Category: Thinking Turf

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger is an ocean of infinite gems. It is one of those books, which require re-reading only to discern new motifs surfacing up every time. No single review can fully justify the thoughts running throughout the book. I did try jotting down few thoughts but am sure I still have missed some of them, which I might add later after reading it the second time.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg is quite an impressive book. With its umpteen examples of how people defy old habits at the sake of new productive habits and eventually achieve marvelous feat is extremely inspiring. Although the book does not promote or support one secret formula for quickly changing any habit but it makes one think with a different angle. Case studies of corporate success of Alcoa, Starbucks, and P&G’s Febreeze were quite a fascinating read.

Simple and free flowing book, Buddhism Is Not What You Think written by Steve Hagen talks about what reality is as per Zen Buddhism. The author resonates one central point in the entire book and that is, reality is about direct experience of the real time than mere feelings and thoughts, which happen to be in constant flux in conscious and subconscious level in human mind.

Thinking, Fast and Slow is a masterpiece written by the Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman; in here, he is targeting human irrationality.  He starts with the book by naming the two parts of a brain as System I and System II, where System I, is the ‘intuition part’, which operates automatically most of the times and is without logic; while System II denotes effortful mental activity, involving logics. It is because of the System I that humans suffer from cognitive biases or the unconscious errors that leads one to jump onto…

Confession of a Buddhist Atheist is beautifully woven and presented by Stephen Batchelor in form of a written collage, as he himself mentions at the end of the book. Although the book is in narrative mode yet no where we found it a story presented by the writer in fact, while I was into the book, I felt as if Stephen is talking to me and describing the sequence of his life’s events which led him towards Buddhism and finally his discovery of motif in life.

Advanced mathematics coupled with severe mental illness, this is what the book, A Beautiful Mind is about. Sylvia Nasar professor of journalism at Columbia University, has done full justice in surfacing Nash’s life, his youth, college life, his work before and after he earned his doctorate and finally to his breakdown then illness and eventually his recovery. A Beautiful Mind juxtaposes sadness and the will to succeed despondency and depression.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is a treat to read, I wonder why didn’t I pick it up before. I’am sure am gonna read the sequel as well. Talking about this book, it is divided into six chapters, randomly talking about events and occurrences and then the authors delve back to the nearest probable reason(s) which in most of the cases, hits back to the causes that have been asserted by the respective experts at the times. Deftly, the authors have been able to prove…

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a parable presented by American businessman, author and investor Robert Kiyosaki. He talks about the two individuals who inspired and influenced Kiyosaki in his later life, first being his dad the ‘poor dad’ who was a government employee and had a steady flow of salary, while other was his friend Mike’s capitalist father, his ‘rich dad’. Throughout the book, Kiyosaki talks about the different perspectives towards finance, which the poor dad and the rich dad shed on their children in general. One talks in conventional…

Ninety percent of the book talks about mathematics and physics but that is what Mr. Feynman, the top-notch scientist was famous for. The li’l tit-bits of his life are beautifully crafted along with his sense of humor. His love and attitude towards life was quite contagious especially to those who crossed the paths all through his life. The book will make anybody laugh and would have wished, like me, to meet such persona once a lifetime. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman acknowledges the fact that Richard Feynman was known to…

The book is quite a fascinating read, it got me hooked from the beginning till the end. It talks about reincarnation, the theme was depicted in Cloud Atlas as well but the concept of ‘debt’ is quite an innovation. The Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Hindu scripture is also known for the same concept. The book, Many Lives, Many Masters talks about 12 past lives of the 86 total lives. It is interesting to see how a skeptic research scholar is drawn towards spirituality and instead of focusing on giving more…