Book Reviews - Non Fiction

Topic suggested by Ravi on Fri Aug 14 17:24:11 .


Reviews of biographies, collection of speeches or essays, histories, popular science etc.

i have read a book called 'Zen and the Art of Motocycle maintenance' by Robert.M. Pirsig. It is one of my all time favourites.

I don't want to review the book. But,how about sharing your thoughts with me about this book ? how it has affected the way you think or something along those lines.

Anybody here a fan of Carlos Casteneda ? (who recently passed away)

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig is my alltime favourite. He writes just brilliantly . Incidentally, he has stayed in Benares and studied Hindu philosophy. Later he came out with Lila. This was also good.
I like reading books by Scott Peck. Who has not heard of Dale Carnegie ?
I've heard of Castenada. I have not read any of his books.

I have enjoying reading popular science works. Excellent recommendations are Chaos by James Gleick, The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav,Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden (Pulitzer Prize Winner?),Sagan's Cosmos,Richard Restak's The Brain,Stephen Weinberg's The First Three Minutes,Jared Diamond's The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee,books by John Gribbin.

Review of"In Light of India" by Octavio Paz.
Octavio Paz served as Mexico's ambassador to India for six years. He made some long-lasting friends during those years and also kept in touch with the Indian Government right up until Rajeev's assassination.

He recollects his experience in India with shining intellect and impartial curiosity as opposed to the snooty V.S. Naipaul in "India: A million mutinies now".

Paz is such a rarity; he's a world-class intellect with third-world modesty and empathy. In his words I don't even sense a struggle to hold onto objective reasoning. This man can not but think objectively. Maybe his is the height of knowledge: wisdom. He does not spare his commentary on any sacred issue. He combines his overwhelming knowledge of world history and the astonishing clarity of purpose that is to convey the objective truths of religion, politicians, culture, art, and society. His commentary is based on his observations, which are enough to make this a great read, but he has also read every book on the subject that he takes up (be it music or sculpture or architecture) and shares that knowledge with the reader too.

This essay book's size is deceptively small but every page is filled with amazing observations and the warmth of a soul that relentlessly pursued the true state of things. We should all be so lucky to achieve such an objective curiosity in our minds. Paz recently passed away and it feels like a library was burned down. I highly recommend this book to everybody, especially Indians.

I am a newcomer. I wish I had known about this web page earlier. I can not wait to go the bookstore to buy "In light of India" reviewed by Udhaya.

One of my favorites is Allan Watts. Anybody wants to share thoughts on his " The Wisdom of Insecurity" ?

Ramji

Udhaya:

Bought Octavio Paz's " In light of India ", started reading it. Thanks for the review. Will get back with my reaction after finishing it. I have already started reacting positively.

Ramji, I'm so happy for you. I hope more people discover this book and the writer.

the recent nobel laureates in lit like Paz and Dario Fo are not known outside a circle. but those who know them do have a lot of respect for them. when paz died, not much media coverage was given in the indian media, though he was an ambassador to india some time back. instead, when kiran desai's book "hullaballo in a guava orchard" which is just pages of rubbish and superficial writing( i was unfortunate enough to read it), high media coverage was given to it. just because rushdie endorsed it and it was given space in TLS.

I just finished reading " In light of India" by Octavio Paz. ( See review by Udhaya in Sep 98.)
Very few books have influenced or fine-tuned my perspectives as this one. Million thanks to Udhaya.( Udhaya: Did you get my personal email?)

I wish Paz was alive to write a sequel reflecting on what is happening in India now.( bombs, loss of secularism etc)

revive

Agree with vj. This thread badly needs to be revived. I have just started reading Nietsche's "Beyond Good and Evil ". I had been wanting to read this for a long time and finally was triggered by refernce to Nietsche being influenced by Vedic philosophy in Octavio Paz's "In light of India". Will get back later with my reactions on Nietsche.

Progress(?) on Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". In the last five days I have hardly crossed ten pages. It is tough. Anyone to share this experience?

PLEASE REVIVE THIS THREAD !!!

I don't know whether i can talk about Hofstadter's 'Metamagical Themas' here. Can I ?

Ramanan:

Yes, please.

Thanks Ramji> i will post soon

Hello all,

Has anyone read "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahamsa Yogananda? A real treat to the heart and soul!
Any comments, reviews ?

Anu

anu, i have read "the....yogi".... somehow i am just unmoved by yogis recounting their lives,

i cant understand why they would write a book ... seems to be cross with the kind of things they talk about... ..but one thing i learnt from that book is that he is "endowed" with "somthing"

and Ramji, talking about Nietzche ( a struggle to get across the spelling..) i "tried" Thus Spake Zarathusthra which makes me believe what one professor of philosophy wrote about many of the european (especially german) philosophers thriving on a platform of obscurity

vj again

i would recommend Franny and Zooey by Salinger (was his last book before he went to self imposed exile) i really want to know how many empathise with the characters..
and please read "NO one writes to the Colonel" by garcia marquez.... never felt sadder after reading a book

and one other book....Aunt Julia and the Script writer...by Mario Vargas Llosa.. try these !

any reccos from your side?

vj

I've read Franny and Zooey but was not able to empathize with them, as they seemed too dormant.
Haven't read "No one writes to the Colonel" yet but I'm a fan of Marquez. I would recommend his "Love in the time of Cholera" (which I think is his best book, better than his popular "one hundred years of solitude"). "Aunt Julia..." was not very impressive to me although it is delightful.

Has anyone read Rohinton Mistry's "A fine balance"?

Nithya

vj: I think we are discussing fiction in the nonfiction thread!

Nithya

i dont understand how publishers categorise books
but as long as the TFMPolice doesnt send us a ticket. lets continue!

i think gabriel's most impressive work (interms of the maximum "magic realism") is "Autumn of the Patriarch" , tried it? its a maze of ideas!

and RohintonMistry....aah! I am biased against the new crop if Indian writers inEnglish, there is something "false" about their themes and concern...
m i just dreaming?

vj

I'll try to read the above two Marquez soon, and let you know.

Believe me, Mistry is different. And "Fine balance" is disturbingly shamefully realistic.

Nithya

is it shamefully looong too?
other suggestions welcomed, i need a book to cry

Well, Mistry's "A fine balance" is a big book, 500 pages or so. This is a perfect book to cry over.

Nithya

Currently reading Patrick Suskind's "Perfume".

who is Patrick Suskind?

vijay

I don't know of other books Patrick Suskind has written, but his "Perfume" (translated from German) is a very interesting one. Before I read that book, I have never thought much about our olfactory sense! Read it if you are ready for a fantastic journey through a murderer's life.

Bye,
Nithya

does anyone here read books by thomas moore? i just discovered his works, and i wonder which school of indian philosophy he'd be aligned with.

kalli

Thomas Moore was a devout Christain born in 1876 in Yorkshire, England.
He was very commited to male nuns, in the monastry of Islam.
He was also commited to establishing the extistentialist movement of the right wing militia group nuns in Bakina Faso (capital: Wonga Donga).

Hi all,

New kid in the block.

I've read Zen & the art of Motorcycle maintanence by Pirsig. Great book. I did't try his Lila.

I guess many have read Richard Bach's Jonathan
Livingston Seagull or Illusion.

- Anbu

Hi!
This is for " ZEN and...." fans...

did you read "LILA".. by Pirsig.. talks about more quality....and social heirarchy......

Voodoo Science by Robert Park: A very important book about the scientific way of living, continual attempts at perpectual motion machines, simple follies and frauds in science (including SDI and X-ray lasers). a great book that clearly exposes the likes of mahesh yogi, deepak chopra, ... . please read at least the last section of the book.

anu,
just tell us whats the real treat to heart and soul?

http://mif.freeservers.com

Hi,

Has anyone read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer? It's simply fantastic. It's about the failed Everest expedition, the part of the unfortunate team, the writer was.

Does anyone have any recommendations for any interesting non-fiction books?
Udhaya, where are you?

I usually read fiction..(John Grisham,Jeffrey Archer etc) now I got APJ Abdul Kalam's Ignited minds with me. Its really inspiring. I would like it if someone recommended some works with a bit of humour.... thanx
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I am a new comer. I WISH i could have been a member long ago. zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance I am reading it second time. His theory on Quality is very good. have any one read the monk who sold his ferrari by robin s.sharma .absolutely fantastic.

Recently I read Matt Ridley's "Nature via nurture", "The origins of virtue", Jared Diamond's "Guns, germs and steel", Peter Turchin's "War and peace and war" and Paul Seabright's "The Company of strangers, a natural history of economic life" and I am surprised how ignorant I am despite being in academics most of my life. These books discuss many things relevant to understanding things in everyday life and might have made a difference if I had read them earlier. This phenomenon of ignorance seems common. Here is an excerpt from Edge. From:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/self...h06_index.html
"In the twentieth century, a period of great scientific advancement, instead of having science and technology at the center of the intellectual world — of having a unity in which scholarship included science and technology along with literature and art — the official culture kicked them out. Traditional humanities scholars looked at science and technology as some sort of technical special product. Elite universities nudged science out of the liberal arts undergraduate curriculum — and out of the minds of many young people, who, as the new academic establishment, so marginalized themselves that they are no longer within shouting distance of the action.

Yet it's the products of this educational system that go straight from their
desks at university literary magazines to their offices in the heart of the cultural establishment at our leading newspapers, magazines, and publishers. It's a problem that's systemic and not individual. Unless one is pursuing a career path in science, it is extremely difficult for a non-science major at a top research university to graduate with anything approaching what can be considered an education in science. I recently talked with a noted Italian intellectual, who is as familiar with string theory and as he is with Dante, and writes about both in his philosophical novels. In appraising this situation, he argued for restraint and compassion. "They just don't know," he sighed, "they just don't know." He might well have added, they don't even know that they don't know.

Somebody needs to tell them. Otherwise, we wind up with the center of
culture based on a closed system, a process of text in/text out, and no
empirical contact with the real world. One can only marvel at, for example, art critics who know nothing about visual perception; "social constructionist" literary critics uninterested in the human universals documented by anthropologists; opponents of genetically modified foods, additives, and pesticide residues who are ignorant of genetics and evolutionary biology. "

The current system seems to be leading people to reasonably successful
careers but somehow to a state "They do'nt even know what they do'nt know".
Perhaps we need some changes in the curriculam and meanwhile forums like this may help to educate each other. I think all the books are worth translating in to regional languages. I would be interested in translating ( to telugu) Paul Seabright's book first if there is a small group interested. Those who have note read these books can google for reviews; all have excellent reviews.
swarup