https://www.siddharthagolu.com/categories/book-notes/ Recent content in Book Notes on Siddhartha Golu https://www.siddharthagolu.com/images/Love_for_mountains.jpeg https://www.siddharthagolu.com/images/Love_for_mountains.jpeg Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 03 Sep 2023 21:05:39 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/chup-deepa-narayan/ Sun, 03 Sep 2023 21:05:39 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/chup-deepa-narayan/ Check it out on Goodreads It’s a uniquely strange experience, when you try to put yourself into others’ shoes. It feels fake, dishonest even, to say that you “understand” how the other person must be feeling. Empathy can be a strong force, but it can never be a substitute for the original feeling. A caucasian man can never feel what an African-American man must be living with, day in and day out. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/empire-of-pain/ Wed, 21 Jun 2023 08:49:32 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/empire-of-pain/ If you want to understand how the opioid crisis began, read this. Recommended. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/so-good-newport/ Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:04:13 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/so-good-newport/ A series of blog posts that unfortunately became a book. Not recommended. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/four-thousand-weeks/ Wed, 21 Sep 2022 07:35:24 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/four-thousand-weeks/ A book about time and our relationship with it. Recommended. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/life-between-buildings/ Thu, 21 Apr 2022 09:04:49 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/life-between-buildings/ A gentle introduction to the study of buildings and the way they enable societal interactions. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-way-we-eat/ Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:43:25 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-way-we-eat/ The ethical dilemma of eating. Highly recommended! https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/shame-rushdie/ Tue, 17 Aug 2021 22:55:02 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/shame-rushdie/ Check it out on Goodreads Now that I’ve moved away from reading fiction, I find that I face a lot of inertia to pick up something purely for pleasure. Maybe this is a nasty by-product of wanting to be as “productive” as possible. But the more I have drifted away from reading for pleasure, more mechanical the whole process has become for me. Partly to avoid this feeling, and partly because of my shame at seeing my bookshelf filled with dusty unread books, I picked up this one to assuage my feelings of guilt. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/running-murakami/ Sat, 14 Aug 2021 20:09:56 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/running-murakami/ Check it out on Goodreads Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I have no affinity for running, even for short jogs, and much less for wanting to run long distances. Although this is not because I hate exercises - one of those rare things that I figured out early in life was my desire to remain healthy as long as possible and that of course means I need to keep myself fit - but probably my distaste for running stems from the monotonous nature of the activity. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/annihilation-of-caste/ Fri, 23 Jul 2021 22:56:47 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/annihilation-of-caste/ Check it out on Goodreads I find India really fascinating sometimes, even though I’ve lived my whole life here. What the cultural multitudes and colorful festivals hide underneath is an ugly facade which threatens to break everything that has been built over the years. What I find most fascinating is how we’ve conditioned ourselves to ignore the blatant reality and move ahead with an oblivious calm, living in shit and aspiring for the gold. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/parenting/ Thu, 18 Mar 2021 22:14:21 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/parenting/ Check it out on Goodreads I have had a very curious relationship with religion, although now that I talk to others, it was a much more normal experience than what I led myself to believe. I followed the typical path of receiving a particular religion from my parents (born a “Hindu child”), which had a supporting role in my life up until my late-teenage/early-adolescent years. As is the norm for every child brought up in religion, I used to consider myself special believing that I had a “personal relationship” with God. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/i-do-what-i-do/ Sat, 19 Dec 2020 09:24:30 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/i-do-what-i-do/ Check it out on Goodreads I had picked up this one thinking it to be an autobiography, and with an expectation that it’ll cover Rajan’s tussles with the government in more details. I was pleasantly surprised to find instead a good collection of technical essays covering the workings of RBI, and economics in general. If you’re looking for a good explanatory work in the field of Economics (and especially those concerning India and its policies), you’ll enjoy this. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/azadi/ Wed, 30 Sep 2020 22:22:13 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/azadi/ A series of essays on the bleak reality in India. Highly recommended. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/stoner/ Sun, 28 Jun 2020 19:45:36 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/stoner/ Check it out on Goodreads Reading fiction has always been a double-edged sword for me. Some of the most intimate moments I’ve spent alone is while reading fictional stories, while at the same time, feeling a pang of disappointment for myself because I wasn’t doing anything “productive.” Is this mere entertainment? Am I just escaping my real-life responsibilities and reading stories of make-believe? While I still haven’t found sincere answers to these questions, I’ve grown more confident of what I enjoy and what I don’t, which has consequently helped me find peace with this conflict. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/bad-blood/ Fri, 01 May 2020 23:39:18 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/bad-blood/ Check it out on Goodreads How to fool the world and become a Billionaire I remember hearing about Elizabeth Holmes when I was in my late teens, at that impressionable age when you get hyper-inspired by reading about icons that are going to change the world. There was a profile of her in Wired, with an eye-catching image of her wearing a turtleneck black sweater holding what looked like a test-tube with a tiny amount of blood with a science-y background. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/waking-up/ Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:31:08 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/waking-up/ Check it out on Goodreads A disappointing jumble of thoughts Disappointed. I am an atheist interested in the power of mindfulness and the whole world of so-called spirituality, so naturally, I am the ideal audience that Sam Harris is looking for. But it disappointed in almost every domain that I had expectations in. Using deep-sounding difficult words and wrapping them in an almost mythical aura of “Consciousness”, this one was a huge letdown. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/glimpses-of-world-history/ Thu, 12 Mar 2020 23:23:19 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/glimpses-of-world-history/ Check it out on Goodreads World history in a nutshell More than 1100 pages, this behemoth of a book still fails to capture the whole essence of world history - and rightly so. How can you combine over 2000 years of human history and still do justice to every element? But the unique manner in which this book - or more appropriately, collection of letters - has been written, it shines brightly amongst the plethora of history books you can find on this vast subject of world history. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/reasons-to-stay-alive/ Tue, 28 Jan 2020 22:28:18 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/reasons-to-stay-alive/ Check it out on Goodreads Reasons you should read this book: If you’ve ever had a panic attack. If you’ve ever counted the number of times the ceiling fan rotates, just so you could avoid dealing with the endless voices in your head. If you’ve ever felt ashamed to admit that you might be suffering from the D-word. If reading about personal stories of how people overcame their mental illnesses soothes you. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/great-music/ Thu, 16 Jan 2020 22:05:06 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/great-music/ Check it out on Goodreads I have been a lover of music since my early childhood - runs in the family - and have imitated and performed songs (mostly inside my own head) on numerous occasions. Despite this lifelong love affair with music of all kinds, there was one particular genre of music that always baffled me. Mostly because of my own ignorance, but partially also because nobody else was talking about it. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/behave-review/ Thu, 12 Sep 2019 20:12:10 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/behave-review/ Check it out on Goodreads There are few books which leave you in a mesmerizing state after having read them. You ponder about it for days to come, want to scream your head off about it to anyone who’d listen, and then dwell in this fear of picking up another book because how can something else ever come close to being this perfect! I have felt this way before - first when I’d finished The Complete Sherlock Holmes, later when I was left in a daze for multiple days after finishing the notorious and brilliant House of Leaves, and much more recently when I was unable to sleep after reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/range-a-review/ Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:16:14 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/range-a-review/ Check it out on Goodreads Started with a tightly-knit structure, but faltered at the end. The last few chapters were a slog to get through - mostly because of numerous “business-class” style case studies. Main takeaway? Other than the central idea around which the book revolves (and succinctly mentioned as the book subtitle too), the idea of interleaving is what struck me the most. I had already read about this particular method in Michael Nielsen’s brilliant post on Anki (“Augmenting Long-term Memory”) and it was interesting to read about it formally in the book. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-course-of-love/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 20:21:45 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-course-of-love/ Check it out on Goodreads The School of Life - a massively popular YouTube channel - used to be this source of solace in some turbulent times of my college life. It is not something that you’d think would be cheerful and uplifting - a quick glance at some of the most popular videos of the channel would include titles such as “Why we go cold on our partners”, “Why you will marry the wrong person” etc. https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-stranger-and-the-plague-a-review/ Mon, 21 Jan 2019 14:39:14 +0530 https://www.siddharthagolu.com/posts/reading/the-stranger-and-the-plague-a-review/ On my journey to learn more about philosophy - the first step into the realms of existentialism