Books

Books that I have read since August 2014.

Starting from August 2014, I have decided to keep a record of the books that I have read or am currently reading. This list is just for my own personal recollection, but once in a while if I find the book very appealing I may post a review somewhere.

The books which are marked with a ** are the ones that I am either currently reading or have not read completely but plan to do so in the future.

All the books that I read are rated on Goodreads.

Non-Fiction

  1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, Pan Macmillan, 2011. (review)
  2. Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution, John Gribbin, Transworld, 2013.
  3. A masterful spirit: Homi J. Bhaba (1909 – 1966), Indira Chowdhury and Ananya Dasgupta, Penguin India, 2010.
  4. Littlewood’s Miscellany, John E. Littlewood and Bela Bollobas, Cambridge University Press, 1986. (review)
  5. Math Bytes: Google Bombs, Chocolate – Covered Pi, and other cool bits of Computing, Tim Chartier, Princeton University Press, 2014. (review)
  6. Letters to a Young Scientist, Edward O. Wilson, W. W. Norton and Company, 2013.
  7. Feynman’s Rainbow: A search for Beauty in Physics and Life, Leonard Mlodinow, Warner Books, 2003.
  8. Alan M. Turing: Centenary Edition, Sara Turing, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  9. what if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Randall Munroe, John Murray (Publishers), 2014. (mini review)
  10. ** “Most of the Good Stuff”: Memories of Richard Feynman, Laurie M. Brown (ed.) and John S. Rigden (ed.), American Institute of Physics, 1993.
  11. The Art of Richard P. Feynman: Images of a Curious Character, Michelle Feynman (ed.), Routledge, 1995.
  12. ** John von Neumann: Selected Letters, Miklos Redei (ed.), American Mathematical Society/London Mathematical Society, 2005.
  13. The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician, Andre Weil, Brikhauser, 1992. (mini review)
  14. Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman’s Last Journey, Ralph Leighton, W. W. Norton and Company, 1991.
  15. Bourbaki: A Secret Society of Mathematicians, Maurice Mashaal, American Mathematical Society, 2006. (review)
  16. The Polya Picture Album: Encounters of a Mathematician, George Polya (Ed. G. L. Alexanderson), Brikhauser Boston, 1987.
  17. Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure, Cedric Villani, The Bodley Head, London, 2015. (review)
  18. Mathematical Apocrypha Redux: More Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical, Steven G. Krantz, Mathematical Association of America, 2005. (short review)
  19. Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein, Mario Livio, Simon and Schuster, 2013. (review)
  20. Mrs. Funnybones: She’s Just Like You and a Lot Like Me, Twinkle Khanna, Penguin India, 2015. (review)
  21. The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, Jon Gertner, Penguin Press, 2012. (review)
  22. My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count, Ken Ono and Amir D. Aczel, Springer Switzerland, 2016. (review)
  23. A Mathematician’s Lament, Paul Lockhart, Bellevue Literary Press, 2009.
  24. In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri, Hamish Hamilton (Penguin), 2016.
  25. Black Holes: The Reith Lectures, Stephen Hawking, Bantam Books, 2016.
  26. Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl, Beacon Press, 2006.
  27. The Difference: when good enough isn’t enough, Subir Chowdhury, Portfolio (Penguin), 2017.
  28. The Clothing of Books, Jhumpa Lahiri, Penguin, 2017.
  29. The Mathematics of Love: Patterns, Proofs and the Search for the Ultimate Equation, Hannah Fry, Ted Books, 2015.
  30. Landour Days, Ruskin Bond, Penguin Books, 2016.
  31. The Last Lecture: lessons in living, Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow, Two Roads, 2012.
  32. Roads to Mussoorie, Ruskin Bond, Rupa Publications India, 2013.
  33. Party time in Mussoorie, Ruskin Bond, Rupa Publications India, 2016.
  34. Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, Juggernaut Books, 2016.
  35. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, William Dalrymple, Flamingo, 1994.
  36. The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh, Allen Lane (Penguin), 2016.
  37. Useless Facts Vienna, StadtBekannt Wien, Holzbaum Verlag, 2014.
  38. Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes, Walter Gratzer, Oxford University Press, 2002.
  39. The Accidental Scientist: The Role of Chance and Luck in Scientific Discovery, Graeme Donald, Michael O’Mara Books Limited, 2017.
  40. Secret Vienna Stories: Legends, facts and locations for the true explorer, Fabio M. Aromatici, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.
  41. Journey Down the Years, Ruskin Bond, Rupa Publications India, 2017.
  42. The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous, Khuswant Singh with Humar Quarishi, Rupa Publications India, 2013.
  43. Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Eisntein and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study, Steven L. Batterson, A. K. Peters, Ltd., 2006.
  44. Is That Even A Country, Sir!: Journeys in Northeast India by Train, Bus and Tractor, Anil Yadav (Translated by Anurag Basnet), Speaking Tiger, 2017.
  45. Indira: India’s Most Powerful Prime Minister, Sagarika Ghose, Juggernaut Books, 2017.
  46. Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth, Audrey Truschke, Penguin Viking, 2017.
  47. Vikram Sarabhai: A Life, Amrita Shah, Penguin India, 2016.
  48. Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science, Karl Sigmund, Basic Books, 2017.
  49. Perpetual City: A Short Biography of Delhi, Malvika Singh, Aleph, 2013.
  50. Death in the Bunker, Ian Kershaw, Penguin Books, 2000.
  51. Scenes from a Writer’s Life, Ruskin Bond, Penguin India, 1997.
  52. Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, William Dalrymple, Bloomsbury, 2015.
  53. Mathematicians of the World, Unite!: The International Congress of Mathematicians – A Human Endeavor, Guillermo P. Curbera, A. K. Peters, Ltd., 2009.
  54. Variety of Men, C. P. Snow, Penguin Books, 1969.
  55. The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters, William Dalrymple, Bloomsbury, 2017.
  56. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge, Abraham Flexner (with a companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf), Princeton University Press, 2017.
  57. Wise and Otherwise: A Salute to Life, Sudha Murty, Penguin Books, 2006.
  58. Cranks, Quarks, and the Cosmos, Jeremy Bernstein, Basic Books, 1993.
  59. ** The Quotable Feynman, Michelle Feynman (ed.), Princeton University Press, 2015.
  60. Growing the Tree of Science: Homi Bhabha and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Indira Chowdhury, Oxford University Press, 2016.
  61. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, James D. Watson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997.
  62. What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery, Francis Crick, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989.
  63. Academia Obscura: The hidden silly side of higher education, Glen Wright, Unbound, 2017.
  64. No Full Stops in India, Mark Tully, Penguin Books, 1992.
  65. Vienna Mixed Set, T. H. Enge, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018.
  66. What Little I Remember, Otto Frisch, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  67. Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India’s Northeast, Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 1995.
  68. Strangers No More: New Narratives from India’s Northeast, Sanjoy Hazarika, Aleph Book Company, 2018.
  69. Blood On My Hands: Confessions of Staged Encounters, Kishalay Bhattacharjee, HarperCollins Publishers India, 2015.
  70. ** The G. H. Hardy Reader, Donald J. Albers (ed.), Gerald L. Alexanderson (ed.) and William Dunham (ed.), Mathematical Association of America – Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  71. ** The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks, Picador, 2011.
  72. ** India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond, Shashi Tharoor, Penguin Books, 2007.
  73. Great Feuds in Mathematics: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever, Hal Hellman, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.
  74. ** Indiscrete Thoughts, Gian-Carlo Rota (Edited by Fabrizio Palombi), Birkhauser Boston, 1997.
  75. The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, Sanjaya Baru, Penguin Books, 2017.
  76. The Merely Personal: Observations on Science and Scientists, Jeremy Bernstein, Ivan R. Dee, 2001.
  77. The Life It Brings: One Physicist’s Beginnings, Jeremy Bernstein, Penguin Books, 1988.
  78. Who Got Einstein’s Office?: Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study, Ed Regis, Simon and Schuster, 1988.
  79. Three Degrees Above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age, Jeremy Bernstein, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984.
  80. Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science, Royston M. Roberts, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1989.
  81. Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever, Hal Hellman, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.
  82. Bookless in Baghdad and Other Writings about Reading, Shashi Tharoor, Penguin Viking, India, 2005.
  83. Things That Can and Cannot Be Said: Essays and Conversations, Arundhati Roy and John Cusack, Juggernaut Books, 2016.
  84. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli (Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre), Penguin Random House UK, 2016.
  85. Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life, Khushwant Singh, Penguin Books, 2014.
  86. Non Stop India, Mark Tully, Penguin Books, 2013.
  87. A Mind At Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2018.
  88. Adventures of a Mathematician, S. M. Ulam, University of California Press, 1991.
  89. Countdown, Amitav Ghosh, Penguin Books, 2010.
  90. Florence: A Delicate Case, David Leavitt, Bloomsbury, 2015.
  91. Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro (Translated by Kathryn Spink), Scribner, 2002.
  92. The Last Mughal: The fall of a dynasty, Delhi, 1857, William Dalrymple, Penguin Books, 2007.
  93. Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma, Jeremy Bernstein, Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
  94. Quantum Profiles, Jeremy Bernstein, Princeton University Press, 1991.
  95. ** India’s Unending Journey: Finding Balance in a Time of Change, Mark Tully, Rider, 2007.
  96. Essentials of Mathematical Thinking, Steven G. Krantz, CRC Press, 2018. (review)
  97. The Cost of Living, Arundhati Roy, Modern Library, 1999.
  98. The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Arundhati Roy, Penguin Books, 2014.
  99. King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry, Siobhan Roberts, Walker, 2006.
  100. Assam: The Accord, The Discord, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, Ebury Press, 2019.
  101. We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Fourth Estate, 2014.
  102. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 4th Estate, 2017.
  103. S. Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend, Kameshwar C. Wali (ed.), Imperial College Press, 1997.
  104. Liber Amicorum Richard “Dick” Allen Askey (2nd ed.), Howard S. Cohl and Mourad E. H. Ismail (ed.), eBook, 2019.
  105. The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad (Translated by Ingrid Christophersen), Virago, 2004.
  106. Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev, Priyanka Pathak-Narain, Juggernaut Books, 2017.
  107. We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer, Hamish Hamilton, 2019.
  108. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Greta Thunberg, Penguin Books, 2019.
  109. The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age, David N. Schwartz, Basic Books, 2017.
  110. Einstein’s Luck: The Truth Behind Some of the Greatest Scientific Discoveries, John Waller, Oxford University Press, 2002.
  111. C.V. Raman: A Biography, Uma Parameswaran, Penguin Books, 2011.
  112. The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future, David Wallace-Wells, Penguin Books, 2019.
  113. The Hunt for Vulcan: How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet and Deciphered the Universe, Thomas Levenson, Head of Zeus, 2015.
  114. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Penguin Books, 2015.
  115. Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors, Matt Parker, Penguin Books, 2019.
  116. Things I don’t Want to Know: A response to George Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘Why I Write’, Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2018.
  117. The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Translated by Samuel Moore), Penguin Little Black Classics, 2015.
  118. How to Bullsh_t Your Way to Number 1: An Unorthodox Guide to 21st Century Success from the World’s #1 Fake Restaurateur and Paris Fashion Week’s #1 Fake Designer, Oobah Butler, Oobah Butler, 2019.
  119. ** The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects: Volume 3: The Magic of Mathematics, Jennifer Beineke and Jason Rosenhouse (eds.), Princeton University Press, 2019. (review)
  120. Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction., Arundhati Roy, Penguin Books, 2020.
  121. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: The Untold Story of a Lost World, Steve Brusatte, Picador, 2019.
  122. From Raj to Rajiv: 40 Years of Indian Independence, Mark Tully and Zareer Masani, Universal Book Stall, 1988.
  123. Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions, Alberto Manguel, Yale University Press, 2018.
  124. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
  125. The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, Karen Olsson, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.
  126. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Brenda Maddox, Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
  127. The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, Owen Gingerich, William Heinemann, 2004.
  128. Think Like a Freak: How to Think Smarter About Almost Everything, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Penguin Books, 2014.
  129. Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels, Stephen B. Heard, Yale University Press, 2020.
  130. The Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London, Lisa Jardine, Perennial, 2005.
  131. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Penguin Books, 2010.
  132. When to Rob a Bank: …And 131 More Warped Suggestions and well-intended Rants, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, HarperLuxe, 2015.
  133. Allahu Akbar: Understanding the Great Mughal in Today’s India, Manimugdha S. Sharma, Bloomsbury India, 2019.
  134. The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography, Deborah Levy, Penguin Books, 2018.
  135. Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience, Shaun Usher (Compiler), Unbound & Canongate Books, 2016.
  136. More Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience, Shaun Usher (Compiler), Unbound & Canongate Books, 2015.
  137. When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, Michael J. Benton, Thames & Hudson, 2003.
  138. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Public Affairs, 2011.
  139. The Scientist as Rebel, Freeman Dyson, New York Review Books, 2006.

Fiction

  1. Half Girlfriend, Chetan Bhagat, Rupa, 2014. (review)
  2. Dead Meat, Ankush Saikia, Penguin India, 2015. (review)
  3. Mightier Than The Sword, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2015. (review)
  4. All My Friends are Superheroes, Andrew Kaufman, Telegram Books, 2006. (review)
  5. Scion of Ikshvaku, Amish Tripathi, Westland Books, 2015. (review)
  6. Cometh The Hour, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2016.
  7. Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story, Richard Bach, Element, 2003.
  8. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Edwin A. Abbott, Penguin Books, 1998.
  9. Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession, Apostolos Doxiadis, Bloomsbury USA, 2010.
  10. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
  11. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid, Penguin Books, 2007.
  12. Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story, The Complete Edition, Richard Bach, Harper Thorsons, 2015.
  13. One Indian Girl, Chetan Bhagat, Rupa, 2016.
  14. This was a Man, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2016.
  15. Remember Death, Ankush Saikia, Penguin India, 2016. (review)
  16. The Vegetarian, Han Kang (Tranlated by Deborah Smith), Portobello Books, 2016.
  17. Strangers, Omair Tarique, Moments Publications, 2017.
  18. Falling in love again: Stories of Love and Romance, Ruskin Bond, Rupa, 2016.
  19. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Om Books International, 2016.
  20. Revelations of an Imperfect Life, Sankhya Samhita, Readomania, 2017.
  21. The Pregnant King, Devdutt Pattanaik, Penguin Books India, 2008.
  22. Red River, Blue Hills, Ankush Saikia, Westland ltd., 2015.
  23. The Girl from Nongrim Hills, Ankush Saikia, Penguin India, 2013.
  24. The Outsider, Albert Camus (Translated by Sandra Smith), Penguin Classics, 2013.
  25. The Tobacconist, Robert Seethaler (Translated by Charlotte Collins), Picador, 2017.
  26. No Direction Rome, Kaushik Barua, Fourth Estate, 2015.
  27. The Spy, Paulo Coelho (Translated by Zoë Perry), Vintage, 2016.
  28. Tell Tale, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2017.
  29. Chess, Stefan Zweig (Translated by Anthea Bell), Penguin Classics, 2017.
  30. More Bodies Will Fall, Ankush Saikia, Penguin Books, 2018.
  31. Twilight in Delhi, Ahmed Ali, Rupa, 2017.
  32. ** A Horse Walks into a Bar, David Grossman (Translated by Jessica Cohen), Jonathan Cape, 2016.
  33. The Old Man and The Sea, Ernest Hemingway, Arrow Books, 2004.
  34. Heads You Win, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2018.
  35. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, Penguin Books, 1993.
  36. Candide, Voltaire (Translated by anonymous), Dover Publications, 1991.
  37. Lot No. 249, Arthur Conan Doyle, Penguin Little Black Classics, 2016.
  38. How Much Land Does A Man Need?, Leo Tolstoy, Penguin Little Black Classics, 2015.
  39. A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Janna Levin, Anchor Books, 2006.
  40. Origin, Dan Brown, Corgi Books, 2018.
  41. The Palace of Illusions, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Picador, 2009.
  42. The tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris, Zaffre, 2018.
  43. Nothing Ventured, Jeffrey Archer, Pan Macmillan, 2019.
  44. Life Over Two Beers: And Other Stories, Sanjeev Sanyal, Penguin Random House, 2018.
  45. Next Door: Stories, Jahnavi Barua, Penguin Books, 2008.
  46. The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, W. F. Howes Ltd., 2009.
  47. A Good Hanging and other stories, Ian Rankin, Orion Books Ltd., 1998.
  48. Fräulein Else: A Novel, Arthur Schnitzler (Translated by Robert A. Simon), Simon and Schuster, 1971.
  49. The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith, Sphere, 2014.
  50. The Fourth Estate, Jeffrey Archer, HarperCollins, 1996.
  51. As the Crow Flies, Jeffrey Archer, BCA, 1991.
  52. The Last Juror, John Grisham, Arrow Books, 2004.
  53. Chinatown Days, Rita Chowdhury, Macmillan, 2018.
  54. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy, Hamish Hamilton, 2017.
  55. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie, HarperCollins, 2017.

Graphic Books

  1. Feynman, Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick, First Second, New York, 2011. (review)
  2. All my friends are still dead, Avery Monsen and Jory John, Chronicle Books, 2012.
  3. All my friends are dead, Avery Monsen and Jory John, Chronicle Books, 2010.
  4. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou (Art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna), Bloomsbury, 2009.
  5. Peanuts: The misfortunes of Charlie Brown, Charles M. Schulz, Hodder and Stoughton, 1978.
  6. Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, Hill and Wang, 2013.
  7. A boy named Charlie Brown, Charles M. Schulz, Brockhampton Press, 1970.
  8. The New Yorker 1950-1955 Album, Hamish Hamilton, 1955.
  9. Masters of Abstraction, Peter Badge, Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation, 2015.
  10. Tragidoodles, Ben Cameron, Unbound, 2016.
  11. The Very Best of The Common Man, R. K. Laxman, Penguin Books India, 2012.

Poetry

  1. Away from Shore, Mary McCormack Deka, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.
  2. Nonsense, Edward Lear, Penguin Little Black Classics, 2016.
  3. The World’s Best Limericks, Richard Floethe (Illustrator), The Peter Pauper Press, 1951.
  4. The Eve of St Agnes, John Keats, Penguin Books, 2015.

Mixed

  1. Not a Nice Man to Know: The Best of Khushwant Singh, Khushwant Singh, Penguin Books, 1993.
  2. I love you madly, Helen Exley (ed.), Liz Smith and Caroline Gardner (Illustrators), Helen Exley Giftbooks, 2005.