What I’ve Been Reading
Maximum City
Billed by Tyler Cowen as one of the best ‘travel’ books that he has read. The author of the book who had grown up in India returned to Mumbai for five years to write this book in which he explores the city through the lenses of politics, the mob, sex, and movies. Interesting read.
The Gene: An Intimate History
The most interesting book I’ve read this year. I was not expecting much as the subject looked rather dry, but the author makes it very interesting. He combines the search for genes and the race to decode DNA with the genetic mental illness in his family tree to make it more ‘intimate’.
Some points I that I found interesting
- DNA is a recipe — a recipe to make you
- Every cell in your body carries the complete DNA sequence
- CRISPR is a method to introduce deliberate and highly targeted changes in human DNA
Creativity at Apple
Written by an former engineer at Apple, this book offers an inside account of how Apple products were built. By far the most interesting chapter was about the development of the keyboard for the Apple iPhone in which the author had a major role. A large part of the book is about the ‘Apple Way’ — power of small teams, the importance of design which although mainstream today, was unique at that time.
Joyful [Skimmed]
Details how our environment can affect our mood. Interesting concept and there is some good information in there. However, I stopped reading after a while because Kindle is simply not the right medium for this book. I think it may work well as an interactive app on a tablet.
Coffee Can Investing [Skimmed]
One of the few India centric books on financial education. Indians tend to save in fixed deposits where the rate of return is essentially equal to inflation. They also over invest in gold and real estate that are not productive investments. This book goes into why this is a bad idea.
The antidote prescribed for the above advice is a portfolio of small and medium stocks that exhibit certain characteristics. The book claims that such a portfolio will help investors consistently beat the market. This seems rather unlikely, even award winning mutual fund managers have had trouble beating the index in the past couple of years as the market gets more efficient.
Bad Science
Bad Science is a serious yet humorous look at the bad science that most of the media promotes. Each chapter details and dismisses common treatments such as detoxes, homeopathy, expensive cosmetics, vitamin supplements and other nutrition myths. Some of these such as homeopathy are sadly still prevalent today. I also learned that the cod liver oil that I had taken in my childhood to improve my intelligence was based on a poorly designed study.
