This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
In the very first (and partial) exception to my personal chain mail policy, here’s my post about books, prompted by an email from Quizman.
Total number of books I own: Easily over a thousand, split between what my mom stowed away in the loft in Mysore, what my former housemates find in their bookshelves, what lies in cartons, bookshelves, cupboards, under the bed and in the litte Fairy’s mischievous hands.
The last book I bought: The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. My own opinion, based on attending corporate meetings, is that intelligence adds up like electrical resistance in parallel, while stupidity adds up in series. In other words, the a group of smart people is less intelligent that any one of them, whereas a group of stupid people is as stupid than all of them put together. James Surowiecki does a good job in proving that my opinion is not universally correct.
The last book I read: Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. This is an excellent read — reminds me of the various discussions we used to have in university canteens. But Mr Ravi Bhatia and I were trying to apply electrical engineering concepts to uncover those hidden truths.
Five books that mean a lot to me:
An Autobiography or the story of my experiments with truth, by M. K. Gandhi. His earnestness stands out. Thanks to the Mahatma Gandhi e-Archive, this book is now available free online.
Exodus, by Leon Uris. I read it a long time ago. It made a difference.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. The edition I have has all the five volumes in the ‘trilogy’. Adams was a genius.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I own is the original facsimile edition, with all the original illustrations and typeface.
The Adventures of Tintin, by Hergé. No, I have not outgrown Tintin. I recently acquired the reprints of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, black-and-white parents of the familiar Tintin series.
Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs: While I would rather not rope in particular individuals, all of The Acorn’s readers are welcome to participate in this meme — of their own volition.
Update:To think that I forgot Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum!
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