Here is the post everyone was waiting for – list of books I crunched in 2015 – and here is the list for 2010, 11, 12, 13, 2014.
2015 began well with The Martian. Saw the movie on October 2nd, 2015 too – well made and did not disappoint. I will recommend the book any day – brilliantly written and well researched.
Once a Runner
Then one day I took a decision – lets run a marathon. So to inspire myself picked up this classic. This is a fun read and has some hilarious moments in the hero’s college days. Has lot of philosophy on running.
Seven Years in Tibet
I had seen this movie before – Brad Pitt is the hero. In this case I recommend the movie. The book is an autobiography of a German Mountaineer who is imprisoned in British India and how he escapes and reaches Tibet. This could very well be the first book to ever be written about Tibet – as Tibet is very secretive and does not allow outsiders in. The first half was very interesting – our Hero ( Heinrich Harrier ) escapes and gets captured multiple times. Finally he makes it to Tibet surviving the harsh weather and bandits.
A Wizard of Earth Sea
Harry Potter is a poor copy of Wizard of Earth Sea ( written in 1968 ). Harry Potter is this boring kind of guy – who will ace in everything and will not do anything wrong. In the Wizard of Earth Sea however, our hero kid is quite complicated. He is prone to vanity – like any of us – and once he loses his mind and invokes a very dangerous spell which kills his teacher ( dumbledore like character ), and brings out the dark creatures ( much like Voldemort ) from the depths. Rest of the book he tries to fix this. Highly recommend the book – especially to Harry Potter fans – you should know what a poor copy Harry Potter is.
2001, A Space Odyssey
I had seen the movie long back and did not understand it. Read the book and understood to the most part but for the ending. Wont spoil it for you. The book was ahead of its times. After reading the book saw the movie again. The book was written mainly for the movie. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke collaborated a lot – and it shows in the movie.
I ran the Kaveri Trail Half Marathon listening to this book.
The Devotion of Suspect X
There was this hit movie – Dhrishyam – a Malayalam Movie, which was remade in Tamil as Papanasam and then in Hindi – as Dhrishyam again. Was quite curious and read somewhere that the story is based on a Japanese murder thriller.
And what a story this turned out to be. A High School Mathematics teacher will do an elaborate setup to cover a murder. And a Physics professor – his school friend – will try to break it. A well structured cat and mouse game. Even if you have watched the movie – you should read this book. The movie(s) don’t do justice to this story.
Natural Born Heroes – Christopher Mc Dougall
I am a big fan of Born to Run – it made me a runner. This was the second part and a huge disappointment. In this book the author tries to uncover another energy within humans – elastic energy – which the parkour athletes use – and how it had helped the Davids win against the Goliaths. The book never took off – drudged on and on till I dropped it midway. Wasted money.
Darbar – Tavleen Singh
I don’t know how much of stuff written in this book is fact or fiction – but scary nevertheless. Lot of stories are covered – Sikh Riots, the self made mess in Kashmir – which our poor soldiers are still losing their lives – and the Gandhi family – who still are very much in power and will be for the next 2 centuries. You are a person who like politics or not, you are on BJP/AAP/Congress/Amma/Appa or whatever allegiance you are on – read this.
Scrum
This is the book from the horse’s mouth – the creator of Scrum. If you are a manager, developer, BA, Project Manager, Client, practice agile or not – read this book.
Bhagwat Gita as is
I had a goal to read all the religious books in my lifetime. Towards this I got this book from Iskon – thinking this is it – the unadulterated version as the title claimed. Would have read 100 pages or so – but some of the interpretations in it had my blood boiling. So left it “as is”.
SingleTasking
The title says it all. This is a small book – a blog post would have sufficed. It has study after study proving why Single Tasking is the way to go. It did help me in restrategising how I work – as at one point I was doing it all – and poorly.
Being Mortal
A must read for all of us. I witnessed my Father in law’s condition deteriorate – after undergoing 6 rounds of Chemo ( 3 before and 3 after a major surgery ) – and still we could not save him. This book will help plan our life at its end, as well as our loved ones.
1984 by George Oliver.
This book is eerily close to the truth. So many of the terms we loosely use like “Big Brother” – came from this book. The book describes a dystopian world – and the attempt by our hero to break it. After reading this book – and now when I see the newspaper – can already see some of the things in the book being enacted. Sigh.
Sorry for ending on a sad note. Books hold a mirror – and it is not pretty what we see in the mirror.
And in terms of quantity I did very poorly – hardly 1 book a month. For 2016 I have put a high goal of 1 book per week. Lagging behind terribly. Have to plan a few book vacations. Hmm.. why not?!
