legend -
MR = must read ( must think/must see)
LSB = lazy sunday book( movie)
movies :
[1] charlie wilson's war - (for harish ) Good movie and interesting stuff as i never realised that the funding of the mujahadeen's was actually a covert operation
[2] lives of others -(for harish ) Very nicely made movie of life in Stasi Germany.
[3] taare zameen par -(for michoo) hard to imagine its Amir Khan's first directorial venture. The publicity and website designer was a very close friend of Sanket's from Baroda!
[4] bourne ultimatum series ( for michoo ) was fun
[5] amor es perros -spanish movie , english subtitles - in the style of traffic and fight club.
[6] motorcycle diaries - spanish movie,english subtitles - life of che guevera - makes you want to jump on a motorcycle and ride and ride...
[7] lord of the rings series - for all who love tolkein. peter jackson has beautiful sceneries and a nice story.
[8] crimson tide - electric movie. gene hackman and denzel washington dazzel. a bit old on radchenko :) , u.s nuclear submarine mission.
[9] rules of engagement - what must be happening right now. where colonels following orders become political scape goats. terrific performances by samuel jackson , and , tommy lee jones.
[10] a few good men - jack nicholson dazzling performance as marine commander at guantanamo bay. helps to have tom cruise and demi moore in the cast .
[11] terminator - 2 : good movie for pioneer special effects. can affect a person not seen a movie for years.
[12] hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - amazzing movie. everyone must love it.douglas adams did a great job writing it too.
books :
unknown author :
[1] devil's virtuoso -(for harish) an old book on hitler's generals.
tim weiner :
[1] legacy of ashes : the history of cia -(for michoo )
armand marie leroi :
[1] mutants : on genetic variety and the human body - (for michoo)
ron suskind :
[1] the one percent doctrine: deep inside america's pursuit of it's enemies since 9/11- (for michoo )
alan greenspan :
[1] age of turbulence - (for michoo ) lots of insight into the financial world...v interesting.esplly concerning the housing mkt_apparently the froth he was talking abt are actually bubbles! Ydy when Bernanke and the Prez announced a "stimulus" to the economy, I at least understood what they meant! But there are many now who say this kind of stimulii is what has led to such "bubbles" and recession etc! Anyways, I feel better off by reading his book.
conn iggudsen :
[1] historical fiction - (for harish) julius ceaser
[2] historical fiction - (for harish) lord of the bows - genghis khan
douglas adams:
hitchiker's guide to the galaxy - terrific book. man's ultimate answer is a number.
michael crichton :
MR=[1] Congo - terrific work that even today is readable for the range of gizmos,s/w and africa's problems.nothing seems to have changed.
MR= [2] The state of fear - environment has an agenda. and it's not about the environment. beautiful.
MR=[3] Jurassic Park - mathematician talks and talks and it's so much fun iterating :)
MR=[4] Prey - distributed computing with swarms
MR=[5] Airframe - how aeroplane making industry works
MR=[6] Eaters of the dead - terrific historical account Beowulf style
MR=[7] Next - .... :) mind boggling imagination of crichton truly shows up here
LSB=[8] Pirate Lattitudes - humorous account of the age of royal privateering
LSB=[9] Sphere - a bit off color and off dated story of an innocuous alien
LSB=[10] Disclosure - pertinent story to U.S hi tech work place
LSB=[11] Rising Sun - what business in Japan means
richard dawkins :
MR=[1] Selfish gene - made me believe in science again.i never thought a book about genetics will do that. after reading all those books in physics,chemistry and math - it took this book to really start thinking that science works!
[2] extended phenotype - own it. haven't read it.seems to be defending critiscisms from SG.
MR=[3] Anscestors piligrimage - naming of a concestor. full of trivia and anecdotes about our furry past.including how a mid-size rat-looking ancestor of our's might have just escaped certain death under the feet of the great "'saurs".
i think this could be his best book since [1]. it's a huge book to read.
[4] God delusion - on the spot about the evils of believing. makes every religion look pagan.but ,then he's taking coal to newcastle sometimes.
MR=[5] Blind watchmaker - shows "painstakingly" how "survivability" can be a powerful designer in life forms we see on earth - and thus , also natural selection is not random. comes close to a book on programming.
domnique lappierre,larry collins :
MR = [1] Freedom at midnight - a poetic novel or depressing reality? i wasn't aware you can do so much with words.everyday things can be "sentenced".
eli maor :
MR = [1] e: The Story of a Number - everyone who learns math in hi-school is aware of the close resemblance in the expansion of "e= 2.718281828" and lev tolstoy's birthday. however, what's great about "e"? why is it one of "Euler's numbers"? innocent questions answered beautifully by a princeton prof of math. very accessible to non-mathematicians. reads like a novel.
robert kanigel :
MR|LSB = [1] The man who knew infinity : a life of the genius ramanujan - well researched.falls short of whetting the appetite for math students and leaves you gasping for knowing more about this mysterious person.
timothy ferris :
MR |LSB = [1] The Red Limit - open a world of wonders that exists right around you all the time. you are a part of it and you ignore it , because ,it's too large to acknowledge. yet, there are people who work to find out this world - you will never look at the night sky the same way again.guaranteed.
steven pinker :
MR | LSB = [1] The Language Instinct - accessible , unlike chomsky and very witty.learn more about why you talk the way you do. after reading this - i am convinced we don't really follow grammatical rules, the rules follow us. almost like a meandering river, taking it where we go.the way we learn a language is based on a sense of context and prediction.
richard feynman :
MR | LSB = [1] Surely, you must be joking mr feynman - funny and biographical.lots of tricks for math/science.make you think.
john joe mcfadden :
MR = [1] quantum evolution - how living beings make their environment - instead of the other way round. how when you think of something you are able to bring it to fruition - for ex. did you ever think how easy it is to think of eating and actually doing it? jjm , thinks w/o quantum physics this is impossible. a mind running simulations = thinking.
