Book-Notes

In a world where Atomic Habits, did not exist, I’d call Tiny Habits the best book on behavioural change and habit building. Or maybe, I am biased because I read James Clear’s book first. Just like Cal Newport took Anders Ericsson’s work and ran with it; so did James build on BJ Fogg’s. Tiny Habits is lovely, has pretty tables and is a lovely engaging read. If you want to change your behaviour, you simply cannot go wrong by learning from the man, who has taught many of our modern day influencers like Ramit Sethi or Instagram founder, Mike Kreiger....

It’s an Audible Original. And it’s “free”, if you are an Audible member. A look into what Empire means today. It’s a series of engaging podcast episodes on what being a part of the British Empire meant/means for its subjects and its descendants, with stories from across the globe. My only quibble being they did not go deep enough. The people being interviewed are mostly, subject descendants of British origin (and not as I would expect, an actual survivor from the partition or someone here in India, or Somali coast or Sierra Leone....

Just the two popular ones here … Dickens writes such fluid prose here, I would quote the whole book. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only....

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face … forever. That, probably is the quotable line, I found. The book’s terrible, and I hated the story (too bleak, too dystopian). The only reason for its popularity is that events in real life, are proving Orwell right.

In my youth, I came across the work of Robin Williams. No, not that one. She introduced me to the beauty of CRAP. And the fact that the PC is not a typewriter. But most of all, she introducted me to the beauty of type and design Fonts, and line spacing and kerning and everything else lovely, about the written word. And now if you want all that wisdom distilled, into a short, opinionated, beautiful web series, look no further than Matthew Butterick’s, Practical Typography....

Word for word, the most epigramatic book I have read. Short, sweet and beautiful words and lines and dialogue. Here’s a few. The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them....

Decided to reread the old stories I had read in my childhood. Started with Ben–Hur. You might know the movie, more the book. Adventure, slave galleys, a love triangle, and of course really well written historical fiction. Loved it so much that I went and got the rest of Lew Wallace’s fiction. The rains are going to be so much more enjoyable :)

It calls itself, an eco thriller. But that is selling the series short. It’s a lush, beautiful soundscape. The forests still ring in my ears. The drums still thump. The future is chilly and industrial. The writing and the dialogue are crisp. And most importantly, it has an all woman cast. And that is all I am willing to share. Find the podcast here. It says episodes available indefinitely....

While the storm passed us by, it bought upon us a day of no power. So I just deciced to make the most of it and read a book, I’ve wanted to, for quite a while. Finished Jon Stokes’, “Inside the Machine”. This book is like a 5000 feet, overview on how the CPU inside a computer works. If you’re curious like me, and don’t want to delve into the nitty-gritties of Computer Science, this is just the book for you....

Done with Introducing Regular Expressions, by Michael Fitzgerald. The subtitle, of the book says it all. Unraveling Regular Expressions, Step-by-Step Michael is a funny, patient and pithy author. The book breaks down the basics of Regular Expressions into its components and then walks through explaining them in examples, line by painstaking line. Any book that uses Coleridge to teach me Regular Expressions is awesome, so I’m biased :) Definitely worth a read if you are brand new to the powerful world of RegEx....