You might be thinking what makes me so interested to read books recommended by some one else. I think my reason is I adore this personality, Donald Knuth for his contribution to Computer Science research and he reminds me of my favorite professor Dr. B V Rao, Ex IIT Bombay Professor under whom I did my thesis. I am posting this blog as a placeholder for future reference so that if I land in a bookstore someday, I will have some reference to start and if I like it, I will buy them.
Thank you & Happy Reading.
-Amit
- Life A Users Manual by Georges Perec (perhaps the greatest 20th century novel)
- Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (captures Oxford high-table small-talk wonderfully)
- An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (also Oxford but in the 1660s)
- Death of a Salesperson by Robert Barnard (who is at his best in short stories like these)
- The Haj by Leon Uris (great to read on a trip to Israel)
- Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (in-depth characters plus a whole philosophy)
- On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (applied biochemistry in the kitchen)
- Food by Waverley Root (his magnum opus, a wonderful history of everything delicious)
- The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth (the Great California Novel, entirely in 14-line sonnets)
- The Age of Faith by Will Durant (volume 4 of his series, covers the years 325--1300)
- Efronia by Stina Katchadourian (diaries and letters of a remarkable Armenian woman)
- The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel (biographies of Ramanujan and Hardy)
- Hackers by Steven Levy (incredibly well written tale of our times)
- The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (one of their brilliantly Swedish detective novels)
- Blasphemy by Douglas Preston (the best novel to deal with "science versus religion" that I've ever encountered)
- Blacklist by Sara Paretsky (a brilliant characterization of the tragic state of politics and class relations in America that also happens to be an action-packed murder mystery)
- The Travels of Ibn Battutah edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (fascinating and eye-opening journal by a 14th-century Muslim scholar)
- Murder in the Museum of Man by Alfred Alcorn (delicious caricature of academic follies)
- America (The Book): Teacher's Edition by Jon Stewart (has graffiti even better than the marginal notes in Concrete Mathematics)
Thank you & Happy Reading.
-Amit
5 comments:
An interesting list - added some to my must read!
Your welcome.
Someone recommended me this:-
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
My recommendation.although it depends on ur taste:
1)Bertrand Russell-basic writings of bertrand russell
2)Ayn Rand-Fountainhead,Atlas Shrugged
3)Noam Chomsky-Essentials Chomsky
4)Nelson Mandela-Long Walk to Freedom
5)Ernesto Che Guevera-My Bolivian Diary
6)Prof Raghuram Rajan-Fault Lines
7)Niall Fergusson-War of the World
8)Charles Dickens-David Copperfeild
9)Plato-The republic
10)Mahatma Gandhi-My Experiments With Truth
11)Will Durant-Story of Philosophy
12)Swami Vivekananda-Vedanta:Voice of Freedom
Wow. That's quite an interesting list. MG's autobiography was something I felt "not-true" but looking at the impact it had on society, I got to read it.
Post a Comment