Sasi asked me what non-fiction books I would read, given the chance, in the near future. So I put this list together, listing a few personal favourites. Some I have read, but wouldn’t mind reading, whereas some I haven’t. A couple of these are books I have half-read.
Ah Sasi, easy does it:
- Bill Bryson : A Short History of Nearly Everything : Pretty simple, and basic, but interesting reading.
- James Burke: Connections : Wonderful connections between some amazing things.
- Romila Thapar: A History of India Vol.1
- Romila Thapar: A History of India Vol.2 : Just so we know where we are from, if just cursorily.
- D. Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid : I can never seem to finish this. Mentally taxing, but and interesting, involving read.
- Hau: The Sound of the One Hand: 281 Zen Koans with Answers : Saw this at a bookstore once, spent 10 minutes with it. Returned the next day, and didn’t find it there. Have wanted it ever since.
- Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Non-Fictions : not quite non-fiction but very challenging. Borges essay and short stories are complicated works of art.
- Richard P. Feynman: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character : Read it a while ago, want to read it again.
- Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene : want to see what was in it that made Douglas Adams an Atheist.
- Martin Gardner: One of
- The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems : A must-read, or so I’ve heard.
- A Gardner’s Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit : Seems interesting enough to me.
- The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener : Try it out for size.
History of India Vol 2 is by Percival Spear, not Romila Thapar
And try Dawkins’s Blind Watchmaker as well.
carthik, few of the links point to ‘no results’ search on amazon.
I found the Feynmann one was broken and I fixed it, thanks Hari!
I just read Suketu Mehta’s “Maximum City” which is a must read for anyone of Indian origin.