Review: The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: A Children's book that questions adulting

A utopian world where uniformity and sameness is paramount. Just like how five star food is consistent even though bland compared to street food and their riot of flavours, people don't celebrate birthdays - there are rules for every year of your birth till 12 and then you are an adult and forget age. Similarly devoid of colors, occupations decided based on your passion and skills as decided by the council (who also got their roles through a similar process) in an apprenticeship type of culture.

Our protagonist thinks he is going to get the same mundane till he is picked to the "receiver" - a role filled with pain and given to one person in decades when the previous "receiver" decides to become a giver for the chosen one. As he shares years of wisdom and memories to Jonas, Jonas opens up to feeling emotions - a concept he had no clue about neither did his entire community.

A very black and white take with no greys on individuality v/s uniformity and evolution of efficiency in society over humanity. An interesting premise on the type of society it is, the outcomes probably extremely naive but then the target audience is youngsters though adults would find it a fresh perspective unburdened by maturity and age.

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Review: Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A documentary view of correlating the evolution of sexuality with modern age march of mankind

A unique take on how monogamy is a modern day concept and how a lot of our concepts associated to it today are probably more Victorian (tying in with English colonialisation in that timeframe across the world). The hunter gatherer group shared it all is the bottom line. They try to also compare and contrast wirh our fellow Bonobos on genital sizes and habits to push their point across.

The narrative picks examples from civilisations around the world and adds a new spin to the "it takes a village to raise a child" because of shared paternity as a concept to keep a warring village healthy in the go forward. Monogamy and its safety net could be considered counter intuitive to Darwinian theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest for the given conditions.

I would call this opinions backed with confirmational biased scientific facts rather than a rigorous academic paper that it is fronted as.

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Review: Red Seas Under Red Skies

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: Adventure fantasy with a large squeeze of naval piracy.

The two con-men move on to bigger and better things from the first book in the series as they try to reinvent themselves in the new world. Always landing between the devil and the deep blue sea, this book continues to put them into that spot and you wonder how they are going to pull themselves out of each spot. Jean continues to be man Friday for Locke through his schemes. This edition involves them onto naval piracy - a la pirates of the Caribbean as the Bondsmagi continue to play spoilsport and draw them into the political matters of their current disposition.

A mix of Tom Sawyer and Captain Jack Sparrow, Locke continues to attract adventure in a medieval setting. The challenge with the second book always remains that it always seems to act as a bridge to the next editon and the first and I do feel a little underwhelmed from that perspective. Though staying to the storyline, after the chaos of one, this book focuses on rebuilding for the main characters. I ended up reading the third book before this so had rated that higher and now with that hindsight, while the action seems a little toned down, the protagonists do get out of their skin on the seas and so does the direction of the book. Oh! did I miss out the cats? Never forget the cats.

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Review: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A prostitute sees her entire life in a flashback after being murdered in Istanbul.

Elif Shafak has a way with picturising Turkiye and she contiues to romanticise beautifully the country and its vibe by intricately painting a kaleidoscope of the culture and flavours of the country. Against that backdrop, we go through the life of Tequila Layla who has been served lemons by life and she just served it with her moniker. From a tough childhood to rough adulthood, she has suffered through a lot but made the most of it , thanks to friends who became family. The book is a flashback to the moment of her death introducing the various turning points in her life including the entry of each of her friends through that journey. You root for the characters, no matter how flawed they are, because they are human and humans aren't flawless. Whilst the narrative does slow down and doesn't seem to go anywhere, you enjoy the slow rhythm to savour the rich cultural context coming out of it.

Friendship is the strongest element that evokes emotions in this book and whilst a binding agent to the storyline, it is the foundations on which this story stands.

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Review: The Silent Patient

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: A criminal psychotherapist journals his experience dealing with the toughest patient he has come across.

Being a thriller, I'll stay away from any spoilers but Alex sticks to revealing a layer after a layer in each chapter adding characters and angles as we dig deeper into the past of Alicia Berenson - a famous painter married to a famous photographer who is found murdered. She stops speaking after that. Theo Faber narrates his journey as a psychotherapist as he aims to have her open up and sync in with reality on her part to recovery. Skeletons out of the closet come tumbling down with each chapter.

While the build up is well done, I don't believe the author may have actual mental health professional experience for there are jarring aspects to treatment and character development that don't sit right but if you ignore facts in this fiction , you'll find it an easier read.

Overall a good thriller, a commute read for most of the characters remain uni-dimensional , added to keep the storyline going and giving the reader more loose ends to grapple with. The ending pieces together towards the end and reveals itself to you before the author wanted you to.

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Review: Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors by Matt Parker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: Anecdotes where Math and Engineering mistakes have let to a lot unintended consequences.

Starting on a high with the Pepsi and the Harrier fighter jet story to meandering through some not so fascinating ordeals with math, Matt Parker manages to pack in a wide assortment of errors and outcomes that can be attributed to math and engineering. From a miscalculated drilling zone leading to an entire freshwater lake disappearing and turning the flow of a tributary, to space disasters, there is a wide range of stories he covers leveraging the theme of calendars, Microsoft Excel and construction engineering gotchas. Some anecdotes seem forced into the narrative , others make for an ahaa moment so stay tuned for a lucky roll of dice as you get through them.

Any problem solver would love this light yet mindful read especially as an engineer because its often the molehill of errors that bring down a mountain.

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Review: Acts of God

Acts of God by Kanan Gill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: ChatGPT- write a sci fi if Neil Gaiman was an established Bangalorean stand up comic

Ambitious undertaking by Kanan Gill to add satire , sarcasm, intelligent wit , dry humour and everything an average Bangalorean kid would have grown up on and this is his ode to that. Unfortunately if you read between the glimpses of brilliance, there isn't much else to bind this book by and the story comes to life as structured as an amoeba.

Outlandish yet realistic, lot of potential in the premise but meandered away at some point in all the shock and awe histrionics he applies as an author.

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Review: The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: The story behind the men of RenTech - the company that probably led the banner of Quant trading

The title is a misnomer as it isn't so much about Jim Simons nor what he did to launch the Quant Revolution except the highs and lows of Renaissance Tech (RenTec) and the people behind it and their politics. The development of the models get their cameo but maybe I was expecting more.

I guess the NDAs probably played a spoiler in going in deeper on what made RenTec tick but we surely get an idea of the whos helped it tick. If you enjoy a good biography, then this is that.

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Review: No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hooter: A look into the journey of Instagram as a business till the exit of the original founders.

Having won multiple awards for her "no filter" look into Instagram and its journey and the constant friction of being a company within a company after the acquisition in 2010, Sarah does a brilliant job at presenting a narrative of the evolution of Instagram as it dealt with challenges within and outside the organisation whilst trying to stay close to its guiding principles of curating beautiful perspectives and expressions of the average user. Having used instagram since 2013, I could relate with the evolution of the features and the driving forces around them - both from a data driven Facebook and radical Snap and other smaller players.

The focus of community over technology has served them strong which is now a practice lot of other technology companies have picked up on since then. Trying to marry art and technology in its initial phases played out with the filters being their mainstay but as camera phones improved, the community came to the fore.

Easily adaptable for a movie script, she captures the people behind Instagram being the centre piece of online expression today along with the challenges of revenue making engine without offsetting their user base and dealing with other challenges that the parent firm had faced.

Instagram leadership sat at a unique position to leverage from the mistakes of Facebook and be too successful for its own parent leading to cutting down off resources due to cannibalisation of the parent company's userbase.

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Review: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: How Apple figured its WHY and so should you.

Pretty obvious that Apple is the centre of the piece with multiple callbacks to it and how they figured their WHY and when Steve wasnt around, they didn't. Walmart and Microsoft probably fight for second place at a distance but that is basically the core essence of the book of understanding the WHY.

The author does a great job at simplifying and distilling that message for the average reader to help drive that message home. There are multiple examples where the why is forgotten for the what and the how and a correlation is created to track the downfall of the brand in that scenario. Some of it may be conjecture but this book would have been a brilliant long form article.

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Review: India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution

India that is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution by J. Sai Deepak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: An academically rigorous Indic view of the notion of Bharat / India

Coming from a non academic research background, this felt like what people write for their thesis with the amount of factual structure and supporting evidence that Sai adds to put his point forth with the rigor of a lawyer. Starting from the history and context of the European notion of nation, civilisation and secularism in line with the power of the Church, he then moves on to explain how those notions were retro fitted into colonies of these European powers and how his research of Indic authors provides another view of Bharat that existed long before the country united as India against the British colonialisation. A lot of us have gotten our English based education based on British based values and systems and hence he tries to clarify the baseline it has created which we need to be cognisant of before we derive any interpretations around it.

He brings forth the premise of decolonialising the mindset but explaining the reason why the template was first set up to allow for cognitive dissonance around such fundamental concepts that we have been brought up with and taken for granted.

There aren't really any narratives that he seems to be closing out on except putting across his perspective backed by a lot of research and rigor. Honestly this is a very heavy read, aimed at those seriously trying to understand the same from an academic pursuit especially in the current climate.

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Review: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: The case for specialisation versus generalisation in terms of skills

Starting with Tiger Woods who was born to be a golfer to Roger Federer who dabbled around before going down the path of tennis and both are very much legends in their domains. The author sets the case for generalists being equally successful if not more to specialists who meet the philosophy of 10,000 hours which Outliers had promoted years earlier. Whilst there are some interesting stories, the book doesn't grab my attention through out and key takeaways for anyone planning to skip the book is - It is never too late to go down a path you are interested in (and I feel we have enough examples in today's world) and that if we treated careers like dating - we wouldn't settle down so easily.

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Review: No More Mr. Nice Guy

No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A. Glover
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: A self help on the detoxing from the toxicity of "Mr Nice Guy" syndrome

Honestly - the description and behaviour of "Mr. Nice Guy" felt too real and very close to home. I was like the book is really talking to me. Unfortunately that is where it stopped. Going through the examples gets extremely tedious and the generic action / exercises feel contrived in terms of defining impactful change. The examples are placed to make you feel you can relate to people with similar situations as you, but I felt that pushed me away from the book as I couldn't relate to the examples.

If there was one summary you'd take without even reading the book is - continue working on a better version of yourself and communicate your thoughts clearly in any type of relationship - whether love or work.

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Review: The Cases that India Forgot

The Cases that India Forgot by Chintan Chandrachud
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A cross section of unique cases fought in the Supreme Court that have played a role in history of the country

Targeted at the non legal beagle so as to say, C. Chandrachud picks ten cases he feels didnt get the public discourse in today's time compared to the far reaching impact they created in their times. Divided amongst religion, gender and politics as a cross section, it makes for a quick read on some interesting cases that hit the grey area of even the Supreme Court.

From the Mathura ( Nirbhaya of the yesteryears) case which just highlights not much has changed in decades and definition of consent including "a girl not saying no" to how the anti terror hero KPS Gill got away with outraging a senior IAS officer's modesty showcasing how much still needs to be done on the gender front.

National Security makes for interesting reading especially North East specifically around AFSPA and the Naga movement to the armed civilian movement against Naxalism in Chattisgarh.

In terms of records, the Keshav Singh case ended up with 28 judges sitting on it to prevent Executive singling out any one judge as the battle lines got drawn between the independent pillars of our democracy.

If there is a semblance of a black mark on Dr. Kalam's record as a President, it probably might be the case related to Rameshwar Prasad vs Union of India where he offered to resign for unwittingly being part of UPA's power play in Bihar.

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Review: The Greatest Bengali Stories Ever Told

The Greatest Bengali Stories Ever Told by Arunava Sinha
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: Compilation of 21 Bengali short stories translated and curated by Arunava Sinha

An eclectic mix of short stories - some that hit the mark, many that don't. The cultural nuances might have been stripped through in the translations of those that didn't hit the mark to being dated of a bygone time that doesn't resonate in today's day and age irrespective of language.

"Einstein and Indubala" was the highlight for me, Kabuliwala is obviously famous as a classic and stands on its own. "Death of Swapan" was an interesting tale whilst Mahesh had a heart wrenching take, second only to Johnny. Two magicians and Raja felt like stories Id probably found more poetic in their original language than the translation where I felt some of the character didnt make it through.

Overall a dip if you want to get your feet wet in the treasure trove of Bengali literature and identifying the household names.

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Review: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: Ringside view of the run up to upto the aftermath of the Great Depression of 1929

Converting a history lesson into a gripping financial potboiler requires talent and Liaquat manages to do that to a great extent. Revolving around who he calls the four main characters - central bankers of that era, he pieces together their backgrounds, the economic and political backdrop highly centred on the World War I helps explain the entire episode that we saw. The detailed research makes this feel like a ringside view of the events that happen even capturing the public mood across continents.

Often as happens in history, in retrospect , feels like these titans missed so many red flags and how could such smart people surrounded by equally smart people make such a mistake. Well, our future generations will probably say the same after roaring 30s for all you know.

Whilst the book can be tough to digest for the regular reader and can take a lot of effort to get through, if you are clued into the financial markets and sparing knowledge of economics, this makes for an insightful read especially since the market situations always tend to rhyme.

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