Ankit's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:50:34 -0700 60 Ankit's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)]]> 768889
The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb's defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his young sisters in their power.

Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.]]> 663 George R.R. Martin 0006479901 Ankit 5 read-in-college 4.47 2000 A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/17
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: read-in-college
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor]]> 105189 106 Gabriel García Márquez Ankit 0 to-read 3.85 1955 The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In the Miso Soup 17810
From postmodern Renaissance man Ryu Murakami, master of the psycho-thriller and director of Tokyo Decadence, comes this shocking, hair-raising roller-coaster ride through the nefarious neon-lit world of Tokyo’s sex industry.]]> 217 Ryū Murakami 014303569X Ankit 0 to-read 3.62 1997 In the Miso Soup
author: Ryū Murakami
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[English, August: An Indian Story]]> 75703 English, August is a comic masterpiece from contemporary India. Like A Confederacy of Dunces and The Catcher in the Rye, it is both an inspired and hilarious satire and a timeless story of self-discovery.]]> 326 Upamanyu Chatterjee 1590171799 Ankit 0 to-read 3.78 1988 English, August: An Indian Story
author: Upamanyu Chatterjee
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Ankit 0 to-read 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Ankit 0 to-read 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death in Venice and Other Tales]]> 53064 384 Thomas Mann 0141181737 Ankit 0 to-read 3.92 1911 Death in Venice and Other Tales
author: Thomas Mann
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Ankit 5 read-in-college, favourites
The power this story carries has flew beyond measurement. I can't help but feel sorrowful on the things I imagined when reading it. It is thus evident to me that a great piece of fiction doesn't necessarily have to be complicated. ]]> 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2019/12/05
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: read-in-college, favourites
review:
This literature is nothing more but a narrative of a single day of the ten-year labor camp imprisonment of a Soviet prisoner—Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.—Though one can not help but notice what is beyond words: the strong symbolism; relating to maintaining the individuality of himself where every prisoner is treated like animal; relating to the will for physical and spiritual sustenance—evident when he shares his biscuit with no expectation of payback; and many more unspoken and thus unexplained words.

The power this story carries has flew beyond measurement. I can't help but feel sorrowful on the things I imagined when reading it. It is thus evident to me that a great piece of fiction doesn't necessarily have to be complicated.
]]> The Surrealist Manifesto 19471864 Manifestoes of Surrealism is a book by André Breton, describing the aims, meaning, and political position of the Surrealist movement.

The translators of this edition were finalists of the 1970 National Book Awards in the category of translation.]]> 40 André Breton Ankit 3 "I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality," is what surrealism is.

Obviously, any cultural movement (or genre) expands as the peer-reviewed understanding of related works that lie in such type expands itself.

PS: Dreams good, reality dreams same-same, get super-reality nay-nay'ed, it's cool.]]> 3.72 1924 The Surrealist Manifesto
author: André Breton
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1924
rating: 3
read at: 2020/06/26
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves:
review:
Expressing functioning of thought with words, or citing Breton's words, "I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality," is what surrealism is.

Obviously, any cultural movement (or genre) expands as the peer-reviewed understanding of related works that lie in such type expands itself.

PS: Dreams good, reality dreams same-same, get super-reality nay-nay'ed, it's cool.
]]> Thanda Gosht 43271941 0 Saadat Hasan Manto 491785783X Ankit 3 read-in-college
I remember reading it after watching the Hindi film 'Manto,' just to get a feel of it. And I remember leaving with no effect on me whatsoever.]]> 4.17 1950 Thanda Gosht
author: Saadat Hasan Manto
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1950
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/20
date added: 2023/11/24
shelves: read-in-college
review:
Abraded when the culture deplored the strange.

I remember reading it after watching the Hindi film 'Manto,' just to get a feel of it. And I remember leaving with no effect on me whatsoever.
]]> The Richest Engineer 35262950 This is a very good book on managing personal finance. It gives clear principles to follow, which enable individuals to accumulate wealth by investing his or her income properly. -Sitaram Jindal, Chairman and Managing Director, Jindal Aluminium Ltd.

Have you ever wondered why some people get rich easily, while others struggle financially all their lives? Is the difference because of their educational qualifications or their choice of jobs, business or investments? Is it that luck has favoured them selectively, while bypassing the vast majority of people? Is it that they have special skills and are far more intelligent than others?
The Shocking Answer is: None of the above!
In his maiden novel, Abhishek Kumar reveals the timeless wisdom of wealth creation and accumulation and shows how anybody - no matter where they stand in life at this time - can become a millionaire. The riles provided in book are not a get-rich-quick formula, but they do guide the reader to financial independence which can be achieved on nothing more than an average salary. Through fictional conversations between two friends, Vinay - the financial wizard and Ajay, his college mate, you will learn exactly what has been stopping you from becoming rich and how you can change yourself to live the life you always dreamt of - a life of wealth, abundance and financial freedom.]]> 245 Abhishek Kumar Ankit 0 to-read 4.33 2016 The Richest Engineer
author: Abhishek Kumar
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> Study of Palmistry 3250290 416 Comte de Saint-Germain 1871948037 Ankit 3 read-in-college I read this book because I didn't find any other in my old dusty room. I think it won't be completely incorrect if I said that it was indeed a waste of 4 hours and 40 minutes. Even though it was interesting to read such concepts written with absolute clarity; the diagrams, and certainty of thoughts that had put in writing this book, seem incredible but I still don't think Chiromancy is a real science. I did get knowledge in Palmistry though.


I genuinely thank the author for writing this book and hope his 234 years of the afterlife would have been a great and smooth journey and I wish him peace of eternity.]]> 3.40 1973 Study of Palmistry
author: Comte de Saint-Germain
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2017/12/29
date added: 2023/03/08
shelves: read-in-college
review:
From a cursory examination of the multi-celled organism world, it is to be said that we could gather plenty of information and complete insight into the structure of the body, I do not agree with this statement.
I read this book because I didn't find any other in my old dusty room. I think it won't be completely incorrect if I said that it was indeed a waste of 4 hours and 40 minutes. Even though it was interesting to read such concepts written with absolute clarity; the diagrams, and certainty of thoughts that had put in writing this book, seem incredible but I still don't think Chiromancy is a real science. I did get knowledge in Palmistry though.


I genuinely thank the author for writing this book and hope his 234 years of the afterlife would have been a great and smooth journey and I wish him peace of eternity.
]]> <![CDATA[In Praise of Idleness: A Timeless Essay]]> 40673067 � Bertrand Russell

Considered “the Voltaire of his time�, Bertrand Russell was a fearless iconoclast who stood unbowed before political and religious leaders; his disdain for conventional thinking and accepted beliefs set him apart from his academic peers and at odds with the authorities throughout his long and storied life.

In his celebrated essay In Praise Of Idleness, Russell champions the seemingly incongruous notion that realising our full potential � and thus enjoying the greatest possible success and happiness � is not accomplished by working harder or smarter, but through harnessing the extraordinary power of idleness.

Russell’s penetrating insights and exquisite turns of phrase feel as fresh and relevant today as when they were first written. Arguing that we can achieve far more by doing far less, and that traditional wealth accumulation is a form of cultural and moral poverty, Russell demands greater depth from our age of abundant creativity and heralds the next wave of enlightened entrepreneurs.
Replete with a new introduction and afterword, and interspersed with comic illustrations, informative notes plus a curated selection of Russell’s best quotes from many of his acclaimed works, this unique edition of In Praise Of Idleness is given new life by New York Times–bestselling author and internationally acclaimed humourist Bradley Trevor Greive.]]> 192 Bertrand Russell 1760640735 Ankit 0 to-read 4.13 1935 In Praise of Idleness: A Timeless Essay
author: Bertrand Russell
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1935
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Ankit 0 to-read 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life]]> 36064445 New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility

In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.

As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:

� For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
� Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general.
� Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
� You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistines� have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.
� Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
� True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.

The phrase “skin in the game� is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, “The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,� and “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.”]]> 272 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 0241300657 Ankit 0 to-read 3.87 2018 Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable]]> 242472
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.�

For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,� which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.]]> 480 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400063515 Ankit 0 to-read 3.96 2007 The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder]]> 13530973
In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem; in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what he calls the "antifragile" is one step beyond robust, as it benefits from adversity, uncertainty and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension.

Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, and proposing that things be built in an antifragile manner. Extremely ambitious and multidisciplinary, Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave—and thrive—in a world we don't understand and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand. He who is not antifragile will perish. Why is the city state better than the nation state, why is debt bad for you, and why is almost everything modern bound to fail? The book covers innovation, health, biology, medicine, life decisions, politics, foreign policy, urban planning, war, personal finance, and economic systems. Throughout, the voice and recipes of the ancient wisdom from Phoenician, Roman, Greek, and Medieval sources are heard loud and clear.]]> 426 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400067820 Ankit 0 to-read 4.08 2012 Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship]]> 3735293 Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship . Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code on the fly into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer but only if you work at it.
What kind of work will you be doing? You'll be reading code - lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what's right about that code, and what's wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft.
Clean Code is divided into three parts. The first describes the principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second part consists of several case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in cleaning up code - of transforming a code base that has some problems into one that is sound and efficient. The third part is the payoff: a single chapter containing a list of heuristics and "smells" gathered while creating the case studies. The result is a knowledge base that describes the way we think when we write, read, and clean code.
Readers will come away from this book understanding

� How to tell the difference between good and bad code
� How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code
� How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes
� How to format code for maximum readability
� How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic
� How to unit test and practice test-driven development

This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.]]> 464 Robert C. Martin 0132350882 Ankit 0 to-read 4.37 2007 Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
author: Robert C. Martin
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't]]> 97905 The definitive guide to working with -- and surviving -- bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, egomaniacs, and all the other assholes who do their best to destroy you at work.

What an asshole!

How many times have you said that about someone at work? You're not alone! In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company. Practical, compassionate, and in places downright funny, this guide offers:

Strategies on how to pinpoint and eliminate negative influences for good
Illuminating case histories from major organizations
A self-diagnostic test and a program to identify and keep your own inner jerk from coming out


The No Asshole Rule is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Business Week bestseller.]]> 224 Robert I. Sutton 0446526568 Ankit 0 to-read 3.59 2007 The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
author: Robert I. Sutton
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Computing: A Concise History (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)]]> 13697671 216 Paul E. Ceruzzi 0262517671 Ankit 0 to-read 3.45 2012 Computing: A Concise History (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)
author: Paul E. Ceruzzi
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity]]> 29939161
"I raced through Radical Candor --It’s thrilling to learn a framework that shows how to be both a better boss and a better colleague. Radical Candor is packed with illuminating truths, insightful advice, and practical suggestions, all illustrated with engaging (and often funny) stories from Kim Scott’s own experiences at places like Apple, Google, and various start-ups. Indispensable." � Gretchen Rubin author of New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project

"Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives. Kim Scott's insights--based on her experience, keen observational intelligence and analysis--will help you be a better leader and create a more effective organization." � Sheryl Sandberg author of the New York Times bestseller Lean In

"Kim Scott has a well-earned reputation as a kick-ass boss and a voice that CEOs take seriously. In this remarkable book, she draws on her extensive experience to provide clear and honest guidance on the fundamentals of leading others: how to give (and receive) feedback, how to make smart decisions, how to keep moving forward, and much more. If you manage people--whether it be 1 person or a 1,000--you need Radical Candor . Now." � Daniel Pink author of New York Times bestseller Drive

From the time we learn to speak, we’re told that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. When you become a manager, it’s your job to say it--and your obligation.

Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor.

Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging it’s ruinous empathy. When you do neither it’s manipulative insincerity.

This simple framework can help you build better relationships at work, and fulfill your three key responsibilities as a leader: creating a culture of feedback (praise and criticism), building a cohesive team, and achieving results you’re all proud of.

Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author’s experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the reader; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.]]> 336 Kim Malone Scott 1250103509 Ankit 0 to-read 4.05 2017 Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
author: Kim Malone Scott
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence]]> 55723020
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

"Brilliant... riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued."--Beth Macy, author of Dopesick


INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
“Brilliant� riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick
As heard on Fresh Air]]> 304 Anna Lembke 1524746738 Ankit 0 to-read 3.88 2021 Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
author: Anna Lembke
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/21
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]]> Dune (Dune, #1) 44767458
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.]]> 658 Frank Herbert 059309932X Ankit 0 to-read 4.33 1965 Dune (Dune, #1)
author: Frank Herbert
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> Lonesome Traveler 57901 157 Jack Kerouac 0141184906 Ankit 0 to-read 3.77 1960 Lonesome Traveler
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Life and Times: Munshi Premchand]]> 28058137 230 Madan Gopal 9351940934 Ankit 0 to-read 4.00 2006 My Life and Times: Munshi Premchand
author: Madan Gopal
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings]]> 3193795 16 Gabriel García Márquez Ankit 4 3.76 1968 A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/06/19
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]]> The Antichrist 441274 88 Friedrich Nietzsche 1420925091 Ankit 0 to-read 3.75 1895 The Antichrist
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1895
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs]]> 16678349 32 Matthue Roth 1935548255 Ankit 0 to-read 3.88 2013 My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs
author: Matthue Roth
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/15
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]]> Introducing Kafka 143287 175 David Zane Mairowitz 0878162828 Ankit 0 to-read 4.08 1993 Introducing Kafka
author: David Zane Mairowitz
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Infinite Jest 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Ankit 0 to-read 4.26 1996 Infinite Jest
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/08
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]]> Sophie’s World 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]> 403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Ankit 0 to-read 3.94 1991 Sophie’s World
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/05
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]]> Eunoia 765252 105 Christian Bök 1552450929 Ankit 0 to-read 4.05 1999 Eunoia
author: Christian Bök
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA['Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science (Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies)]]> 160752
A long overdue critical look at a significant strain of the twentieth-century avant-garde, ' The Poetics of Imaginary Science raises important historical, cultural, and theoretical issues germane to the production and reception of poetry, the ways we think about, write, and read it, and the sorts of claims it makes upon our understanding.]]> 133 Christian Bök 0810118777 Ankit 0 to-read 4.02 2001 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science (Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies)
author: Christian Bök
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/15
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]]> The Xenotext: Book 1 25074233 160 Christian Bök 1552453219 Ankit 0 to-read 3.99 2015 The Xenotext: Book 1
author: Christian Bök
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand]]> 12117
Vitangelo Moscarda ``loses his reality'' when his wife cavalierly informs him that his nose tilts to the right; suddenly he realizes that ``for others I was not what till now, privately, I had imagined myself to be,'' and that, consequently, his identity is evanescent, based purely on the shifting perceptions of those around him. Thus he is simultaneously without a self--``no one''--and the theater for myriad selves--``one hundred thousand.'' In a crazed search for an identity independent of others' preconceptions, Moscarda careens from one disaster to the next and finds his freedom even as he is declared insane.

It is Pirandello's genius that a discussion of the fundamental human inability to communicate, of our essential solitariness, and of the inescapable restriction of our free will elicits such thoroughly sustained and earthy laughter.]]> 174 Luigi Pirandello 0941419746 Ankit 0 to-read 4.14 1925 One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
author: Luigi Pirandello
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/09
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]]> The Late Mattia Pascal 12116
An explorer of identity and its mysteries, a connoisseur of black humor, Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello is among the most teasing and profound of modern masters. The Late Mattia Pascal, here rendered into English by the outstanding translator William Weaver, offers an irresistible introduction to this great writer's work]]> 272 Luigi Pirandello 1590171152 Ankit 0 to-read 4.07 1904 The Late Mattia Pascal
author: Luigi Pirandello
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1904
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Six Characters in Search of an Author]]> 741618 Six Characters in Search of an Author, embodies the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's innovations by presenting an open-ended drama on a stage without sets.
First performed in 1923, this intellectual comedy introduces six individuals to a stage where a company of actors has assembled for a rehearsal. Claiming to be the incomplete, unused creations of an author's imagination, they demand lines for a story that will explain the details of their lives. In ensuing scenes, these "real-life characters," all professing to be part of an extended family, produce a drama of sorts � punctuated by disagreements, interruptions, and arguments. In the end they are dismissed by the irate manager, their dilemma unsolved and the "truth" a matter of individual viewpoints.
A tour de force exploring the many faces of reality, this classic is now available in an inexpensive edition that will be welcomed by amateur theatrical groups as well as by students of drama.]]> 64 Luigi Pirandello 0486299929 Ankit 0 to-read 3.82 1921 Six Characters in Search of an Author
author: Luigi Pirandello
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1921
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/09
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]]> Roadmarks 939645 185 Roger Zelazny 0345345150 Ankit 0 to-read 3.85 1979 Roadmarks
author: Roger Zelazny
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bestiario 191373
1. "Casa Tomada" ("House Taken Over")
2. " Carta a una señorita en París" (Letter to a Young Lady in Paris")
3. "Lejana" ("The Distances")
4. "Ómnibus" ("Omnibus")
5. "Cefalea" ("Headache")
6. "Circe" ("Circe")
7. "Las puertas del cielo" ("The Gates of Heaven")
8. "Bestiario" ("Bestiary")]]> 104 Julio Cortázar 8466309896 Ankit 0 to-read 4.25 1951 Bestiario
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> Blow-Up and Other Stories 53410
Axolotl
House taken over
Distances
Idol of the Cyclades
Letter to a young lady in Paris
Yellow flower
Continuity of parks
Night face up
Bestiary
Gates of heaven
Blow-up
End of the game
At your service
Pursuer
Secret weapons.]]> 277 Julio Cortázar 0394728815 Ankit 0 currently-reading 4.23 1968 Blow-Up and Other Stories
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Growth of the Soil 342049 435 Knut Hamsun 0394717813 Ankit 0 to-read 4.27 1917 Growth of the Soil
author: Knut Hamsun
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1917
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hunger 32585 134 Knut Hamsun 0486431681 Ankit 0 to-read 4.09 1890 Hunger
author: Knut Hamsun
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1890
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Suicide 4604185 128 Édouard Levé 2846822360 Ankit 0 to-read 4.18 2008 Suicide
author: Édouard Levé
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Final Exam 335698
The setting of Final Exam is a surreal Buenos Aires, dark and eerie, where a strange fog has enveloped the city to everyone's bewilderment. Juan and Clara, two students, meet up with their friends Andres and Stella, as well as a journalist friend they call "the chronicler." Juan and Clara are getting ready to take their final exams, but instead of preparing, they wander the city with their friends, encounter strange happenings in the squares and ponder life in cafes. All the while, they are trailed by the mysterious Abel.

With its daring typography, its shifts in rhythm as well as in the wildly veering directions of its characters' thoughts and speech, Final Exam breaks new ground in the territory of stream-of-consciousness narrative techniques. It is considered one of Cortazar's best works.]]> 237 Julio Cortázar 0811214176 Ankit 0 to-read 3.84 1952 Final Exam
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
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review:

]]> The Winners 53418
The Winners is the story of a luxury cruise, bound for an unknown destination, which runs terribly amok. Funny, frightening, lyrical, and humane, it is a deeply satisfying philosophical novel about crossed lives and wayward love, as well as a brilliant meditation on the myth of the New World.]]> 456 Julio Cortázar 0940322315 Ankit 0 to-read 3.89 1960 The Winners
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Happy Endings 13250990 3 Margaret Atwood Ankit 1
After John and Mary meet, Atwood writes 6 types of different endings which are as follows.

A: Everything works ideally as per the modern-traditional pop culture dictates. Couple gets married in love, lives with assets and wealth. Repetition of "stimulating and challenging" implicates the "intellectual" ideology of living a life. That to get stimulated and challenged must result in growth and thus differentiating itself from the idea of wasting one's life in menial jobs and steady life.

B: As per the usual screenplay of a terrible Bollywood movie where both genders take stereotypical roles of tragic modern abusive relationship. Where John uses Mary for selfish acts and with the lack of a karma-cycle in practical life, it results terribly for Mary and John lives happily with some other girl.

C: As per another boring screenplay of a terrible Hollywood movie both genders take stereotypical roles. James---an old guy---finds his young affair, and with a burst of despair for his bad choices, he kills all who are witness including himself. His wife lives happily with some other man.

D: Since A seems extremely ideal, to mix up the sentiment; Couple here is introduced to a financial crisis as they overcome it, A follows.

E: Man dies with heart disease. And woman lives with what she can get.

F: Writer points that only one authentic ending exists and that is everyone dies. Fiction goes on as a story from the past, and it ends with death. Though this is entirely certain, I find it overly processed. Asking a question with a 'what' does not necessitates the answer to stay in its realm, it can also include 'how', thus answering itself that there are thousands of emotions felt and lived before death, and in that period of time were excessively real and even death can't take that away. Writing a life in short and then justifying its meaninglessness is then only and only absurd.
]]> 3.96 1983 Happy Endings
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1983
rating: 1
read at: 2021/02/23
date added: 2021/02/22
shelves:
review:
Pre-S: Reading this short story as a course-assignment.

After John and Mary meet, Atwood writes 6 types of different endings which are as follows.

A: Everything works ideally as per the modern-traditional pop culture dictates. Couple gets married in love, lives with assets and wealth. Repetition of "stimulating and challenging" implicates the "intellectual" ideology of living a life. That to get stimulated and challenged must result in growth and thus differentiating itself from the idea of wasting one's life in menial jobs and steady life.

B: As per the usual screenplay of a terrible Bollywood movie where both genders take stereotypical roles of tragic modern abusive relationship. Where John uses Mary for selfish acts and with the lack of a karma-cycle in practical life, it results terribly for Mary and John lives happily with some other girl.

C: As per another boring screenplay of a terrible Hollywood movie both genders take stereotypical roles. James---an old guy---finds his young affair, and with a burst of despair for his bad choices, he kills all who are witness including himself. His wife lives happily with some other man.

D: Since A seems extremely ideal, to mix up the sentiment; Couple here is introduced to a financial crisis as they overcome it, A follows.

E: Man dies with heart disease. And woman lives with what she can get.

F: Writer points that only one authentic ending exists and that is everyone dies. Fiction goes on as a story from the past, and it ends with death. Though this is entirely certain, I find it overly processed. Asking a question with a 'what' does not necessitates the answer to stay in its realm, it can also include 'how', thus answering itself that there are thousands of emotions felt and lived before death, and in that period of time were excessively real and even death can't take that away. Writing a life in short and then justifying its meaninglessness is then only and only absurd.

]]> Hopscotch 53413 Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures.

The book is highly influenced by Henry Miller’s reckless and relentless search for truth in post-decadent Paris and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s modal teachings on Zen Buddhism.

Cortázar's employment of interior monologue, punning, slang, and his use of different languages is reminiscent of Modernist writers like Joyce, although his main influences were Surrealism and the French New Novel, as well as the "riffing" aesthetic of jazz and New Wave Cinema.

In 1966, Gregory Rabassa won the first National Book Award to recognize the work of a translator, for his English-language edition of Hopscotch. Julio Cortázar was so pleased with Rabassa's translation of Hopscotch that he recommended the translator to Gabriel García Márquez when García Márquez was looking for someone to translate his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude into English. "Rabassa's One Hundred Years of Solitude improved the original," according to García Márquez.]]> 564 Julio Cortázar 0394752848 Ankit 0 to-read 4.24 1963 Hopscotch
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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]]> The Name of the Rose 119073 552 Umberto Eco 0156001314 Ankit 0 to-read 4.13 1980 The Name of the Rose
author: Umberto Eco
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Foucault’s Pendulum 17841 623 Umberto Eco 015603297X Ankit 0 to-read 3.92 1988 Foucault’s Pendulum
author: Umberto Eco
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fathers and Sons 19117
Fathers and Sons enraged the old and the young, reactionaries, romantics, and radicals alike when it was first published. At the same time, Turgenev won the acclaim of Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for his craftsmanship as a writer and his psychological insight. Fathers and Sons is now considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to come—and offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.

Introduction by Jane Costlow]]> 244 Ivan Turgenev 0451529693 Ankit 0 to-read 3.99 1862 Fathers and Sons
author: Ivan Turgenev
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1862
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/20
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review:

]]> Axolotl 16147399 7 Julio Cortázar Ankit 3
Among his usual themes of quest for identity, existential angst, and somewhat political radicalism; it seems to me that a style of narrative obsession is quite frequent.

Here Cortazar blurs the line between him and an axolotl, the strange creature who goes direct into adulthood without the process of metamorphosis. And so parts of analogical exo-features remains undeveloped, like eyelids.

But the boy changed. The realization of passivity and curiousness consumed him. He changed into something that never changes. He is in the shell now. Nothing to change and just to live.

PS: Really wanna read his longer works now.]]> 4.13 1956 Axolotl
author: Julio Cortázar
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1956
rating: 3
read at: 2021/02/19
date added: 2021/02/19
shelves:
review:
Before going into this short story, I was aware of Cortazar from the Latin American Literature Boom; with him, Marquez, Llosa, and Fuentes.

Among his usual themes of quest for identity, existential angst, and somewhat political radicalism; it seems to me that a style of narrative obsession is quite frequent.

Here Cortazar blurs the line between him and an axolotl, the strange creature who goes direct into adulthood without the process of metamorphosis. And so parts of analogical exo-features remains undeveloped, like eyelids.

But the boy changed. The realization of passivity and curiousness consumed him. He changed into something that never changes. He is in the shell now. Nothing to change and just to live.

PS: Really wanna read his longer works now.
]]> Society of the Spectacle 526627 Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and everyday life in the late twentieth century. Now finally available in a superb English translation approved by the author, Debord's text remains as crucial as ever for understanding the contemporary effects of power, which are increasingly inseparable from the new virtual worlds of our rapidly changing image/information culture.

]]> 132 Guy Debord 0934868077 Ankit 0 to-read 3.99 1967 Society of the Spectacle
author: Guy Debord
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Ankit 3
One common idea in a story is to have an intellectual yet witty character, who mainly provides an ideology or philosophy that aligns to author in some way. Lord Henry is too much of it. Henry says, Henry is witty, Henry corrupts, oh oh Dorian sad now. The idiosyncratic traits feel a bit too passive and abnormal.

Though the psychological manipulation of any mind is great to read but I wouldn't call it too clever with the writing style.

PS: "Warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired"]]> 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 3
read at: 2021/02/18
date added: 2021/02/18
shelves:
review:
The concept of Faustian bargain was super common, so not sure if I should point that out. As any literary "park benches," the book has only countable number of them: the chapter eleven and the last one. Inadvertently, the story became intriguing only at a few twists and then the dullness saturated.

One common idea in a story is to have an intellectual yet witty character, who mainly provides an ideology or philosophy that aligns to author in some way. Lord Henry is too much of it. Henry says, Henry is witty, Henry corrupts, oh oh Dorian sad now. The idiosyncratic traits feel a bit too passive and abnormal.

Though the psychological manipulation of any mind is great to read but I wouldn't call it too clever with the writing style.

PS: "Warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired"
]]> The God of Small Things 9777
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.]]> 321 Arundhati Roy 0679457313 Ankit 0 to-read 3.97 1997 The God of Small Things
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/18
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]]> Caligula and Cross Purpose 17341476 HÉLICON : Et qu'est-ce donc que cette vérité, Caïus ?
CALIGULA : Les hommes meurent et ils ne sont pas heureux.
HÉLICON : Allons, Caïus, c'est une vérité dont on s'arrange très bien. Regarde autour de toi. Ce n'est pas cela qui les empêche de déjeuner.
CALIGULA : Alors, c'est que tout, autour de moi, est mensonge, et moi, je veux qu'on vive dans la vérité !]]> 156 Albert Camus Ankit 5 read-in-college
The tone was clear and the philosophy was bare. When the drama ends, one would ask the same question as one would ask if he looks out in the world, "The actions of the universe doesn't make any sense." And precisely that is what makes us human.

The world is cruel to both: the criminal and the innocent.

Excellent drama and dialogues. And Albert Camus stays one of my most favorite writers.]]> 4.00 1944 Caligula and Cross Purpose
author: Albert Camus
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1944
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/07
date added: 2021/02/16
shelves: read-in-college
review:
I read the Cross Purpose (or The Misunderstanding) play, and not Caligula.

The tone was clear and the philosophy was bare. When the drama ends, one would ask the same question as one would ask if he looks out in the world, "The actions of the universe doesn't make any sense." And precisely that is what makes us human.

The world is cruel to both: the criminal and the innocent.

Excellent drama and dialogues. And Albert Camus stays one of my most favorite writers.
]]> On Photography 6328162 207 Susan Sontag 0141035781 Ankit 0 to-read 3.98 1973 On Photography
author: Susan Sontag
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility]]> 189989 Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life, the games we play in business and politics, in the bedroom and on the battlefied -- games with winners and losers, a beginning and an end. Infinite games are more mysterious -- and ultimately more rewarding. They are unscripted and unpredictable; they are the source of true freedom.
In this elegant and compelling work, James Carse explores what these games mean, and what they can mean to you. He offers stunning new insights into the nature of property and power, of culture and community, of sexuality and self-discovery, opening the door to a world of infinite delight and possibility.
"An extraordinary little book . . . a wise and intimate companion, an elegant reminder of the real."
-- Brain/Mind Bulletin]]> 180 James P. Carse 0345341848 Ankit 0 to-read 3.72 1986 Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
author: James P. Carse
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]> 52198 An eternal being created human society as it is today, and submission to superiors and authority is imposed on the lower classes by divine will. This suggestion, coming from the pulpit, platform and press, has hypnotized the minds of men and proves to be one of the strongest pillars of exploitation.

The history of the family dates from 1861, the year of the publication of Bachofen's Mutterrecht (maternal law) Engles makes the following propositions:

1. That in the beginning people lived in unrestricted sexual intercourse, which he dubs, not very felicitously, hetaerism.

2. That such an intercourse excludes any absolutely certain means of determining parentage; that consequently descent could only be traced by the female line in compliance with maternal law; and that this was universally practiced by all the nations of antiquity.

3. That consequently women as mothers, being the only well known parents of younger generations, received a high tribute of respect and deference, amounting to a complete women's rule (gynaicocracy), according to Bachofen's idea.

4. That the transition to monogamy, reserving a certain woman exclusively to one man, implied the violation of the primeval religious law (i.e., practically a violation of the customary right of all other men to the same woman), which violation had to be atoned for its permission purchased by the surrender of the women to the public for a limited time.

]]> 220 Friedrich Engels 0898754690 Ankit 0 to-read 4.15 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
author: Friedrich Engels
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1884
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It]]> 189146
• The external factors that trigger ADD
• How to create an environment that promotes health and healing
• Ritalin and other drugs
• ADD adults
� And much more...

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) has quickly become a controversial topic in recent years. Whereas other books on the subject describe the condition as inherited, Dr. Maté believes that our social and emotional environments play a key role in both the cause of and cure for this condition. In Scattered , he describes the painful realities of ADD and its effect on children as well as on career and social paths in adults.

While acknowledging that genetics may indeed play a part in predisposing a person toward ADD, Dr. Maté moves beyond that to focus on the things we can changes in environment, family dynamics, and parenting choices. He draws heavily on his own experience with the disorder, as both an ADD sufferer and the parent of three diagnosed children. Providing a thorough overview of ADD and its treatments, Scattered is essential and life-changing reading for the millions of ADD sufferers in North America today.]]> 368 Gabor Maté 0452279631 Ankit 0 to-read 4.33 1999 Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It
author: Gabor Maté
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Absalom, Absalom! 373755 316 William Faulkner 0679732187 Ankit 0 to-read 3.97 1936 Absalom, Absalom!
author: William Faulkner
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Civilization and Its Discontents]]> 132445 176 Sigmund Freud 0141182369 Ankit 0 to-read 3.72 1930 Civilization and Its Discontents
author: Sigmund Freud
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Disturbing the Universe 134225



Spanning the years from World War II, when he was a civilian statistician in the operations research section of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, through his studies with Hans Bethe at Cornell University, his early friendship with Richard Feynman, and his postgraduate work with J. Robert Oppenheimer, Freeman Dyson has composed an autobiography unlike any other. Dyson evocatively conveys the thrill of a deep engagement with the world-be it as scientist, citizen, student, or parent. Detailing a unique career not limited to his groundbreaking work in physics, Dyson discusses his interest in minimizing loss of life in war, in disarmament, and even in thought experiments on the expansion of our frontiers into the galaxies.]]> 304 Freeman Dyson 0465016774 Ankit 0 to-read 4.19 1979 Disturbing the Universe
author: Freeman Dyson
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Ankit 0 currently-reading 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)]]> 18512 here.

The Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures as the quest continues. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf returned, miraculously, and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Meanwhile, Sam and Frodo progressed towards Mordor to destroy the Ring, accompanied by SmEagol--Gollum, still obsessed by his 'precious'. After a battle with the giant spider, Shelob, Sam left his master for dead; but Frodo is still alive--in the hands of the Orcs. And all the time the armies of the Dark Lord are massing. J.R.R. Tolkien's great work of imaginative fiction has been labeled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail.]]> 404 J.R.R. Tolkien Ankit 4 on-hold
PS: Initially I was thinking Return of the "King" is about Sauron. lol. ]]> 4.53 1955 The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/07
date added: 2021/01/07
shelves: on-hold
review:
What an awesome feel-good epic fantasy series. Loved it.

PS: Initially I was thinking Return of the "King" is about Sauron. lol.
]]> <![CDATA[Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison]]> 276981 Book by Thomas A Edison 181 Thomas A. Edison 0837100674 Ankit 0 to-read 3.96 1948 Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison
author: Thomas A. Edison
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry]]> 233873
For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two great prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. These geniuses, a Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel and a romantic Frenchman named Évariste Galois, both died tragically young. Their incredible labor, however, produced the origins of group theory.

The first extensive, popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a beautifully written and dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest and most intriguing mathematicians in history.]]> 368 Mario Livio 0743258215 Ankit 0 to-read 3.91 2005 The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry
author: Mario Livio
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Whom the Gods Love: The Story of Evariste Gaolois]]> 253285 323 Leopold Infeld 0873531256 Ankit 0 to-read 4.29 1950 Whom the Gods Love: The Story of Evariste Gaolois
author: Leopold Infeld
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The French Mathematician 405510 426 Tom Petsinis 0425172910 Ankit 0 to-read 3.32 1997 The French Mathematician
author: Tom Petsinis
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.32
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Evariste Galois, 1811-1832 493136 163 Laura Toti Rigatelli 3764354100 Ankit 0 to-read 3.86 1993 Evariste Galois, 1811-1832
author: Laura Toti Rigatelli
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> No Longer Human 194746 No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world � suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, � but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston]]> 176 Osamu Dazai Ankit 0 to-read 3.99 1948 No Longer Human
author: Osamu Dazai
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ice Palace 138110 176 Tarjei Vesaas 0720611229 Ankit 0 to-read 3.89 1963 The Ice Palace
author: Tarjei Vesaas
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Good Old Neon 49766169 40 David Foster Wallace Ankit 0 to-read 4.54 Good Old Neon
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Unabomber Manifesto: A Brilliant Madman's Essay on Technology, Society, and the Future of Humanity]]> 45437581 On September 19th, 1995, the New York Times printed an essay by a known terrorist in a desperate attempt to stop his string of civilian bombings.

The newspaper’s editors dismissed “The Unabomber� as a lunatic, but his essay soon began to capture the attention of the world’s wisest political minds. As The Atlantic wrote: “[The essay] was greeted� by many thoughtful people as a work of genius.�

"Reprehensible for murdering and maiming people� but precisely correct in many of his ideas.� � Keith Albow, Author and Psychiatrist

“If it is the work of a madman, then the writings of many political philosophers—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Tom Paine, Karl Marx—are scarcely more sane." � James Q. Wilson, Professor of Political Science, UCLA

“[He] was right about one thing: technology has its own agenda.� � Kevin Kelly, Founding Executive Editor of WIRED

As the decades have passed since the essay was published, the truth behind the author’s warnings have become harder to ignore.

Predicting society’s present addiction to technology, our challenges with data privacy, and the dramatic increase in drug overdoses and depression that have accompanied a technology-induced lack of purpose, The Unabomber’s vision of the future has become our reality.

Of course, his means were disgusting and condemnable. But his message is more important than ever.

If we want to thrive in an age where automation and artificial intelligence and rapidly making humans obsolete, it is our responsibility to understand and prepare for the technological machine we are up against.]]> 226 Theodore John Kaczynski 1544502168 Ankit 0 to-read 4.03 1995 The Unabomber Manifesto: A Brilliant Madman's Essay on Technology, Society, and the Future of Humanity
author: Theodore John Kaczynski
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)]]> 17332218 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance, Book Two of the Stormlight Archive, continues the immersive fantasy epic that The Way of Kings began.

Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.

The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives.

Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.

Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.]]> 1088 Brandon Sanderson 0765326361 Ankit 0 to-read 4.76 2014 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)]]> 7235533 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.]]> 1007 Brandon Sanderson 0765326353 Ankit 0 to-read 4.66 2010 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another]]> 44579900 Part tirade, part confessional from the celebrated Rolling Stone journalist, Hate Inc. reveals that what most people think of as "the news" is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business

In this characteristically turbocharged new book, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider's guide to the variety of ways today's mainstream media tells us lies. Part tirade, part confessional, it reveals that what most people think of as "the news" is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business.

In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust. Taibbi, who has spent much of his career covering elections in which this kind of manipulative activity is most egregious, provides a rich taxonomic survey of American political journalism's dirty tricks.

Heading into a 2020 election season that promises to be a Great Giza Pyramid Complex of invective and digital ugliness, Hate Inc. will be an invaluable antidote to the hidden poisons dished up by those we rely on to tell us what is happening in the world.]]> 380 Matt Taibbi 1949017257 Ankit 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another
author: Matt Taibbi
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder on the Nile (stage play)]]> 658292
Characters: 8 male, 5 female

Interior Set

Simon Mostyn has recently married Kay Ridgeway, a rich woman, having thrown over his former lover Jacqueline. The couple are on their honeymoon and are at present on a paddle steamer on the Nile. With them is Canon Pennefather, Kay's guardian, and Jacqueline, who has been dogging their footsteps all through the honeymoon. Also on the boat are a rich, ill tempered old woman with her niece and companion, a rather direct young man, a German who nurses a grudge against Kay's father and Kay's maid. During the voyage Jacqueline works herself into a state of hysteria and shoots at Simon, wounding him in the knee. A few moments later Kay is found shot in her bunk. By the time the boat reaches its destination, Canon Pennefather has laid bare an audacious conspiracy and has made sure the criminals shall not go free.]]> 68 Agatha Christie 0573012989 Ankit 4 read-in-school 4.19 1944 Murder on the Nile (stage play)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1944
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/09
date added: 2020/12/07
shelves: read-in-school
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Worshipping False Gods: Ambedkar and the Facts Which Have Been Erased]]> 1632530 680 Arun Shourie 8129105799 Ankit 0 to-read 3.82 1997 Worshipping False Gods: Ambedkar and the Facts Which Have Been Erased
author: Arun Shourie
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fevre Dream 382450
Marsh meant to turn down York’s offer. It was too full of secrets that spelled danger. But the promise of both gold and a grand new boat that could make history crushed his resolve—coupled with the terrible force of York’s mesmerizing gaze. Not until the maiden voyage of his new sidewheeler Fevre Dream would Marsh realize he had joined a mission both more sinister, and perhaps more noble, than his most fantastic nightmare...and mankind’s most impossible dream.

Here is the spellbinding tale of a vampire’s quest to unite his race with humanity, of a garrulous riverman’s dream of immortality, and of the undying legends of the steamboat era and a majestic, ancient river.]]> 334 George R.R. Martin 0553383051 Ankit 0 to-read 3.88 1982 Fevre Dream
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Perfume: The Story of a Murderer]]> 343 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.]]> 263 Patrick Süskind Ankit 0 to-read 4.05 1985 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
author: Patrick Süskind
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Ankit 5
Perhaps for the bare influence of open-minded thoughts, one who feels difference of opinion as a personal threat should not read it. It's non-sense for you if you have rigidly clasped your mindset three years ago over something "too logical" for you to understand. Not barely some axioms, I'd say.]]> 4.36 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
rating: 5
read at: 2020/10/24
date added: 2020/10/24
shelves:
review:
Karamazov's love to live with drama and I hate that so do I.

Perhaps for the bare influence of open-minded thoughts, one who feels difference of opinion as a personal threat should not read it. It's non-sense for you if you have rigidly clasped your mindset three years ago over something "too logical" for you to understand. Not barely some axioms, I'd say.
]]> Letters from a Stoic 97411 No man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) is one of the most famous Roman philosophers. Instrumental in guiding the Roman Empire under emperor Nero, Seneca influenced him from a young age with his Stoic principles. Later in life, he wrote Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, or Letters from a Stoic, detailing these principles in full.

Seneca’s letters read like a diary or a handbook of philosophical meditations. Often beginning with observations on daily life, the letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy, such as the contempt of death, the value of friendship, and virtue as the supreme good.

Using Gummere’s translation from the early twentieth century, this selection of Seneca’s letters shows his belief in the austere, ethical ideals of Stoicism � teachings we can still learn from today.]]> 254 Seneca 0140442103 Ankit 0 currently-reading 4.33 64 Letters from a Stoic
author: Seneca
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.33
book published: 64
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Identity 28635
With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation--and the vague sense of panic it inspires--the very fabric of his novel. Here brevity goes hand in hand with intensity, and a moment of bewilderment marks the start of a labyrinthine journey during which the reader repeatedly crosses the border between the real and the unreal, between what occurs in the world outside, and what the mind creates in its solitude.

Of all contemporary writers, only Kundera can transform such a hidden and disconcerting perception into the material for a novel, one of his finest, most painful, and most enlightening. Which, surprisingly, turns out to be a love story.]]> 176 Milan Kundera 0060930314 Ankit 0 to-read 3.73 1997 Identity
author: Milan Kundera
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mazurka for Two Dead Men 1034505 Book by Cela, Camilo Jose 312 Camilo José Cela 0811212777 Ankit 0 to-read 3.75 1983 Mazurka for Two Dead Men
author: Camilo José Cela
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Family of Pascual Duarte 71549 166 Camilo José Cela 1564783596 Ankit 0 to-read 3.86 1942 The Family of Pascual Duarte
author: Camilo José Cela
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Flanders Road 127499
One was a distant relative, one his orderly, and the third who had been a jockey in his stable before the war, had also been his wife's secret lover.]]> 231 Claude Simon 0714539945 Ankit 0 to-read 3.92 1960 The Flanders Road
author: Claude Simon
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cuttlefish Bones (1920-1927) 11382
"Virtually incomparable. . . . Arrowsmith has quite literally distilled this poetry's essence in order to recompose it with all of its colors, scents, and exquisitely understated potency intact." � Rebecca West]]> 304 Eugenio Montale 0393311716 Ankit 0 to-read 4.45 1925 Cuttlefish Bones (1920-1927)
author: Eugenio Montale
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1925
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Snow Country 14028 Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer's masterpiece, a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan.

At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages, a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.]]> 175 Yasunari Kawabata 0679761047 Ankit 0 to-read 3.63 1948 Snow Country
author: Yasunari Kawabata
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tutte le poesie 1239562 599 Salvatore Quasimodo 8804394749 Ankit 0 to-read 4.27 1957 Tutte le poesie
author: Salvatore Quasimodo
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family]]> 80890
As Mann charts the Buddenbrooks� decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence, and madness, he ushers the reader into a world of stunning vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip, and earthy humor.

First published in Germany in 1901, when Mann was only twenty-six, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modern family chronicles in its immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity. With remarkable fidelity to the original German text, this superb translation emphasizes the magnificent scale of Mann’s achievement in this riveting, tragic novel.]]> 731 Thomas Mann 0679417370 Ankit 0 to-read 4.17 1901 Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
author: Thomas Mann
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1901
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Half the Night is Gone 40506766 320 Amitabha Bagchi 938622870X Ankit 0 to-read 3.78 2018 Half the Night is Gone
author: Amitabha Bagchi
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Emperor's New Mind 179744 602 Roger Penrose 0192861980 Ankit 0 to-read 3.91 1989 The Emperor's New Mind
author: Roger Penrose
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe]]> 10638 The Road to Reality carefully explores the movement of the smallest atomic particles and reaches into the vastness of intergalactic space. Here, Penrose examines the mathematical foundations of the physical universe, exposing the underlying beauty of physics and giving us one the most important works in modern science writing.]]> 1099 Roger Penrose 0679776311 Ankit 0 to-read 4.16 2004 The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
author: Roger Penrose
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Ankit 0 to-read 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars]]> 38143492 278 Bradley Campbell 3319703285 Ankit 0 to-read 4.30 2018 The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars
author: Bradley Campbell
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Khol Do / کھول دو 34608848 Short story سعادت حسن منٹو Ankit 3 read-in-college 4.49 Khol Do / کھول دو
author: سعادت حسن منٹو
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/20
date added: 2020/07/23
shelves: read-in-college
review:
I remember discussing with a friend—when I read it—if the story itself is horrific or I just felt so because my first tongue is Hindi.
]]> Paper Towns 6442769 Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...]]> 305 John Green 014241493X Ankit 1 Paper Clowns. Super dumb. Usual useless two-depth assertive characters.

I read it only because I had its paperback and I'm tired with reading by Kindle.]]> 3.68 2008 Paper Towns
author: John Green
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2008
rating: 1
read at: 2020/07/07
date added: 2020/07/07
shelves:
review:
Paper Clowns. Super dumb. Usual useless two-depth assertive characters.

I read it only because I had its paperback and I'm tired with reading by Kindle.
]]> <![CDATA[Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littín]]> 31734
Afterwards, the great novelist Gabriel García Márquez sat down with Littín to hear the story of his escapade, with all its scary, comic, and not-a-little surreal ups and downs. Then, applying the same unequaled gifts that had already gained him a Nobel Prize, García Márquez wrote it down. Clandestine in Chile is a true-life adventure story and a classic of modern reportage.]]> 116 Gabriel García Márquez 0805003223 Ankit 4
From a political reportage point of view, I've always wondered how any story should be written, to avoid the basic biased ideology altogether. Still, nevertheless, if one stands tall and tries to see what is going on, most of the times, it isn't too hard to decipher. Some unknown emotion was missing inside Chileans other than the regular distress and pain; it was clear.

Márquez's magical realism was inevitably and accurately missing and along with the political events of 80s Chile, I got to see how good of a journalist he was.

Marquez (on left) with Littin (on right)]]> 3.86 1986 Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littín
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/07
date added: 2020/07/07
shelves:
review:
Written as real as it happened; after the military coup overturned the democratically elected socialist government of Chile in 1973, around five thousand people were exiled for a lifetime, including the renowned director Miguel Littín. He came back to Chile with a planned task involving hundreds of people working underground as resistance to dictatorship; the task was to shoot a film that would expose the agony and affliction of people living under Chilean authoritative regime.

From a political reportage point of view, I've always wondered how any story should be written, to avoid the basic biased ideology altogether. Still, nevertheless, if one stands tall and tries to see what is going on, most of the times, it isn't too hard to decipher. Some unknown emotion was missing inside Chileans other than the regular distress and pain; it was clear.

Márquez's magical realism was inevitably and accurately missing and along with the political events of 80s Chile, I got to see how good of a journalist he was.

Marquez (on left) with Littin (on right)
]]> The Gambler 12857 The Gambler, Dostoevsky reaches the heights of drama with this stunning psychological portrait.]]> 188 Fyodor Dostoevsky Ankit 3
Interestingly Dostoevsky completed it under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts. Also now I understand why such a novella would impress Albert Camus to reproduce it in the form of theatre; with all the intimately depicted human emotions and psychological thrill of gambling.]]> 3.95 1866 The Gambler
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Ankit
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1866
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/06
date added: 2020/07/05
shelves:
review:
It was written twenty years after the publication of The Double (which I read just before it); Dostoevsky's writing in this book held me by surprise with its constant aura of frustration and unjustifiable disquietude through an introspective narrator with multi-layered characterization including the anxiety and drives of a gambler and the perpetual chaos in such a life.

Interestingly Dostoevsky completed it under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts. Also now I understand why such a novella would impress Albert Camus to reproduce it in the form of theatre; with all the intimately depicted human emotions and psychological thrill of gambling.
]]> At the Existentialist Café 25658482 this cocktail!'

From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life–of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.

At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the ‘king and queen of existentialism'–Sartre and de Beauvoir–to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live.]]> 440 Sarah Bakewell 0701186585 Ankit 0 on-hold, to-read 4.23 2016 At the Existentialist Café
author: Sarah Bakewell
name: Ankit
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: on-hold, to-read
review:
Say no to French Existentialists. No; will resume later.
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