book-reviews on S Anand

Books in 2025

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 07:21:27 +0000

I read 51 books in 2025 (about the same as in 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.)

With a difference: I used AI to read 44 of them in the last week of the year.

Mind blowing

The Ants by Bert Hölldobler. Finally, after 20 years of wanting to read it. It lives up to the hype.
Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5) by Brandon Sanderson. The only fiction I’ve taken notes for. (About 500 points.)

Life changing (or at least, perspective changing)

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eger
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman
How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V.S. Ramachandran
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Interesting

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
Lux (Texas Reckoners, #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success by Josh Seiden
Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel
Small Wins Every Day: 100 Powerful Ways to Transform Your Life and Health by Luke Coutinho
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery by Jason Fung
The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally by Jason Fung
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science) by Richard Dawkins
The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (Secret Projects, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human by V.S. Ramachandran
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

Worth skipping

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair
Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine by Robert H. Lustig
Price of the Modi Years by Aakar Patel
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan
The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race by Daniel Z. Lieberman
The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Jason Fung
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn

Re-reading

Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Elantris (Elantris, #1) by Brandon Sanderson

Here’s the list on GoodReads, sorted by read date.

A busy break from blogging

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Between July 17th and August 22nd, I saw 57 movies and read 7 books. There were Saturdays when I watched four movies back-to-back. (I tried five. Couldn’t stay awake.) Amidst this, I also cooked, cleaned, shopped… and went to office. (Oh yes, I was working 10 hours a day.) And managed to build some interesting sites which I’ll release in a while.

But first, let me share the books with you.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I wasn’t planning to buy it. I figured I’d just wait for the soft copy. On 21st July at 8am, I went shopping to the local Sainsbury’s to get groceries for my pre-movie cooking. I didn’t know that was the release date. And there it was. In a huge stack. 50% discount. Should I? Shouldn’t I? After finishing the rest of my shopping, and having deeply analysed the cost-benefit and ROI, I figured: if I didn’t buy it now, someone else might tell me the answers!

Was Snape evil? I couldn’t believe that. Not after Dumbledore’s implicit trust. Besides, I re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and if Dumbledore was dismissing Harry’s explicit warnings about Snape, he had to know something more. Anyway, what was the significance of Dumbledore’s last words? “Severus… please…” Please what? Dumbledore begging for death seemed more likely than Dumbledore begging for life. I had to know.

Who dies? Voldemort, of course. But who else? It couldn’t be Harry, unless J K Rowling was looking to make herself one of the most hated novelists. Yet, it seems so… possible. Harry dying to take Voldemort out. Naah, can’t be. Not Ron or Hermione either. Same reason. One of the other Weasleys? Maybe. Plenty of them anyway. Hopefully Percy. Hargrid? Possible. Lupin? The last of Harry’s father’s friends?

And all the minor questions: What’s the significance of Harry’s eyes? What does Wormtail do to help Harry? What’s the significance of Voldemort having used Harry’s blood to resurrect himself? etc. etc.

So I bought it.

But didn’t start reading.

I knew that if I picked it up, I wouldn’t put it down. It was time to cook. And watch movies.

By 4:00pm, after three movies, I couldn’t stand it any more. So I picked it up. Read until 2:00am. Picked it up again on Sunday at 9:00am, and starved until 11:00am until I finished it.

Whew! What a book. Definitely the raciest of the lot. My earlier favourite in the series was The Prisoner of Azkaban, though The Half-Blood Prince came close. But this one beats them all. Resolves most of the mysteries till date, too. As Stephen King says in his review of Harry Potter, but by the time she penned the final line of Deathly Hallows, she had become one of the finer stylists in her native country.

How to be Good

And then there was Nick Hornby’s book. I’d seen a couple of his movies: About a Boy and High Fidelity. They were interesting, and I’d heard the books were good. Figured I’d pick one up.

And it was hilarious!

How to be Good is the funniest book I’ve read since Five Point Someone and The Inscrutable Americans. Most of my colleagues kept wondering what I was laughing out so loudly about.

This is the story. The author is a doctor and a good wife. “Gooder” than her husband, certainly, and that makes her feel good. Until he has suddently becomes GOOD. Truly good. Saint-like. And then she can’t stand him any more. The story is in first person, so you can see her thoughts almost verbatim. (See thoughts verbatim? Well, whatever the phrase is.)

The Runaway Jury

I had just seen the movie Runaway Jury, so I had to re-read it immediately. The movie was surprisingly good, though. Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz. Many changes from the book, but didn’t detract from the experience.

Batman Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and Understanding Comics

I saw 300. WOW! Brilliant. One of the greatest visual experiences ever. Possibly better than V for Vendetta and certainly better than Sin City – both of which I thought had incredible visuals. The colours, the texture, the contrast, the surrealism – whew!

That’s when it hit me. Three of the best movies I’ve seen recently were based on graphic novels (comics). Two by Frank Miller. Maybe I should explore this a little more.

I got myself Batman Year One – and that’s when I realised where Batman Begins got its inspiration from. The graphics were pretty old style, but the story, incredible. Then I picked up The Dark Knight Returns. Now THAT is phenomenal graphics. And what a story! Christopher Nolan’s next movie is slated to be The Dark Knight. Really looking forward to that.

With all this, I ended up reading a bunch of new Superman comics as well (but they were lousy, so I won’t mention anything), and in the meanwhile, heard about Scott McCloud’s comic book on comics – Understanding Comics. Like I said, it’s a comic book, but non-fiction. It’s about the history and art of comics. Very nice reading, and quite insightful too. I think every visual designer should take a look at it.

Pro Javascript Techniques

I’d been reading up a lot of Javascript recently – learning mostly from Douglas Crockford, Peter Paul-Koch, Dean Edwards, and John Resig. So when I realised John had a book, I had to read it. Douglas Crockford recommends JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (5th Edition) as the least bad among many bad books. I read it. Sorry, but it was quite a bore. Pro Javascript Techniques on the other hand, is gripping. Dives right into modern techniques, writing style, and is filled with practical advice. How wonderful.

So anyway, that’s what my month’s been like. Well worth the break from blogging, I think. (And I haven’t even told you about the movies or sites yet! Well, soon.)

Comments

Sachin Gopalakrishnan 24 Aug 2007 12:00 pm: And i thought this was not exactly a blog!!!
Vinu Yamunan 24 Aug 2007 12:00 pm: Dude, Where’’d you have the energy for all that? Seeing that you cooked, cleaned AND shopped, my guess is that the wife was not in town - true/false? Anyways, good to see you on the blogosphere. Love your music as well as the C&H search pages. Am surprised you have not commented on the ‘‘Asap Utilities Add-in" in your excel related postings… check it out if you haven’’t already! later Vinu
Karthik A 24 Aug 2007 12:00 pm: I felt so too about the last Harry Potter. Like Vinu said, you got the rights to 5 movies after cooking and cleaning on a weekend since your wife’’s not in town…..
sathish 24 Aug 2007 12:00 pm: Anand, a nice set of books.. especially the graphic novels.. I still do not understand the term graphic novel that much.. but, love comics anyway…. I have been reading Osama Tezuka’’s Buddha series - Every time, I see The Dark Knight, my hands itch; but, they are so damn costly in India (atleast the hardback is).. And if you are interested in fantasy - I would suggest Steven Erikson’’s – A Tale of Malazan The book of Fallen I have been reading them with greater ferocity than Tolkien and George R R Martin..Do give it a shot if you are in a mood for fantasy - but, be prepared for long long hours of endless reading..

55 ways to have fun with Google

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:00:00 +0000

55 ways to have fun with Google.

Comments

Dhar 25 Jun 2006 7:59 am: Just finished the book, didn’t find it too interesting. :((
S Anand 25 Jun 2006 8:52 am: Me neither. :-(

The Code Book

Tue, 27 May 2003 12:00:00 +0000

The Code Book by Simon Singh is the last book I read. It’s also the only non-fiction I managed to finish in two years.

Top reviewers on Amazon

Sat, 16 Nov 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Stars of Amazon – Anita’s article on book reviewers at Amazon. via Anita

Why history unfolded differently across continents

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Broad and insightful talk by Diamond on why history unfolded differently across continents. Note that he’s talking about why and not how. Based on his book: Guns, Germs and Steel.

The Veteran by Frederick Forsyth

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Just read Forsyth’s The Veteran. Excellent.

Enders Game

Sat, 12 Jan 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Ender’s Game is a pretty good book.

Books I bought recently

Wed, 05 Jul 2000 12:00:00 +0000

I bought Built to Last, Archer’s To Cut a Long Story Short, Crichton’s Timeline, Best Practices, and Handy’s The Age of Unreason at Fabmart. It was delivered in 5 days as promised.