graphic, both in the literal and figurative sense. The premise is simple. Derf had the pleasure or misfortune of going to school with Jeffrey and recollects his quirky years in high-school. It gets you back to the culture of the seventies where teenage drinking wasn't the taboo that it is today. There isn't much insight into Jeffrey's life at home, except for some oblique references to the fact that it was a dysfunctional environment. Since the novel is mostly pictures, so you can read it in 20 mins, which probably is not the right way to read it. The graphics are dark but very well done and I am sure if I wasn't so eager to turn the pages, I would have spent a lot more time admiring Derf's detailed rendering of high-school in the seventies suburbia. The author tells a compelling story of Jeffrey's childhood and how he was ignored by his parents, his classmates, teachers and neighbors. It begs the question, "would Jeffrey have turned out different if *anyone* showed him some love" ?  

I highly recommend reading this book. If you don't like it, you have only lost 20 minutes of your life.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Author: Charles Duhigg


When we look back on history I am sure the first couple of decades in the second millennium are going to stand out in terms of the number of books written on behavioral science or ecomomics. Add this one to the heap of books trying to decipher the inner workings of the mind, by conducting little experiments on unsuspecting volunteers and drawing sweeping conclusions.

Charles tackles the stickiness of habits and what makes them so hard to get rid of. The fundamental premise is that there are three main ingredients that go into creating sticky habit. First there is a cue that triggers the behavior. Then there is the actual behavior itself or routine. Finally the habit culminates in a reward (actual or perceived) that we crave. To break the habit you need to identify all three of them and then, change the routine to something acceptable, while still attaining the reward. Sounds simple in theory, but as people who have trouble giving up smoking, drinking, snacking will attest, is very hard to do in practice.

The book is not profound in any way, and even the stories are not particularly compelling. There are some interesting tidbits of info, especially around how Target targeted pregnant women, in some cases even before some of their families knew about their pregnancies. The stories of how Pepsodent made toothbrushing a habit, and Procter & Gamble got the Febreze scent to be associated with cleanliness, the CEO of Alcoa who made the company successful by simply focusing on safety are all mildly entertaining. They don't necessarily underscore the main hypothesis of the book, but are interesting reads. Overall, the best part of the book is that it is a quick read and you will be happy to learn that habits can be changed. However, the book is unlikely to leave a lasting impression on you.

The Invisible Bridge

Author: Julie Orringer

This is an epic tale of a Hungarian Jewish Family before and during the second World War. It starts out with the hopes and aspirations of three Hungarian brothers as they follow their dreams in different directions. Andras Levi is the middle one and most of the book revolves around his life and those around him. He dreams of being an architect and has the good-fortune of landing a scholarship in the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris. There are many surprises in his early days at school and Julie lets her imagination run wild in the many different challenges that Andras has to navigate during his sojourn in Paris.  This part of the book made me reminisce about my student days, both in Kanpur and in Maryland.  The simple lives we led and the joy of visiting a family that enjoyed the luxuries of a proper home. It reinforces my belief that the pleasure of living life is experiencing its ups and downs. If you aren't down and struggling then you will not be able to enjoy the sliver of good fortune that may come your way.

The initial challenges that Andras has to face are of two kinds: Finance and Romance. Both of them are described very poignantly and you will be sucked in by Andras and his Parisian world. However, there are much darker days ahead as all of Europe is plunged into World War II. This is one more book on top of what must be a very large pile of books that describe the atrocities that Jews suffered in Europe during the second world war. However, this is told from the point of view of Jews in Hungary.  Just before WWII the Jews consisted of about 8% of the Hungarian population, but they were not allowed to serve in the army. Instead the males were required to do a labor service called Munkaszolgalat which is a mouthful to pronounce and as Julie describes a horror for all the male Hungarian Jews who were conscripted into service. The units were badly clothed and poorly fed and made to perform heavy duty construction duties. Most of them did not survive and you will find yourself reading with bated breath, dreading to see what misfortune the next page is going to bring on the Levi brothers and their friends and relatives.

While reading the second part of the book, the horrific conditions of the Munkaszolgalat convinced me that this could not have been made up by Julie and must have been real. I was curious to see if this was a true rendition of the labor service and whether it was based on the lives of Julie's relatives. A quick search on the internet, confirmed my suspicions and indeed the basis for Andras is Julie's great uncle Alfred Tibor (http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2011/10/16/true-story-of-sculptor-figures-in-war-novel.html).  Julie has admitted that the romantic portions are a figment of her imagination, but much of the rest is based on the experiences of her grand uncle. You can tell that Julie has a strong passion for the Hungarian Jewish identity as she describes in great detail, their simple lives,  their cooking and religious observances. She very fondly describes events like passover replete with the making of matzo balls and gefilte fish. Not surprisingly all the bad guys are Gentiles.

While the book is almost 600 pages of very dense print, it is very well written and you will find yourself sucked into the many turns and twists that the Levi family encounters. The book is very moving and will leave a deep impression on you.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Author: E.L. James


The "Fifty Shades" trilogy has got so much hype that for the last several months it is firmly parked as number 1, 2 and 3 on the NY Times Bestseller list. I finally got my hands on Book Number One and was looking forward to reading it. I thought, how bad can this be. It has some romance and some rather explicit material that is bound to be entertaining; no pun intended.  But boy, was I wrong. The book is really empty of anything but some rather bland conversations and back and forth email. The only real twist or turn of events happens at the end of the book, after you have read 500 pages of drivel. Even the sex is not particularly imaginative or entertaining. I strongly recommend avoiding this book.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Author: Katherine Boo


For those of us who grew up in India, we have seen one too many slums and are not eager to re-live the experience. For the rest of you who have not had this privilege, there's the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" that I am sure has left an indelible picture of life in Indian slums.  I can still visualize the movie, so it was with reluctance that I picked up this book that is set in the Annawadi slum near the Mumbai Airport in India.  However, on reading a couple of chapters, I quickly realized that I had a beautiful book in my hands and the outpouring of praise from the likes of Amartya Sen and the numerous 5-star reviewers on Amazon were more than justified.

Katherine has combined her gift of reporting, with some excellent prose that not only describes the conditions in the slum, but also captures in very economical prose the culture of the nation and its people. There was many a time I had to pause and appreciate her insight and the way she described it in a single sentence. Here's an example "But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine  opportunities that remained".  She is describing the effects of corruption in India and explaining how it is not just endemic to the rich, but also the poor in the slums. She is acknowledging that it has hampered Indian growth and business, but at the same time is possibly one of the few opportunities that slum-dwellers have to improve their lot. She conveys how corruption is deep-rooted in India. You have to pause and think of all the ramifications of just a single sentence in the book.

Here's another gem on the Indian (possibly human) propensity for complaining and blaming others for their misfortune. "Was there a soul  in this enriching unequaled city who didn't blame his dissatisfaction on someone else?  Wealthy citizens accused the slum dwellers of making the city filthy and unlivable. Slum dwellers complained about the obstacles that the rich and powerful erected to prevent them from sharing in new profit." While the book is written primarily from the point of view of the slumdwellers, Katherine does not necessarily portray them in a rosy light and attempts to describe events and characters in a neutral manner.

The book is filled with many pithy observations of slumdwellers and the Indian culture, that made me pause, notice and appreciate the many things we take for granted in our lives.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it left a huge impression on me.

Jack Holmes and His Friend

Author: Edmund White


This book is not for everyone. It has lots of explicit material on gay, straight and bisexual relationships with a couple of orgies thrown in for good measure.  If you don't have a strong allergic reaction to this, and are still reading this review, then maybe, you should read the book as it is highly entertaining and you will be engrossed in the characters as they progress through several decades.

The book starts out with Jack Holmes graduating from the University of Michigan and arriving in New York City in the early sixties. He takes up his first job in a publishing house and meets Will Wright whom he instantly falls in love with. Edmund Wright has written some really elegant prose and you will enjoy the descriptions of the lifestyles of young rich kids that will make you long to travel back in time to New York in the sixties and seventies.

This is my first Edmund Wright book, but from the many reviews that I read, it has been acclaimed as his best book to date.  Mr. Wright is both humorous and philosophical as he explores the lifestyle of gay men and tries to be objective in comparing and contrasting it with straight relationships. Mr. Wright has an excellent command of the English language and it is evident in his descriptions of sex between men and men, men and women and a few other combinations as well. He can describe a complex scene in just a couple of sentences and you will be amazed at the insight and image that it will evoke in your mind.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Willpower

Authors: Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney


There have been several books in the recent past on exploring how our mind works and this one adds to a rather long list. The premise of the book is that intelligence and self-control are two of the most important traits that determine our success. A formula for increasing intelligence has been elusive thus far, so the author focuses on the seemingly simpler task of improving our self-control.

The book rambles on for several pages on how the brain needs nutrition to function. This has been well describe by Daniel Kahneman in his comprehensive book "Thinking Fast and Slow" and is not really new material. Furthermore, I got it in the first couple of pages, but had to endure the discourse for another 30 odd pages. 

There are many useful concepts that are described in the book and here's a sampling of those that left an impression on me:

The Zeigarnik effect describes how the human mind keeps revisiting unfinished tasks and these can end up as a tax on your cognitive system. It explained the widespread success of Allen's GTD method, and is a useful concept that will help you be more effective.

There are several examples of the challenge of being faced with too much choice. This reminded me of the pain my wife and I went through in picking light fixtures for our home remodel. The ability to shop for these on the internet, gave us an overwhelming number of items we could choose from and we found it harder to make a simple decision when faced with this humongous choice.    

I learned a new term called "ego depletion" which  refers to how we use up a limited store of willpower that makes us more susceptible to slipping up. Surprisingly there is no discussion on how long this effect lasts. I would like to know if it lasts for a few minutes as in the case of most of the experiments described, or are there situations where it can last for much longer.

The author also highlights the concept of "bright lines", which is the notion of setting clear boundaries. For instance, a goal of zero tolerance will be easier to keep than one where you want to drink moderately. I have a personal experience of this one. There are some other well established tenets of child-rearing, like ferberization, consistent discipline and rewarding good behavior, that are described in this book.

Overall, this is a good book that will leave you with a better understanding of how to be more successful in tasks that require willpower.  My favorite quote from the book is "vice delayed may be vice denied".

The Wisdom of Crowds

Author: James Surowiecki


For a long time I resisted the urge to read this book, as the premise seemed rather obvious. To someone who lives by the reviews on Yelp, or reads the reviews on Amazon before buying a book, there is no additional convincing needed to believe in the wisdom of crowds. It got too hard to ignore when I started seeing it being quoted in other scholarly works and I finally caved in and followed the crowd on this one.

The book is a lot more than just the notion of how an average of independent samples of human observation tends to be remarkably accurate. It has all kinds of nuggets of information on economic experimentation. For example the author describes an experiment where university students randomly walk up to someone on the subway and ask for their seat. The surprising fact is that 50% of the time people actually give up their seat; and this is in the NY Subway, no less. The author then goes on to describe the ultimatum game where one person splits a sum of money in two, and the other decides if he is going to accept the portion that is designated for him. If he rejects the proposal then neither of them get any part of the money. It would seem that a rational player would accept any proposal, since he gets nothing otherwise. However, it turns out that if the split is perceived as very unfair then the player rejects the proposal, suggesting that the utility function is more than just personal gain. How all this relates to the "wisdom of crowds", I don't know, but it makes for some interesting reading.

While I do agree with the general hypothesis of the wisdom of crowds I find it hard to believe that it is always right. I do agree that the statistical sampling that goes into a crowd view makes it more robust to individual biases and timing. However, there are numerous examples like bubbles in a stock market where you can see that the crowd is often wrong. The other place that I find myself disagreeing with the author is the notion that democracy works because it is the wisdom of crowds. A place where it is severely broken is the numerous propositions that the entire state of California is required to vote on and is the crowd view taken to an extreme. However, most people do not understand these propositions and the outcome is simply based on their biases about the topic, e.g. Gay Rights, School Budgets, etc. 

Overall, regardless of whether you agree with the premise or not, the Wisdom of Crowds is a great read.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

Author: Robert K. Massie

I needed a book to occupy and distract me on a long flight to India. At 656 pages, this epic by Robert Massie is the perfect companion when you are confined to your seat in the sky with no interruption for hours on end. Massie spares no detail in describing the birth, life and death of Catherine the Great. As is often the case, truth is stranger than fiction and when you read about the first thirty odd years of Catherine's life, you will be amazed at what she had to deal with in her early years and how she bode her time preparing herself to be the great ruler of the Russian Empire.

Massie's unquestionable scholarship on Russia is evident all through the book. Without the quotes, the first half of the book reads like a novel as Massie is able to describe events as though he was present and taking notes during their occurrence. He is able to conjure up an image of life in the court of Elizabeth and then Catherine and bring to life the many different characters that inhabited their world. He describes each of Catherine's twelve "favorites" and how she moved from one to the other. In case you didn't guess, favorite was the term used to describe an established and formally recognized lover of the woman on the throne".

In the second half of the book, Catherine is influenced by all the modern thinking that is overtaking Europe and is soon going to result in the French Revolution. She maintained regular correspondence with Voltaire, Diderot, and Grimm. With the latter she developed a regular correspondence and exchanged a total of fifteen hundred letters that were a rich source of material for Massie. Diderot described her as "a ruler willing to apply the principles of Enlightenment to her government"

Towards the end of the book Massie loses his captivating story and meanders on with details that could certainly have been edited out. The description of the paintings that Catherine acquired were too detailed and unnecessary. However, they certainly helped underscore the point that Catherine was a lover of the arts and had a keen eye for appreciating and acquiring the up and coming masters in Europe. The book also goes into a brief description of the French Revolution and a view into the creation and consequence of the guillotine. Massie must have been fascinated by the guillotine since he goes off on a tangent exploring how long the brain functions after the guillotine has severed the head from the body.

Overall, the book is very comprehensive and authoritative in its chronicle of one of the greatest rulers of modern Russia. I highly recommend this to anyone with the faintest interest in learning more about the life and times of Russian Royalty.

Glock: The Rise of America's Gun

Author: Paul Barrett

I picked up this book since it had all the elements of a good business story. Smith & Wesson, Colt, Remington, were the incumbent firearm manufacturers. In less than a decade they were unseated by an Austrian man and his modest enterprise. I was eager to learn about the strategic moves he made that resulted in the huge success of the Glock handgun.

As in every successful business venture, first and foremost, you need a compelling product. Gaston Glock understood the product requirements of the Austrian Army and designed a handgun that in every way fulfilled those requirements. What is amazing is that none of the other established firearm manufacturers came up with anything similar until many many years after the Glock had established itself as the handgun of choice for law enforcement in the US.

Once you have a successful product, the next key ingredient to world domination is an aggressive salesperson who lives, breathes and thrives in selling his wares. Glock found such a person in Karl Walter who was responsible for bringing the Glock handgun to the United States.  In 1984, Karl Walter was browsing through a gun-store in Vienna when he laid his eyes on the Glock 17.  His initial reaction was that it was "ugly". However, he was intrigued by its success with the Austrian army and so took a trip to the Glock homestead in Deutsch-Wagram to test it out. Walter returned to the US and soon established a sales office in Smyrna, Georgia and the rest is history.

Unfortunately the business aspects of the book are done away with in the first couple of chapters. Barrett goes on to describe the NRA and gun control laws in the US.  In describing the overzealousness of the NRA to use the Second Amendment to remove any restrictions on the availability of guns in the US, Barrett reminds us of "the more generalized American instinct that anything worth doing is worth overdoing". 

In response to increasing gun violence, the US passed a gun control law that banned semiautomatic weapons with a detachable magazine and  two or more military style features. It also prohibited magazines that could hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition - the Glock 17 could hold 17 rounds. However, weapons that were manufactured before the passing of the law were grandfathered in, and this had the opposite effect of spurring the sales of Glock 17 as folks raced to buy up all the available inventory and stockpile them.

The book meanders along in the middle with general gun control and pro-gun themes and I was convinced that it wasn't worth finishing. However towards the end there is a return to Gaston Glock and his eccentricities. There were many interesting twists in the business and its employees, but Barrett has not done justice in describing these.

Overall, the book is entertaining and a very fast read. If you are curious about Glock, the gun, the man and the company, then read this.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Author: Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman is one of the most influential thinkers of our time with a long list of accomplishments and accolades. He was educated in psychology but has applied it to many economic problems and ended up getting the highest recognition in the field by winning the Nobel prize in economics in 2002. This book was highly anticipated by folks from all walks of life, and anyone who harbors illusions of being intellectual, must read this book.

The book summarizes Dr. Kahneman's discoveries from the last two decades on judgement and decision making. It is a scholarly work and reads more like a text book. Before you embark on this journey that will mess with your mind, make sure that you have plenty of time to digest the many different theories that Dr. Kahneman  lays out in this book.

Dr. Kahneman describes our decision making process with the help of two simple entities:

• System 1 : which is the fast process that we commonly refer to as intuition
• System 2 : our conscious attempt to process information, often with considerable effort.

The interplay between these two systems and the insights into their workings are the subject of a large portion of this book. 

System 1 is the   primary subject of the book, and is best characterized by this quote "A remarkable aspect of your mental life is that you are rarely stumped.  You like or dislike people long before you know much about them; you trust or distrust strangers without knowing why;  you feel that an enterprise is bound to succeed without analyzing it. Whether you state them or not, you often have answers to questions that you do not completely understand, relying on evidence that you can neither explain or defend."

System 2 is the conventional thought process that we are used to and requires focus and attention. Dr. Kahneman goes so far as to say that our System 2 operation is lazy and often-times eager to accept the results of System 1. The book highlights some cases where this happens, so we can be prepared for this, and guard against this type of error. For example there is the much celebrated case of Israeli parole judges whose verdict grant parole was highly correlated with their state of hunger.

In the limited experience of my life, I have come across many individuals ( and I am sure I am guilty as well) who have a strong tendency to associate an outcome with their view / belief of the individual's behavior. This book develops a  scientific theory and explains the psychology behind this kind of thinking in human beings. There are many interesting little puzzles and experiments that undescore the theory that is laid out. I list some of them here, not so much for the purpose of a book review, but rather to jog my memory in the event I come back to this at some point and try to recall  what I learned from this book.
  
One notion that is quite popular today is called "priming". For instance, if we have a "fill-in-the-blanks" type of test and conduct it with a subject who is hungry or been exposed to food related objects, there is a good likelihood that the words that will be filled in, will be related to food. The way to think about this is by imagining that the system 1 entity in our brain has an associative scratch-pad that it uses to process information. This scratch pad gets filled with sensory information around us and influences the result of a system 1 computation.

 When faced with a difficult problem, or insufficient information, System 1 will answer an easier question. What is remarkable is that it will make this substitution unbeknownst to System 2, which in its laziness will accept it as an answer to the original question. "We are far too willing  to reject the belief that much of what we see in life us random". Our brain has a tendency to see patterns in randomness and a desire to ascribe a notion of causality to random events.  The author describes the now famous encounter he had with a school of Israeli air pilots to explain the phenomenon of "regression to the mean".

Kahneman is most known for his work with Amos Tversky on Prospect Theory, which describes how we make decisions when we have to choose between alternatives that involve risk.  It turns out that we don't necessarily place equal weights on gain and loss and in general we have a tendency of risk aversion when it comes to gain, in contrast to a risk appetite when it comes to loss. The book goes into great depth exploring this behavior with several illustrative examples.

Another notion that is explored is that of "anchors". To put it in everyday terms, our bid on a house is influenced by the asking price. Our notion of whether something is a good deal at the store, is influenced by the "regular" price that is listed next to the item. When we need to make an estimate,  we subconsciously work our way (up or down) from the anchor.

There are many more interesting subjects that are dealt with in scientific manner in this very educative book. I highly recommend it to anyone who is a student of behavioral economics.

The Culture Code

Author: Clotaire Rapaille

I have recently read a couple of books that attempt to explain macro phenomenon by looking through the lens of the culture of its people.  "Boomerang" by Michael Lewis explains the financial crisis that is unfolding in many European countries and ties it to the cultural traits of their inhabitants. Rapaille on the other hand has written an entire book on interpreting the code for American culture and he brings this out by contrasting it with the culture of other countries, most notably France, where he was born.

Way back when Isaac Asimov ruled the Science Fiction world, he introduced the concept of "psychohistory" -- the idea that you cannot predict what an individual will do, but with a sufficiently large population, you can apply a probabilistic framework to predict the general flow of future events. When Rapaille describes the peculiarities of Americans, French or Italians, it is important to view it as a description of a large population and not a specific individual in that country. When viewed with that lens, the book offers great insight into cultural norms and how they can be tapped in developing and marketing a successful product.

Rapaille's writing style is lucid and is a pleasure to read. His opinionated observations are incisive and I found myself reading several parts multiple times to fully appreciate his view.  There are many memorable quotes and passages in the book like "you never get a second chance to have a first experience." This seems cliched, but when you read it again you realize he is talking about "experience" and not "impression".

While I did not find myself agreeing with all of Rapaille's codes, the explanations of seduction in different cultures was spot on and hilarious. Another insightful chapter was the differing notions of quality in various cultures. For example quality in US can be summed up as "IT WORKS" and this is quite a far cry from the notion of quality in Japan which is perfection!

Many reviewers that were critical of the book, seemed to have a hard time accepting all that Rapaille had to say without any real scientific evidence. While it is true that most of what is written here can be dismissed as one man's opinion, it will certainly get you thinking and more observant of cultural traits. I found myself in agreement with a majority of the observations and was quite amused at the way Rapaille presented them.

There is one aspect of the book that I found hard to swallow. The notion of distilling these observations down to a single code word seems a bit contrived. Rapaille goes the extra mile in finding all kinds of circumstantial proof that resonates with the code word to justify it. This is probably the weakest part of his thesis. However, if you take that with a grain of salt and view it as a way to anchor a theme and provide direction to a marketing campaign, the code words might serve a purpose.

Overall, I highly recommend this to folks who are in the business of building and selling products in the global marketplace.

Rules of Civility

Author: Amor Towles

I had read far too many non-fiction books in a row and was eager to find something light and goodreads.com came to the rescue. This book was written by a new author who made a living as an investment banker, and this was his first foray into the land of literature. Some of the reviews indicated that this was written in the vein of a Scott Fitzgerald novel.

The book doesn't disappoint. It is a lively romp through New York in the pre-second-world-war era, and follows the progress of two young ladies and their many affluent suitors. The book is very well written and makes you experience the romance in the air in New York in the late 1930s.

The storyline seems a little contrived and there are many chance encounters that are very conveniently peppered throughout the book. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that New York in the 1930s was a small town where everyone bumped into each other at restaurants and bars. Towards the end the characters seem to drift away and the author seems at a loss to bring the book to a logical conclusion. Nevertheless, the book is a quick read and is certainly entertaining.

The minds eye

Author: Oliver Sacks


Oliver Sacks is a neurologist, and practicing physician at Columbia University, New York, where he holds the title of "Columbia Artist". This is well earned, as he has had quite a prolific career writing more than a dozen books and magazine articles, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. He writes about his experience treating patients with rather exotic neurological conditions and in this book the focus is around vision and how we actually make sense of the sights that we take in with our eyes.

We often associate our ability to read and recognize objects with our eyes. However, this book got me thinking about the connection between seeing and recognizing and made me appreciate how the brain takes in the visual patterns that we see and makes the association with objects that we can relate to.

This book educated me on "aphasia" which means loss of speech, in either expressive or receptive form.  A few years ago my father-in-law suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side. However the more debilitating part was the severe impairment of his language skills and this book gave me a better perspective and explanation of his struggle expressing himself. It taught me how "in some patients, even if they are totally unable to speak or understand speech, there may be perfect preservation of intellectual powers - the power to think logically and systematically, to plan, recollect, to anticipate, to conjecture. "

There are some very nice nuggets of information in the book which are certainly not new discoveries but are nice to appreciate. For instance, I am sure that many of you know that "Predators, in general, have forward facing eyes, with much overlap of the two fields; prey animals by contrast, tend to have eyes at the sides of their heads, which gives them panoramic vision, helping them spot danger even if it comes from behind."

The last two chapters are meandering and went on for too long. In "Persistence of Vision" Sacks describes the problems that develop in his right eye. I admire the detailed notes that he kept during this period, however, this is way too much information for someone like me. Similarly in the last chapter that is also titled "The Mind's Eye",  he goes through several different cases from history, only to conclude that everyone's internal visualization is different. I got the point with the first couple of examples and the additional accounts didn't add much to demonstrate how little we understood about the functioning of the visual cortex.

Overall, this is certainly an enlightening book and it educates you about the subtleties of how visual stimuli are processed in our brain. There are many types of impairments that you will learn from the book, including the author's own "prosopagnosia", which is an inability to recognize faces.  Read this book if you are curious about how the brain processes visual information.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Author: Michael Lewis


There were many times when this book appeared onmy radar, but each time I dismissed it saying "do I really need another look at the sub-prime meltdown?".

At the outset, it is important to note that this book is very different from the pack of books and articles that describe the macro-economic effects of the financial crisis that led to the collapse of several Wall Street institutions and wiped out many large investors and investment banks in the first decade of this millennium. 

Michael charts out the few maverick investors who not only spotted the anomaly in the mortgage lending business way back at the turn of the century, but were confident enough in their belief that they put a substantial portion of their investments into short positions on mortage bonds and derivatives.  These pioneers also had to invent new instruments and insurance to take these positions and the history and culmination of these investments is well described in the book.

Leading up to collapse there was a general herd mentality into the mortgage backed security business which provided the air that filled the balloon that was ultimately going to burst. While the book is well written and provides a balanced view of the handful of folks that made out like bandits in the crash, it doesn't do real justice to the inflation of the bubble. Specifically, leading up to collapse there was a general herd mentality into the mortgage backed security business and Michael provides a very limited insight into what fueled that. Nevertheless, Michael's writing style is really fluid and entertaining and before you know it, you will be done with the book and come out with a different perspective of the crash that rocked our world.