Month: June 2022

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is a spy historical fiction of an unnamed half-Vietnamese, half-French undercover communist agent during the South Vietnamese Government in 1975. The content of the book is primarily a confession per say, of course in first person, of an anonymous spy who is being held as a prisoner. Historically, by the end of April 1975, the North Vietnamese had enveloped Saigon for a complete takeover. The coup not only forced the South Vietnamese to surrender but the US too was forced to abandon its embassy…

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA is an autobiographical version of James D. Watson in the race for DNA. The story of the discovery of the structure of DNA is quite a read but I feel really sorry for Rosalind Franklin. Without her contribution, the men (James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins) wouldn’t have received the Nobel Prize. Defaming her and other women under the hood of casual misogyny in almost entirety of the book is deeply unsettling. And by shedding…