en-US Fri, 16 May 2025 23:30:57 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 220286538 Bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the story of how the brain came to be. 'I found this book amazing' Daniel Kahneman, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Thinking Fast & Slow

The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties.

These five breakthroughs are the organising map to this book, and they make up our itinerary for our adventure back in time. Each breakthrough also has fascinating corollaries to breakthroughs in AI. Indeed, there will be plenty of such surprises along the way. For instance: the innovation that enabled AI to beat humans in the game of Go �� temporal difference reinforcement learning �� was an innovation discovered by our fish ancestors over 500 million years ago. The solutions to many of the current mysteries in AI �� such as ‘common sense�� �� can be found in the tiny brain of a mouse. Where do emotions come from? Research suggests that they may have arisen simply as a solution to navigation in ancient worm brains. Unravelling this evolutionary story will reveal the hidden features of human intelligence and with them, just how your mind came to be.]]> 432 Max Solomon Bennett 0008560137 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.20
author: Max Solomon Bennett
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.20
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]]> 41954426 History of Western Philosophy, first published in 1945, there has been no comprehensive and entertaining, single-volume history of this great intellectual journey.

With his characteristic clarity and elegance A. C. Grayling takes the reader from the world-views and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, through Christianity's dominance of the European mind to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre, and philosophy today. And, since the story of philosophy is incomplete without mention of the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world, he gives a comparative survey of them too.

Intelligible for students and eye-opening for philosophy readers, he covers epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, political philosophy and the history of debates in these areas of enquiry, through the ideas of the celebrated philosophers as well as less well-known influential thinkers. He also asks what we have learnt from this body of thought, and what progress is still to be made.

The first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy for decades, remarkable for its range and clarity, this is a landmark work.]]> 682 A.C. Grayling 0241304539 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.04 2019
author: A.C. Grayling
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 204866954 544 G.R. Indugopan 9357322736 Rajeev 4
The author's meticulous attention to historical detail is particularly evident in the portrayal of Pope Leo X's ascension to the papacy and the subsequent ecclesiastical intrigues. Equally compelling is Gopan's nuanced examination of artistic rivalries among Renaissance luminaries under Medici patronage, exposing the delicate interplay between creative genius and aristocratic support that defined the period.

The relationship between the rare albino elephant—a creature of immense symbolic significance during this epoch—and its handler serves as an effective narrative device, offering readers a unique perspective on European Renaissance society and its fascination with exotic specimens from distant lands.

In sum, "Aanno" represents a worthy addition to the historical fiction genre, demonstrating Gopan's considerable skill in balancing historical authenticity with engaging storytelling. It is, without reservation, a volume deserving of one's literary attention.]]> 4.10 2023
author: G.R. Indugopan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/10
date added: 2025/05/10
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This remarkable historical novel weaves an intricate tapestry of 16th-century life through the compelling narrative of an albino elephant and its mahout. Gopan masterfully intertwines fictional characters with historical figures, situating the narrative within the complex political machinations of the era, including an assassination plot that threatens to destabilize established power structures.

The author's meticulous attention to historical detail is particularly evident in the portrayal of Pope Leo X's ascension to the papacy and the subsequent ecclesiastical intrigues. Equally compelling is Gopan's nuanced examination of artistic rivalries among Renaissance luminaries under Medici patronage, exposing the delicate interplay between creative genius and aristocratic support that defined the period.

The relationship between the rare albino elephant—a creature of immense symbolic significance during this epoch—and its handler serves as an effective narrative device, offering readers a unique perspective on European Renaissance society and its fascination with exotic specimens from distant lands.

In sum, "Aanno" represents a worthy addition to the historical fiction genre, demonstrating Gopan's considerable skill in balancing historical authenticity with engaging storytelling. It is, without reservation, a volume deserving of one's literary attention.
]]> 48662561
"CIVILIZATION RESTS ON SUCCESSFUL CONVERSATIONS." (SAM HARRIS)

Sam Harris - neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author - has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast., 'MAKING SENSE'. With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest - and sometimes both - lose their footing, but always in search off a greater understanding of the world in which we live. for Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.

This book includes a dozen of the best conversations from 'MAKING SENSE', including talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glen Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to "make sense" in the modern world.




RUNNING TIME �� 22hrs.

©2020 Sam Harris (P)2020 HarperAudio]]> Sam Harris Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.16 2020
author: Sam Harris
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.16
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]]> 60810700 368 S. Hareesh 9354825753 Rajeev 4 3.98 2022
author: S. Hareesh
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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]]> 52954648 Ageless, Andrew Steele, research fellow at Britain's new and largest biomedical laboratory, the Francis Crick Institute, shows us that the answer lies at the cellular level. He takes us on a journey through the laboratories where scientists are studying every aspect of the cell--DNA, mitochondria, stem cells, our immune systems, even age genes that can lead to a tenfold increase in life span (in worms, anyway)--all in an effort to forestall or reverse the body's (currently!) inevitable decline. With clear writing and intellectual passion, Steele shines a spotlight on a revolution already under way and offers reality-based hope.]]> 304 Andrew Steele 0385544928 Rajeev 4 3.81 2020
author: Andrew Steele
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
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]]> 222741227 290 S. Hareesh 9364876679 Rajeev 4 4.43
author: S. Hareesh
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> 59112304 120 M. Mukundan 9354328539 Rajeev 4 3.47
author: M. Mukundan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.47
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rating: 4
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]]> 18330228 236 Thomas Pala Rajeev 4 3.81
author: Thomas Pala
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.81
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rating: 4
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]]> 57007645 One of the world's great mathematicians shows why math is the ultimate timesaver—and how everyone can make their lives easier with a few simple shortcuts.

We are often told that hard work is the key to success. But success isn’t about hard work �� it’s about shortcuts. Shortcuts allow us to solve one problem quickly so that we can tackle an even bigger one. They make us capable of doing great things. And according to Marcus du Sautoy, math is the very art of the shortcut.

Thinking Better is a celebration of how math lets us do more with less. Du Sautoy explores how diagramming revolutionized therapy, why calculus is the greatest shortcut ever invented, whether you must really practice for ten thousand hours to become a concert violinist, and why shortcuts give us an advantage over even the most powerful AI. Throughout, we meet artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs who use mathematical shortcuts to change the world.

Delightful, illuminating, and above all practical, �ճ󾱲԰쾱�Բ�������ٳٱ�� is for anyone who has wondered why you should waste time climbing the mountain when you could go around it much faster.]]> Marcus du Sautoy 1549112163 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.62
author: Marcus du Sautoy
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.62
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]]> 223097022 144 Vinoy Thomas 9364875710 Rajeev 3 3.39
author: Vinoy Thomas
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.39
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rating: 3
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]]> 21901561
Innocent Vareed Thekkethala (born 28 February 1945), popularly known as Innocent, is an Indian film actor and producer. He was born in Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district of Kerala, India. He is one of the most successful and leading comedy actors of Malayalam cinema. He is noted for his witty mannerisms and dialogue delivery in the typical Thrissur accent.]]> 160 Innocent V.T. 9383197137 Rajeev 5 4.03 2013
author: Innocent V.T.
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/05
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]]> 22729356
"Kadal Ottakku Kshanichappol" is a Malayalam travelogue that offers a panoramic view of risk ridden journey of Abhilash where he was accompanied by his solitude and whirlpool of riddles. A truly inspirational handbook for those who finds it difficult managing minute crisis in life. When 'the sky is the limit' for his dreams, he prepares for another journey. Bon voyage!

Forward by defence minister A K Antony who appreciates Abhilash’s effort as a source of inspiration for the global youth. This edition is rich with a number of colour photographs.]]> 144 Abhilash Tomy Rajeev 4 4.23 2014
author: Abhilash Tomy
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> 319473 From one of the world's most distinguished historians, a magisterial new reckoning with Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany.

In 1900 Germany was the most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, the only country whose rapid technological and social growth and change challenged that of the United States. Its political culture was less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's; representative institutions were thriving, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How then can we explain the fact that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would be in the hands of a violent, racist, extremist political movement that would lead it and all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin?

There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. With many people angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin; a state undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the democratic order introduced in 1918; beset by the growing extremism of voters prey to panic about the increasing popularity of communism; home to a tiny but quite successful Jewish community subject to widespread suspicion and resentment, Germany proved to be fertile ground for Nazism's ideology of hatred.

The first book of what will ultimately be a complete three-volume history of Nazi Germany, The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on this subject will be judged.]]> 622 Richard J. Evans 0143034693 Rajeev 4 4.28 2003
author: Richard J. Evans
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> 220755947 INDIAN The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America (Harper360; February 28, 2025), author and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed provides fascinating portraits of the Indian Americans at the forefront of the wave of Indian success stories.

Ahamed's brilliant portraits of such well-known figures as Satya Nadella, Vinod Khosla, Shantanu Narayen, Chandrika Tandon, Nikesh Arora, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Deepak Chopra, Nikki Haley, and Fareed Zakaria populate the pages of her book. Based on a series of interviews and full of fresh and surprising stories, INDIAN GENIUS reveals the private strengths that made possible each individual's public achievements.

What accounts for Indian Americans' remarkable ability to break into mainstream American culture and their meteoric rise within its ranks? Other immigrant groups have found success in the U.S., but none have rocketed so far and so fast, reaching heights in a single generation that have taken other groups the better part of a century to achieve. In INDIAN GENIUS, Ahamed focuses on three areas where Indian Americans have had a singular tech, medicine and public policy.

The per capita income of Indian Americans far exceeds that of any ethnic group. According to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center, the median annual household income for Indian Americans is $100,000 higher than other Asian Americans ($75,000) and the general population ($53,600). Indians were also the most highly educated; 72 percent are college graduates, compared to 51 percent of other Asians and 30 percent of the rest of the population.

It is essential reading for anyone interested in the path to success in America.


]]> 415 Meenakshi Ahamed 9365699169 Rajeev 3 3.78
author: Meenakshi Ahamed
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.78
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rating: 3
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]]> 17568416 C. Radhakrishnan Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.09
author: C. Radhakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.09
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> 54811336
What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live.

Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments.

Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition--environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming--will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.]]> 384 Vaclav Smil 0190060662 Rajeev 4 3.99
author: Vaclav Smil
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 4
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]]> 7170040 158 Balachandran Chullikkad Rajeev 5 4.05 2001
author: Balachandran Chullikkad
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> 48328 355 Richard Yates Rajeev 4 3.92 1961
author: Richard Yates
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> 204927599 From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity.]]> 528 Yuval Noah Harari 059373422X Rajeev 4 4.14 2024
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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]]> 16055135 480 C. Radhakrishnan Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.88 1986
author: C. Radhakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> 210081827
ആമുഖക്കുറിപ്പി�� പ്രശസ്�� കഥാകൃത്തായ കെ വി മണികണ്ഠൻ പറയുന്നത�� ഇപ്രകാരമാണ�� :
"ഉദ്വേഗജനകത്വ�� ത്രില്ലറുകളുടെ പ്രാഥമികധർമ്മം മാത്രം ആണെന്നും, അതിനപ്പുറം അത�� കലാപരമായ ദൗത്യം കൂടി നിറവേറ്റണമെന്നുമുള്ള നിഷ്കർഷത നോവലിസ്റ്റ�� ഇതിന്റ�� സൃഷ്ടിവേളയിൽ ഗൗരവമായി എടുത്തിട്ടുണ്ട��.

ബാങ്കിംഗ�� രംഗത്ത�� ഇത്തരം കാര്യങ്ങ�� ഉണ്ടെന്നും അത�� ഉദ്വേഗജനകം ആണെന്നും മലയാളികള�� ആദ്യമായ് ജ്ഞാനസ്നാന�� ചെയ്യിപ്പിക്കുന്�� നോവൽ എന്ന നിലയിൽ �� പുസ്തക�� ഒര�� ചരിത്ര�� നിർമ്മിച്ച�� കഴിഞ്ഞ��.

തീർച്ചയായു�� അമിത�� കുമാ�� എന്ന എഴുത്തുകാരന് അഭിമാനിക്കാം]]> 251 അമിത�� കുമാ�� 939357815X Rajeev 4 4.00
author: അമിത�� കുമാ��
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
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rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
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]]> 33952842
“An excellent point of entry for anyone who wants to understand the new deep human history and what it portends.��—The Guardian
Dogs became our companions.
Wheat fed booming populations.
Cattle gave us meat and milk.
Corn fueled the growth of empires.
Potatoes brought feast and famine.
Chickens inspired new branches of science.
Rice promised a golden future.
Horses gave us strength and speed.
Apples provided harvestable sweetness.
Humans tamed them all.
For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors were just one wild species among many, their survival dependent on the whims of nature. Then, gradually, we began to tame the plants and animals all around us—and ourselves.
Combining genetics, archaeology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology, Tamed tells the story of the greatest revolution in human history, revealing the fascinating origins of crucial domesticated species and how they, in turn, transformed us. Dogs, our first natural ally, aided Ice Age–era hunters and gatherers. Domesticated horses led to new ideas about hunting and combat in the Eurasian Steppe. The reliability of wheat and corn allowed humans to settle down and build civilizations of unprecedented complexity.
As she uncovers the astounding global implications of domestication, Alice Roberts urges us to look again at our relationship with the natural world—and our incredible influence upon it.]]> 368 Alice Roberts 178633061X Rajeev 4 4.04 2017
author: Alice Roberts
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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]]> 131048198
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire's survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, several of America's most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound.

Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

---

'In thinking about the opium poppy's role in history it is hard to ignore the feeling of an intelligence at work. The single most important indication of this is the poppy's ability to create cycles of repetition, which manifest themselves in similar phenomena over time. What the opium poppy does is clearly not random; it builds symmetries that rhyme with each other.

It is important to recognize that these cycles will go on repeating, because the opium poppy is not going away anytime soon. In Mexico, for instance, despite intensive eradication efforts the acreage under poppy cultivation has continued to increase. Indeed, there is more opium being produced in the world today than at any time in the past.

Only by recognizing the power and intelligence of the opium poppy can we even begin to make peace with it.']]> 417 Amitav Ghosh 9356992665 Rajeev 4 4.07 2024
author: Amitav Ghosh
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
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]]> 196848596 A bold new vision for optimizing our health now and in the future.

What if depression, anxiety, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer and many other health conditions that torture and shorten our lives actually have the same root cause?

Our ability to prevent and reverse these conditions - and feel incredible today - is under our control and simpler than we think. The key is our metabolic function - the most important and least understood factor in our overall health. As Dr. Casey Means explains in this groundbreaking book, nearly every health problem we face can be explained by how well the cells in our body create and use energy. To live free from frustrating symptoms and life-threatening disease, we need our cells to be optimally powered so that they can create "good energy," the essential fuel that impacts every aspect of our physical and mental wellbeing.

If you are battling minor signals of "bad energy" inside your body, it is often a warning sign that more life-threatening illness may emerge later in life. But here's the good news: for the first time ever, we can monitor our metabolic health in great detail and learn how to improve it ourselves.

Weaving together cutting-edge research and personal stories, as well as groundbreaking data from the health technology company Dr. Means founded, Good Energy offers an essential four-week plan and explains:

�� The five biomarkers that determine your risk for a deadly disease.
�� How to use inexpensive tools and technology to "see inside your body" and take action.
�� Why dietary philosophies are designed to confuse us, and six lifelong food principles you can implement whether you're carnivore or vegan.
�� The crucial links between sleep, circadian rhythm, and metabolism.
�� A new framework for exercise focused on building simple movement into everyday activities.
�� How cold and heat exposure helps build our body's resilience.
�� Steps to navigate the medical system to get what you need for optimal health.

Good Energy offers a new, cutting-edge understanding of the true cause of illness that until now has remained hidden. It will help you optimize your ability to live well and stay well at every age.]]> 400 Casey Means 0593712641 Rajeev 3 4.13 2024
author: Casey Means
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/12
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]]> 13416804 480 C. Radhakrishnan Rajeev 4 4.10 2005
author: C. Radhakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/08
date added: 2024/11/08
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]]> 105584892 88 P.K. Parakkadavu 9382934146 Rajeev 4 4.00
author: P.K. Parakkadavu
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> 34094828 370 Ganesh K N 8120042166 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.62 1990
author: Ganesh K N
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 17795768 468 C. Radhakrishnan Rajeev 3 4.09 1984
author: C. Radhakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
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]]> 676757
For the first time, information is available that provides a close observance of the man himself during his final years.
Novalyne Price and Robert E. Howard spent hours riding over the central Texas countryside, and Howard talked enthusiastically and at length about the characters he created, his dreams of the future, his interest in history, and his belief that he had lived other lives.

Novalyne Price, the one girl whom he dated, kept journals, diaries, and wrote short story-like essays of the conversations she had with Robert E. Howard and other members of the Cross Plains community. When Howard died, she held on to the journals, thinking that someday she would write about him. One Who Walked Alone is the culmination of that dream.

Here is an astonishing and remarkable link with the past! Novalyne Price Ellis has written of Robert E. Howard as she knew him. This is not a second hand account.]]> 317 Novalyne Price Ellis 093798678X Rajeev 4 4.36 1986
author: Novalyne Price Ellis
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> 201608148 legendary historian William Dalrymple highlights India's oft-forgotten position as a crucial economic and civilisational hub at the heart of the ancient and early medieval history of Eurasia. From Angkor to Ayutthaya, The Golden Road traces the cultural flow of Indian religions, languages, artistic and architectural forms and mathematics throughout the world. In this groundbreaking tome, Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to reinstate India as the great intellectual and philosophical superpower of ancient Asia.]]> 432 William Dalrymple 1639734147 Rajeev 4 4.14 2024
author: William Dalrymple
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> 17403273 78 B. Murali 8126421614 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 2.50 2008
author: B. Murali
name: Rajeev
average rating: 2.50
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 8845183
Widely regarded as the author's magnum opus, the novel vividly describes the political and social background of Mahe (Mayyazhi), the former French colony, in the past, in a mystical way.[1] The novel was translated into English and French, both the versions winning accolades.]]> 340 M. Mukundan 8171302319 Rajeev 4 4.15 1974
author: M. Mukundan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
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]]> 36445949
വൈവിധ്യവും കരുത്തും വ്യക്തിത്വവുമാര്‍ന്ന പ്രതിപാദനശൈലിയിലൂട�� പത്മരാജന്�� മലയാ�� കഥയുടെ ഗന്ധര്‍വനായി മാറുന്നു. കാഥാകാരന്റ�� ഏറ്റവു�� മികച്ച പതിനാല�� കഥകള്��.]]> 254 P. Padmarajan Rajeev 4 4.11
author: P. Padmarajan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> 62069739
Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature

A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining.

When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. 

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.]]> 193 Benjamín Labatut Rajeev 0 to-read 4.10 2020
author: Benjamín Labatut
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> 15658
This is not your psychoanalyst's unconscious. The adaptive unconscious that empirical psychology has revealed, and that Wilson describes, is much more than a repository of primitive drives and conflict-ridden memories. It is a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else.

If we don't know ourselves―our potentials, feelings, or motives―it is most often, Wilson tells us, because we have developed a plausible story about ourselves that is out of touch with our adaptive unconscious. Citing evidence that too much introspection can actually do damage, Wilson makes the case for better ways of discovering our unconscious selves. If you want to know who you are or what you feel or what you're like, Wilson advises, pay attention to what you actually do and what other people think about you. Showing us an unconscious more powerful than Freud's, and even more pervasive in our daily life, Strangers to Ourselves marks a revolution in how we know ourselves.]]> 262 Timothy D. Wilson 0674013824 Rajeev 0 to-read 3.96 2002
author: Timothy D. Wilson
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 22747411 113 Ajoykumar M.S. Rajeev 5 3.81 2011
author: Ajoykumar M.S.
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/06
date added: 2024/09/07
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The eponymous Angana, both protagonist and metaphorical construct, becomes the locus around which a tapestry of remembrances is woven. The author excavates the sedimentary layers of collective memory, each stratum revealing a bygone era's cultural and emotional fossils."Angana Oru Mambazalakalam" is, in sum, a work of rare beauty and insight. It stands as a testament to the power of literature to excavate the deepest strata of human experience, bringing to light the buried treasures of memory and emotion. In this remarkable achievement, the author has not merely written a book but has distilled the very essence of nostalgia into literary form.
]]> 33407803
Did you know that the exquisite caves of Ellora were hewn from rock formed in the greatest lava floods the world has known—eruptions so enormous that they may well have obliterated dinosaurs? Or that Bengaluru owes its unique climate to a tectonic event that took place 88 million years ago? That the Ganga and Brahmaputra sequester nearly 20 per cent of global carbon, and their sediments over millions of years have etched submarine canyons in the Bay of Bengal that are larger than the Grand Canyon? Ever heard of Rajasaurus, an Indian dinosaur which was perhaps more ferocious than T rex? Many such amazing facts and discoveries—from 70-million-year-old crocodile eggs in Mumbai to the nesting ground of dinosaurs near Ahmedabad—are a part of Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent.

Researching across wide-ranging scientific disciplines and travelling with scientists all over the country, biochemist Pranay Lal has woven together the first compelling narrative of India’s deep natural history, filled with fierce reptiles, fantastic dinosaurs, gargantuan mammals and amazing plants. This story, which includes a rare collection of images, illustrations and maps, starts at the very beginning—from the time when a galactic swirl of dust coalesced to become our life-giving planet—and ends with the arrival of our ancestors on the banks of the Indus. Pranay Lal tells this story with verve, lucidity and an infectious enthusiasm that comes from his deep, abiding love of nature]]> 468 Pranay Lal 8184007574 Rajeev 4 4.53
author: Pranay Lal
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 4
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This book stands as a tour de force in the annals of biogeographical literature.The works treatment of India s floral and faunal evolution is nothing short of magisterial.
]]> 204164123 192 Sreeparvathy 9357327665 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.09 2023
author: Sreeparvathy
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 216332247 162 Unnikrishnan Kidangoor Rajeev 3 3.80
author: Unnikrishnan Kidangoor
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> 536788
By the middle of 1933, the democracy of the Weimar Republic had been transformed into the police state of the Third Reich, mobilized around the cult of the leader, Adolf Hitler. If this could happen in less than a year, what would the future hold? Only the most fervent Nazi party loyalists would have predicted how radical the transformation ahead would be.

In The Third Reich in Power, Richard J. Evans tells the story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. Every area of life, from literature, culture, and the arts to religion, education, and science, was subordinated to the relentless drive to prepare Germany for war. His book shows how the Nazis attempted to penetrate and reorder every aspect of German society, encountering many kinds and degrees of resistance along the way but gradually winning the acceptance of the German people in the long run.

Those who were seen as unfit to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms. The Nazi regime took more and more radical measures against the racially "unfit," including Germany's Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill, "asocial" and "habitual" criminals. After six years of foreign policy brinkmanship that took the Nazi regime from success to success, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939. The war he unleashed was to plunge the world into a maelstrom of genocide and destruction. The Third Reich in Power is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of how, in six years, Germany was brought to the edge of that terrible abyss.]]> 941 Richard J. Evans 1594200742 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.33 2005
author: Richard J. Evans
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 43819189 0 Uroob 8171804675 Rajeev 4 3.33
author: Uroob
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.33
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
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]]> 32487552 262 S.K. Pottekkatt Rajeev 4 4.13
author: S.K. Pottekkatt
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> 58885956 Quantum physicist, New York Times bestselling author, and BBC host Jim Al-Khalili reveals how 8 lessons from the heart of science can help you get the most out of life

Today's world is unpredictable and full of contradictions, and navigating its complexities while trying to make the best decisions is far from easy. The Joy of Science presents 8 short lessons on how to unlock the clarity, empowerment, and joy of thinking and living a little more scientifically.

In this brief guide to leading a more rational life, acclaimed physicist Jim Al-Khalili invites readers to engage with the world as scientists have been trained to do. The scientific method has served humankind well in its quest to see things as they really are, and underpinning the scientific method are core principles that can help us all navigate modern life more confidently. Discussing the nature of truth and uncertainty, the role of doubt, the pros and cons of simplification, the value of guarding against bias, the importance of evidence-based thinking, and more, Al-Khalili shows how the powerful ideas at the heart of the scientific method are deeply relevant to the complicated times we live in and the difficult choices we make.

Read this book and discover the joy of science. It will empower you to think more objectively, see through the fog of your own preexisting beliefs, and lead a more fulfilling life.]]> 224 Jim Al-Khalili 0691211574 Rajeev 4 3.60
author: Jim Al-Khalili
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.60
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
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]]> 29860585
Mughal history abounds with all the ingredients of classical drama: ambition and frustration, triumph and despair, grandeur and decline, love and hate, and loyalty and betrayal. In other words: it is great to read and offers ample food for thought and a reflection on the human condition.

Much more importantly, Mughal history deserves to be widely read and reflected upon, because of its lasting cultural and socio-political relevance to today’s world in general and the Indian subcontinent in particular.

For, whether we like it or not, the Mughals have left us with a legacy that cannot be erased. With regard to the eventful reigns of Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb or their successors, crucial questions arise. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And more importantly, what should we learn from their experiences, including both triumphs and failures?

In this volume, the author attempts to narrate Mughal history from their perspective rather than from the viewpoint of, say, historians from the UK or other countries, while, at the same time, he does not shy away from dealing with controversial issues.]]> 400 Dirk Collier 9381431884 Rajeev 4 4.10
author: Dirk Collier
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
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]]> 116926544 ഇന്ദുലേഖ

ലക്ഷണമൊത്ത ആദ്യ മലയാ�� നോവൽ ആയ ഇന്ദുലേഖ (1889) ഇപ്പോഴും, സാഹിത്യഗുണത്തിലു�� വിൽപ്പനയിലും ഒന്നാമതായി വിരാജിക്കുന്നു. ആദ്യകാ�� പ്രസാധകർ പ്രസിദ്ധികരിക്കാതെ മാറ്റി വച്ച 'ഇന്ദുലേഖ'യുടെ അവസാനഭാഗവു�� �� പതിപ്പിൽ ചേർത്തിരിക്കുന്ന��. അതോടൊപ്പ�� 'ഇന്ദുലേഖ 'യെക്കുറിച്ചു എം.പി.പോളു�� കുര്യാക്കോസ് കുമ്പിളക്കുഴിയും നടത്തി�� പഠനവും ഇതിൽ ഉൾപ്പെടുത്തിയിട്ടുണ്ട്.

Indulekha

The first Malayalam novel to be published, is still the first to be published in both literary and market literature. The end of Indulekha, which was previously unpublished by early publishers, is included in this edition. It also included the study conducted by MP Paul and Kuriakose Kumbilakkuzhi about 'Indulekha'.]]> 0 O Chanthu Menon 8189085980 Rajeev 5 4.46
author: O Chanthu Menon
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
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]]> 144094802
Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another.

Each chapter in Life on the Edge opens with an engaging example that illustrates one of life’s puzzles �� How do migrating birds know where to go? How do we really smell the scent of a rose? How do our genes manage to copy themselves with such precision? �� and then reveals how quantum mechanics delivers its answer. Guiding the reader through the maze of rapidly unfolding discovery, Al-Khalili and McFadden communicate vividly the excitement of this explosive new field of quantum biology, with its potentially revolutionary applications, and also offer insights into the biggest puzzle of all: what is life?]]> Jim Al-Khalili Rajeev 4 4.00 2014
author: Jim Al-Khalili
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/08/11
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]]> 29624092 0 Uroob 8171800866 Rajeev 5 3.78
author: Uroob
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
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]]> 36204285
A captivating history of the universe -- from before the dawn of time through the far reaches of the distant future.

Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day -- and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence?

These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History," the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In Origin Story, Christian takes readers on a wild ride through the entire 13.8 billion years we've come to know as "history." By focusing on defining events (thresholds), major trends, and profound questions about our origins, Christian exposes the hidden threads that tie everything together -- from the creation of the planet to the advent of agriculture, nuclear war, and beyond.

With stunning insights into the origin of the universe, the beginning of life, the emergence of humans, and what the future might bring, Origin Story boldly reframes our place in the cosmos.

]]> 357 David Christian 0316392006 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.03 2008
author: David Christian
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/30
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 85055436 0 Devdutt Pattanaik 935390207X Rajeev 0 currently-reading 0.0
author: Devdutt Pattanaik
name: Rajeev
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/30
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 25166459
Dominic Lieven is a Senior Research Fellow of Trinity College,Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His book Russia Against Napoleon (Penguin) won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Prize of the Fondation Napoleon for the best foreign work on the Napoleonic era.]]> 448 Dominic Lieven 1846143810 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.83 2015
author: Dominic Lieven
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 22876398 89 K.K. Sudhakaran 8126435917 Rajeev 3 3.48 2012
author: K.K. Sudhakaran
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
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]]> 63076600
വിവർത്തന��: ജി. സുബ്രഹ്മണ്യൻ]]> 1200 Kalki Rajeev 3 4.39
author: Kalki
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
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]]> 56925374 Vishnu M.C. Rajeev 2 3.87 2020
author: Vishnu M.C.
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/08/07
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves:
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]]> 53470727
Despite being conceived over two-and-a-half thousand years ago, Aesop's Fables are still passed from parent to child today, and are embedded in our collective consciousness. The morals still inform our judgments, but have they influenced our views of the animal protagonists as well? And, if so, is there any truth behind the stereotypes? Are crows smart enough to reason? Are pigeons so dumb they cannot tell the difference between painting and reality? Are ants truly capable of looking ahead to the future and planning their actions?

In Aesop's Animals, zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to the fables and ask whether there is any scientific truth to Aesop's portrayal of his animals. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest scientific research on some of the most fascinating topics in animal behavior. Each chapter focuses on a different fable and a different topic in ethology, including future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception. At the end of each chapter, the author pulls together the evidence to assess whether Aesop's portrayal of the animals holds true from a modern, scientific perspective.

Through interviews with leading researchers in the behavioral ecology, this book brings these famous tales back to life. People are always fascinated by animal behavior, especially studies that suggest the presence of intelligence and other 'human-like' characteristics that reveal how we may share more with these creatures than we ever imagined. Aesop's Animals builds on this, revealing cutting-edge research findings about animal abilities, as well as enabling the reader to explore and challenge their own preconceived notions about the animal kingdom.]]> 368 Jo Wimpenny 1472966910 Rajeev 4 4.06 2021
author: Jo Wimpenny
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/16
date added: 2024/07/16
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]]> 54750328 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE 2022

Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?

While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.

Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.
]]> 496 Niall Ferguson 0241488443 Rajeev 3 3.61 2021
author: Niall Ferguson
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> 17568426 പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu Rajeev 4 4.00
author: പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> 18193452 176 പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu 8130012391 Rajeev 4 3.82
author: പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> 12480364 72 N.Mohanan Rajeev 4 3.98 2021
author: N.Mohanan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/28
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]]> 36391536
She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities. . . .

But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it.

Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.]]> 657 Carl Zimmer 1101984597 Rajeev 4 4.15 2018
author: Carl Zimmer
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves:
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]]> 16082224 276 പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu Rajeev 5 3.98
author: പാറപ്പുറത്ത് | Parappurathu
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
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]]> 33539583 From the internationally best-selling author of Fatherland and the Cicero Trilogy--a new spy thriller about treason and conscience, loyalty and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the fateful Munich Conference of September, 1938.

Guy Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving in 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Rikard von Holz is on the staff of the German Foreign Office--and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Guy flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Rikard travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course. And once again, Robert Harris gives us actual events of historical importance--here are Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, Daladier--at the heart of an electrifying, un-put-downable novel.]]> 352 Robert Harris 1473519691 Rajeev 4 3.77 2017
author: Robert Harris
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/18
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves:
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]]> 7744217 The Illustrated History of South India , an adapted and illustrated version of the original book, aims to sensitize young readers to the country's historic past and rich cultural heritage, and the need to preserve it. Key chapters discuss the coming of the Aryans, the Mauryan Empire, the rise of Vijayanagar, social and economic conditions, literature, religion and philosophy, and the art and architecture of South India. The volume includes an Introduction by renowned historian R. Champakalakshmi, written especially for this edition, and a Prologue by eminent historian P.M. Rajan Gurukkal. Interspersed with photographs and line drawings, including maps and genealogical charts, this illustrated edition will be invaluable for students and teachers of history, in particular, history of South India, as well as general readers. India, which over the years has achieved a near-classic status, this illustrated edition provides a comprehensive account of the history of South India from the
prehistoric times to the fall of the kingdom of Vijayanagar in 1565 AD. This volume includes a new Introduction by renowned historian R. Champakalakshmi, and a Prologue by eminent historian P.M. Rajan Gurukkal.]]> 357 K.A. Nilakanta Sastri 0198063563 Rajeev 0 to-read 4.00
author: K.A. Nilakanta Sastri
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/15
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]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.�� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood�� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood�� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood�� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems�� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.35 2024
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/06
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]]> 4816245 232 Paulo Coelho Rajeev 4 3.88 2000
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> 129491110 0 Erich Maria Remarque Rajeev 4 4.37 1928
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1928
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
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]]> 14355445 460 Bo Bennett 1456607529 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.83 2012
author: Bo Bennett
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 17908086 200 Maniyanpilla Raju Rajeev 4 3.43 2012
author: Maniyanpilla Raju
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/12
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]]> 157981712
A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In Why We Remember , pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessible language with cutting-edge research, he reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past and how we use that information to understand who we are in the present, and to imagine and plan for the future.

Memory, Dr. Ranganath shows, is a highly transformative force that shapes how we experience the world in often invisible and sometimes destructive ways. Knowing this can help us with daily remembering tasks, like finding our keys, and with the challenge of memory loss as we age. What’s more, when we work with the brain’s ability to learn and reinterpret past events, we can heal trauma, shed our biases, learn faster, and grow in self-awareness.

Including fascinating studies and examples from pop culture, and drawing on Ranganath’s life as a scientist, father, and child of immigrants, Why We Remember is a captivating read that unveils the hidden role memory plays throughout our lives. When we understand its power-- and its quirks--we can cut through the clutter and remember the things we want to remember. We can make freer choices and plan a happier future.]]> 304 Charan Ranganath 038554863X Rajeev 4 3.90 2024
author: Charan Ranganath
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> 57561723 0 P. Padmarajan 8122609848 Rajeev 5 3.17
author: P. Padmarajan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.17
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/07
date added: 2024/05/04
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]]> 59679076
Opossums in the wild don’t make it to the age of three; our pet cats can live for a decade and a half; cicadas live for seventeen years (spending most of them underground). Whales, however, can live for two centuries and tubeworms for several millennia. Meanwhile, human life expectancy tops out around the mid-eighties, with some outliers living past 100 or even 110. Is there anything humans can learn from the exceptional longevity of some animals in the wild? In Methusaleh’s Zoo , Steven Austad tells the stories of some extraordinary animals, considering why, for example, animal species that fly live longer than earthbound species and why animals found in the ocean live longest of all.

Austad—the leading authority on longevity in animals—argues that the best way we will learn from these long-lived animals is by studying them in the wild. Accordingly, he proceeds habitat by habitat, examining animals that spend most of their lives in the air, comparing insects, birds, and bats; animals that live on, and under, the ground—from mole rats to elephants; and animals that live in the sea, including quahogs, carp, and dolphins.

Humans have dramatically increased their lifespan with only a limited increase in healthspan; we’re more and more prone to diseases as we grow older. By contrast, these species have successfully avoided both environmental hazards and the depredations of aging. Can we be more like them?]]> 320 Steven N. Austad 0262047098 Rajeev 5 4.14
author: Steven N. Austad
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/04/23
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]]> 57721695 128 G.R. Indugopan 9354324894 Rajeev 4 3.64 2021
author: G.R. Indugopan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/18
date added: 2024/04/18
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]]> 210540860 176 Lijeesh Kumar 9357326766 Rajeev 3 2.85 2024
author: Lijeesh Kumar
name: Rajeev
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
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]]> 13384559 This is an extended extract from The Self Why There is No 'You' Inside Your Head.Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body - the 'me' inside me - is compelling and inescapable. This is how we interact as a social animal and judge each other's actions and deeds. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances. Rather than a single entity, the self is really a constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create the illusion of the internal you.We only emerge as a product of those around us as part of the different storylines we inhabit from the cot to the grave. It is an every changing character, created by the brain to provide a coherent interface between the multitude of internal processes and the external world demands that require different selves.]]> 349 Bruce M. Hood 1780335881 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.82 2011
author: Bruce M. Hood
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/13
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 179311316 A groundbreaking exploration of the science of why and how we age and die—from Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan.

The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it. Throughout human history—from the immortal afterlife of Judeo-Christian thought to the cycle of reincarnation posited by many Eastern religions—we have developed beliefs that allow us to avoid recognizing its finality. One of the most difficult moments of childhood must be when each of us first realizes that not only we but all our loved ones will die—and there is nothing we can do about it.

Or at least, there hasn’t been. Today, we are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan?

Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal. Covering the recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our natural biology. But might death serve a necessary biological purpose? What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever?

Why We Die is a narrative of uncommon insight and beauty from one of our leading public intellectuals.]]> 320 Venki Ramakrishnan 0063113279 Rajeev 5 3.93 2024
author: Venki Ramakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> 58502650 A landmark, radically uplifting account of our species' progress from one of the world's pre-eminent thinkers - with breakthrough insights into the power of diversity and our capacity to tackle climate change.

In a captivating journey from the dawn of human existence to the present, world-renowned economist and thinker Oded Galor offers an intriguing solution to two of humanity's great mysteries.

Why are humans the only species to have escaped - only very recently - the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today? Immense in scope and packed with astounding connections, Galor's gripping narrative explains how technology, population size, and adaptation led to a stunning "phase change" in the human story a mere two hundred years ago. But by tracing that same journey back in time and peeling away the layers of influence - colonialism, political institutions, societal structure, culture - he arrives also at an explanation of inequality's ultimate causes: those ancestral populations that enjoyed fruitful geographical characteristics and rich diversity were set on the path to prosperity, while those that lacked it were disadvantaged in ways still echoed today.

As we face ecological crisis across the globe, The Journey of Humanity is a book of urgent truths and enduring relevance, with lessons that are both hopeful and profound: gender equality, investment in education, and balancing diversity with social cohesion are the keys not only to our species' thriving, but to its survival.]]> 304 Oded Galor 0593185994 Rajeev 4 3.80 2022
author: Oded Galor
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/22
date added: 2024/03/22
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]]> 201300863 34 Smedley D Butler 1640323929 Rajeev 4 4.80
author: Smedley D Butler
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.80
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/17
date added: 2024/03/17
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]]> 25816925
Although we neglect, defy and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The growth of technology, the sanitation-driven health revolution, the quadrupling of farm yields so that more land can be released for nature—these were largely emergent phenomena, as were the Internet, the mobile phone revolution, and the rise of Asia. Ridley demolishes the arguments for design and effectively makes the case for evolution in the universe, morality, genes, the economy, culture, technology, the mind, personality, population, education, history, government, God, money, and the future.]]> 368 Matt Ridley 0062296000 Rajeev 4 3.87 2015
author: Matt Ridley
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2024/03/15
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]]> 61272271 ‘In a crowded field of life advice and even life advice based on scientific research, Schulz and Waldinger stand apart�� Angela Duckworth, author of Grit

What is the key to a good life?

It is a question that preoccupies us all and one that the longest and most successful study of happiness ever conducted strives to answer. In this groundbreaking book, directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, bring together over 80 years of research to reveal the true components of a happy, fulfilled life.

The Good Life makes clear that what truly makes a rich and happy life is not synonymous with financial success and achievement, but is rather the result of our relationships. This remarkable work brings together scientific precision, traditional wisdom, incredible real-life stories and actionable insights to prove once and for all that our own wellbeing and ability to flourish is absolutely within our control.

'An outstanding book. It combines the longest and richest study of human lives anywhere with two remarkable authors of extraordinary breadth' Richard Layard, author of Can We Be Happier?

‘This captivating, powerful book shows us scientifically and practically how to define, create and most importantly live the good life�� Jay Shetty]]> 352 Robert Waldinger 1982166711 Rajeev 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Robert Waldinger
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/13
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]]> 38334584 120 Shamsudheen Kuttoth Indrans Rajeev 3 4.23
author: Shamsudheen Kuttoth Indrans
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/09
date added: 2024/03/09
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]]> 42286395 78 M.T. Vasudevan Nair 8122612849 Rajeev 2 3.22
author: M.T. Vasudevan Nair
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.22
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/04
date added: 2024/03/04
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]]> 16153772
അജ്ഞാതന്റെ ഉയരാത്�� സ്മാരക��, സ്ഥലപുരാണം, ചുവന്ന മണല്��, പന്ത്രണ്ടു വർഷം ഉറങ്ങി�� പൂക്കള്��, ഡാര്��-എസ�� -സലാം, അവര്��, ശത്ര��, രേഖയില്ലാത്ത ചരിത്ര��, ഇടവഴിയില�� പൂച്�� മിണ്ടാപൂച്�� എന്നീ ഒൻപത�� കഥകളുട�� സമാഹാര��.]]> 116 M.T. Vasudevan Nair 8124000603 Rajeev 3 3.27 1970
author: M.T. Vasudevan Nair
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.27
book published: 1970
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/02
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]]> 18245936 1950നു ശേഷമുള്ള കാലഘട്ടത്തില�� കേരളത്തിന്‍റ�� സാമൂഹ്യവും സാംസ്ക്കാരികവു�� വിദ്യാഭ്യാസപരവുമായ പശ്ചാത്തലങ്ങള്�� �� കൃതി നമുക്ക�� കാട്ടിത്തരുന്ന�� .സത്യസന്ധമാ�� ചിത്രീകരണം,പുതുമയാര്‍ന്ന ഇതിവൃത്തത്തിന് ചാരുതയാര്‍ന്ന ശൈലി മിഴിവേകിയിരിക്കുന്നു .]]> 424 C. Radhakrishnan Rajeev 5 3.98 1974
author: C. Radhakrishnan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/29
date added: 2024/02/29
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]]> 53404245 160 Paul Nurse 0393541150 Rajeev 4 3.89 2020
author: Paul Nurse
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/24
date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> 55676 480 V.S. Naipaul 0140156801 Rajeev 4 3.96 1990
author: V.S. Naipaul
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/12
date added: 2024/02/12
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]]> 2258833
Among the British and Churchillian blunders

�� The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
�� The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
�� Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
�� The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
�� The greatest blunder in British the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939—that guaranteed the Second World War
�� Churchill’s astonishing blindness to Stalin’s true ambitions.

Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War�� is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.]]> 544 Patrick J. Buchanan 030740515X Rajeev 5 4.16 2008
author: Patrick J. Buchanan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/30
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]]> 61965394 A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilizations across time

Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history. From the fall of the Moche civilization in South America that came about because of the cyclical pressures of El Niño to volcanic eruptions in Iceland that affected Egypt and helped bring the Ottoman empire to its knees, climate change and its influences have always been with us.

Frankopan explains how the Vikings emerged thanks to catastrophic crop failure, why the roots of regime change in Eleventh-Century Baghdad lay in the collapse of cotton prices resulting from unusual climate patterns, and why the western expansion of the frontiers in North America was directly affected by solar flare activity in the eighteenth century. Again and again, Frankopan shows that when past empires have failed to act sustainably, they have been met with catastrophe. Blending brilliant historical writing and cutting-edge scientific research, Climate will radically reframe the way we look at the world and our future.]]> 736 Peter Frankopan 0525659161 Rajeev 5 3.87 2023
author: Peter Frankopan
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/25
date added: 2024/01/25
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An amazing journey through history. One thing that is missing in this book is the light pollution and how it transformed the natural darkness and its impact on biomass.
]]> 55950059 Thaha Madayi Rajeev 4 4.00
author: Thaha Madayi
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
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]]> 38315 Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile,and The Bed of Procrustes.]]> 368 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 0812975219 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 4.08 2001
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 56155214
How did we end up in a world where humans coexist with technologies we can no longer fully control or understand?

George Dyson plots an unexpected course through the past 300 years to reveal the hidden connections that underpin our digital age, ending with a premonition of what lies ahead.

From an eighteenth-century Russian voyage across the North Pacific, to the mirror signals that heralded the age of digital telecommunications and the invention of the vacuum tube, Analogia interweaves historical adventure with scientific insight in a deeply personal story that frames the pursuit - and cost - of the digital revolution in a captivating new light.]]> 304 George Dyson 0141975431 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.00
author: George Dyson
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> 58587868 By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe.

Of all the many scientific marvels occurring in our universe, perhaps none have been more consistently intriguing and mysterious than black holes. What are they, exactly? How do they form? And what can they tell us about the nature and future of our universe?

Renowned physicist Brian Cox has dedicated his career to presenting complicated scientific ideas in an engaging way, from his popular BBC podcast "The Infinite Monkey Cage," to his frequently sold-out speaking events, to his bestselling books written with fellow physicist Jeff Forshaw. Now the two team up once again with Horizons, an exploration of these amazing objects--and why they continue to confirm that Einstein's theory of general relativity is such a brilliant explanation of the universe around us.]]> 288 Brian Cox 0062936697 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.96 2022
author: Brian Cox
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/13
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]]> 61272018 A profound and ground-breaking approach to one of the most important encounters in the history of the British arrival in India in the early seventeenth century.

Traditional interpretations to the British Empire’s emerging success and expansion has long overshadowed the deep uncertainty that marked its initial entanglement with India. In September 1615, Thomas Roe—Britain’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire—made landfall on the western coast of India. Roe entered the court of Jahangir, “conqueror of the world,�� one of immense wealth, power, and culture that looked askance at the representative of a precarious and distant island nation.

Though London was at the height of the Renaissance—the era of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Donne—financial strife and fragile powerbases presented risk and uncertainty at every turn. What followed in India was a turning-point in history, a story of palace intrigue, scandal, and mutual incomprehension that unfolds as global trade begins to stretch from Russia to Virginia, from West Africa to the Spice Islands of Indonesia.

Using an incisive blend of Indian and British records, and exploring the art, literature, sights, and sounds of Elizabethan London and Imperial India, Das portrays the nuances of cultural and national collision on an individual and human level. The result is a rich and radical challenge to our understanding of Britain and its early empire—and a cogent reminder of the dangers of distortion in the history books of the victors.]]> 580 Nandini Das 1639363238 Rajeev 5 3.85 2023
author: Nandini Das
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/10
date added: 2023/12/10
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]]> 59436257
This is a book that defies categorisation. It brings together science, history and great storytelling to paint a fascinating picture of viruses as a major actor, not just in human civilisation but also in the human body. With rare photographs, paintings, illustrations and anecdotes, it is a magnificent and an extremely relevant book for our times, when we are attempting to understand viruses and examining their role in the lives of humans.]]> 500 Pranay Lal 0670095761 Rajeev 4 4.23
author: Pranay Lal
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
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]]> 200668323 224 MANOJ BHARATHI 9354829414 Rajeev 3 3.00
author: MANOJ BHARATHI
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2023/11/24
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]]> 83817782 One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences.

Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do.

Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.]]> 528 Robert M. Sapolsky 0525560971 Rajeev 5 4.23 2023
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Rajeev
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/22
date added: 2023/11/22
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]]> 9571715
Out of the speeches and writings of these thinker-activists, Ramachandra Guha has built the first major anthology of Indian social and political thought. Makers of Modern India collects the work of nineteen of India's foremost generators of political sentiment, from those whose names command instant global recognition to pioneering subaltern and feminist thinkers whose works have until now remained obscure and inaccessible. Ranging across manifold languages and cultures, and addressing every crucial theme of modern Indian history—race, religion, language, caste, gender, colonialism, nationalism, economic development, violence, and nonviolence�� Makers of Modern India provides an invaluable roadmap to Indian political debate.

An extensive introduction, biographical sketches of each figure, and guides to further reading make this work a rich resource for anyone interested in India and the ways its leading political minds have grappled with the problems that have increasingly come to define the modern world.]]> 560 Ramachandra Guha 0674052463 Rajeev 4 3.93 2010
author: Ramachandra Guha
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/07
date added: 2023/10/07
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]]> 56871459 A radical retelling of the history of science that challenges the Eurocentric narrative.

We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But this is wrong. The history of science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavour.

Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian texts. When Newton set out the laws of motion, he relied on astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa. When Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopaedia. And when Einstein was studying quantum mechanics, he was inspired by the Bengali physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose. Horizons pushes beyond Europe, exploring the ways in which scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific fit into the history of science, and arguing that it is best understood as a story of global cultural exchange.

Challenging both the existing narrative and our perceptions of revered individuals, above all this is a celebration of the work of scientists neglected by history. Among many others, we meet Graman Kwasi, the seventeenth-century African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria, Hantaro Nagaoka, the nineteenth-century Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom, and Zhao Zhongyao, the twentieth-century Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter (but whose American colleague received the Nobel prize).

Scientists today are quick to recognise the international nature of their work. In this ambitious and revisionist history, James Poskett reveals that this tradition goes back much further than we think.

Perfect reading for fans of Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads and Bettany Hughes's Istanbul.]]> 464 Poskett James 0241394090 Rajeev 0 currently-reading 3.84 2022
author: Poskett James
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/02
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]]> 45159747 **THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**
'A truly fascinating �� if unnerving �� read' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Acute, mind-opening, highly accessible - this book doesn't just explain how our lives might pan out, it helps us live better' BETTANY HUGHES
'A humane and highly readable account of the neuroscience that underpins our ideas of free will and fate' PROFESSOR DAVID RUNCIMAN

So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn't exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains �� and our choices over what we eat, who we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of our unconscious minds. Did you know, for example, You can carry anxieties and phobias across generations of your family? Your genes and pleasure and reward receptors in your brain will determine how much you eat? We can sniff out ideal partners with genes that give our offspring the best chance of survival?

Leading neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow draws vividly from everyday life and other experts in their field to show the extraordinary potential, as well as dangers, which come with being able to predict our likely futures �� and looking at how we can alter what's in store for us. Lucid, illuminating, awe-inspiring The Science of Fate revolutionises our understanding of who we are �� and empowers us to help shape a better future for ourselves and the wider world.]]> 209 Hannah Critchlow Rajeev 4 3.74 2019
author: Hannah Critchlow
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> 56246458 464 James Poskett 0358251796 Rajeev 0 to-read 3.72 2022
author: James Poskett
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 205661
This updated edition contains a new foreword by Robert Keppel, president of the Institute for Forensics.]]> 298 Stephen G. Michaud 1928704174 Rajeev 4 3.84 1989
author: Stephen G. Michaud
name: Rajeev
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/23
date added: 2023/09/23
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