2025

1. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (4/5)

good book, the whole christian evangelism propaganda was overdone in my opinion, but it is tolerable.

2. South Sea Tales by Jack London (3.75/5)

Some Robinson Crusoesque short stories that I really enjoyed reading. I liked The House of Mapuhi, Mauki, and The Heathen a lot.

3. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (5/5)

I love this book so much, for so many reasons. As a child, I used to open this book to the scene where Buck pulls a thousand pounds for John and read it over and over again. Simply wonderful.

4. White Fang by Jack London (5/5)

my third consecutive Jack London book, I can’t get enough of his writing. I wish I read this when I was in school. For me, this is better than The Call of the Wild as far as the writing and story go. I am going to go around for the next few days asking everyone I run into to read this book.

5. Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford (4/5)

I hadn’t realised how much I missed this sarcastic percy jacksonesque humour until I started reading this book. I finished this in one sitting, which is something childhood me wouldn’t really think was anything special but many winters have passed since I read a book cover to cover without stopping.

both the dialogue and monologue are great, the plot kinda darkens and pales simultaneously towards the end but it was still very enjoyable to read. also, the subject matter is clearly dark, and the humour does a very good job of being thoughtful as well as effective.

6. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (3/5)

wasn’t too bad, although I felt that narration + dialogue were far stronger than descriptions in many places. I have no clue what that Weed character is doing in the book except as a literary device for more exposition, and even that is a weak justification.

I am updating the review on my website a month after reading it, and one thing that stands out is how certain aspects of the book linger on for a long time. The whole Civil War thing, and rustic descriptions of rural America. Very enduring. I can see why it appealed to the Pulitzer folks.

7. The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter (4/5)

this writing has some of the best self-deprecating + existentialist humour ever written. some parts would go real viral on substack/blog-screenshot-twitter. the plot gets weak at some places and the ending is lacklustre. almost like it was written in the hope that it would be adapted into a movie.

8. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (4.75/5)

there is nothing that hasn’t been said before about this, so I wont waste my time. I loved reading the book, it never felt long, or boring, or difficult, or any of the usual excuses people give for not picking it up. The first time I read it, I simply didn’t have any historical background to appreciate it, but now I get why Tolstoy wanted to write this book.

Obviously, he has a very strong anti-Napoleon bias, and that put me off in some sections. But can we really blame the Russians for not liking Napoleon? His ideas on history are coherent until the epilogue, and then they get into youtube video-essay script territory. As far as characters go, Napoleon was my favourite (no surprises there) followed by Prince Andrei. Absolutely despised the entire Kuragin clan, and Anna Pavlovna, and Pierre Bezukhov. While the Kuragin’s and Anna Pavlovna are just despicable people, Pierre is guilty in that he is a comfort-seeking man, the worst of the lot.

docked a quarter star for all the forced Napoleon hate, Vive l’Empereur!

9. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (2.5/5)

what was that in the middle? the most pointless backstory ever. The Sherlock stuff was cool. but that flashback ruined it all.

10. Odyssey by Stephen Fry (4/5)

I am rather unfairly partial to the Allen Mandelbaum translation of The Odyssey (because it was the first classic I ever read) and so I am not going to say this was a great retelling or anything.

However, I think Fry’s four volumes on Greek Myths are incredibly important for how all-encompassing they are. My first exposure to the Ancient Greek myths and legends was Mandelbaum’s translation of the Odyssey, and then I picked up the Robert Graves book on Greek Myths off a shelf in my school library. After reading that, I was so captivated that I searched far and wide for other such books but never found any.

Children now wont have to search farther than the next book in the series. Athena smiles on Stephen Fry.

11. The Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond (2/5)

quaint and nice, but also drawn-out in some places.

12. 1984 by George Orwell (5/5)

This is essential reading. The writing is so powerful, and prescient. One can argue that the idea of the thought police is very far away from most people’s concern, especially in light of the recent resurgence of free-speech absolutists. But I think this book is about Fear, and how it paralyzes and eventually snuffs out everything brilliant and unique about humans. I might read Brave New World sometime soon, that one is about Greed.

13. Napoleon by Andrew Roberts (5/5)

the last great man in history

Vive l’Empereur!

14. Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant (4.5/5)

Wow it was only near the end of the book when Durant was writing about China did I bother to check when it was written, for there was no mention of Mao. Now that I write this, I should’ve realized something was off when he didn’t write about the Indian Independence. This book was written almost a hundred years ago, that is a very long time back to be writing about history. Especially when so much has happened in the last hundred years.

A really good book apart from that, the writing is very engaging, and Durant has genuine respect and admiration about the civilizations he writes about. There is a lot of focus on culture and societal description rather than just military/geographical history, and that was super interesting to me. This book can be used as an encyclopedia of history, because of how well it is organized into sections. It allows you to see the big picture, and identify recurring themes and patterns.

I learnt that the word “saw” has an alternative meaning that means “a proverb or maxim”. Quoting from page 183 of the book, “so old is the modern saw that we live on one-fourth of what we eat, and the doctors live on the rest.”

Some examples of writing I thought were very nice, not directly related to history:

“the world of beauty and the world of money never touch, even when beautiful things are sold”

“Men look to love and life for everything; they receive a little less than that; they imagine that they have received nothing: these are the three stages of the pessimist”

“The very basis of the Higher Man’s character is an overflowing sympathy towards all men. He is not angered by the excellences of other men; when he sees men of worth he thinks of equaling them; when he sees men of low worth he turns inward and examines himself, for there are few faults that we do not share with our neighbors. He pays no attention to slander or violent speech. He is courteous and affable to all, but he does not gush forth indiscriminate praise. He treats his inferiors without contempt, and his superiors without seeking to court their favor. He is grave in deportment, since men will not take seriously one who is not serious with them; he is slow in words and earnest in conduct; he is not quick with his tongue, or given to clever repartee; he is earnest because he has work to do—and this is the secret of his unaffected dignity. He is courteous even to his familiars, but maintains his reserve towards all, even his son.”

15. The Life of Greece by Will Durant (4.75/5)

I wrote about this in my review of Our Oriental Heritage but as you read this series, you come away, sometimes, with a very indescribable feeling of knowing more than Durant. For example, right away in the first chapter on Crete, Durant writes about an inexplicable period in history when everything in Crete was destroyed, with only ash and debris remaining. But we know now (a severe overstatement) about the Bronze Age Collapse, and how similar symptoms of ruin were observed in all Mediterranean civilizations.

For all my love for Greek mythology and stories, I have never bothered to learn about the history of the Greeks themselves. I think I was very content with imagining them as Homeric individuals fighting wars and feasting while living side by side with the gods. Any history of Greece I know is after only Alexander, and that was more of a cult of personality thing with some military history. While reading this book, I was continually reminded by how much of our culture we owe to the Greeks. Religion, rituals, literature, alphabets, poetry, prose, oratory, essays, drama, art, sculpture, architecture, mathematics, logic, philosophy, and so much more. The West is written under the signature of the Greeks.

This book is great, my favourite parts were the descriptions of art, and architecture and of the individuals across so many centuries. I thought the philosophy stuff was a bit soporific but I dragged on. Now I know a lot about the land and people I’ve admired from far away for so long.

The word “colophon” comes from a Greek city of the same name. “Greek. kolophon, hill; $\rightarrow$ cf. Latin collis, $\rightarrow$ English. hill. Because the cavalry of the city was famous for giving the “finishing touch” to a defeated force, the word kolophon became in Greek a synonym for the final stroke, and passed into our language as a publisher’s symbol, originally placed at the end of a book.”

The word paragraph which is used to denote a block of text pertaining to one topic and marking the differentiation from another topic comes from paragraphos which means a sign written on the side. A horizontal dividing stroke was placed on the side to mark changes in topics.

“Here under the rubric of athletics we find the real religion of the Greeks — the worship of health, beauty, and strength. “To be in health,” said Simonides, “is the best thing for man; the next best, to be of form and nature beautiful; the third, to enjoy wealth gotten without fraud; and the fourth, to be in youth’s bloom among friends.””

The phrase deus ex machina which means “god from the machine” is a Roman description of a literal Greek theatre prop wherein playwrights like Euripides made use of a mechane (which was a crane with pulley and weights) to lower a god into a scene who would resolve the plot via divine intervention.

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypokritēs but in a very round-about manner. In a Greek play, the plot is transmitted via a chorus and the actors on stage sort of “react” to the chorus. The word hypokritēs means “answerer” or “replier” and all actors are called this because they “answer” to the chorus. Over time, this word came to mean two-faced because it was associated with actors who play pretend on stage. How cool is that?

“As Giotto rough-hewed the early path of Italian painting, and Raphael subdued the art with a quiet spirit into technical perfection, and Michelangelo completed the development in works of tortured genius; as Bach with incredible energy forced open a broad road to modern music, and Mozart perfected its form in melodious simplicity, and Beethoven completed the development in works of unbalanced grandeur; so Aeschylus cleared the way and set the forms for Greek drama with his harsh verse and stern philosophy, Sophocles fashioned the art with measured music and placid wisdom, and Euripides completed the development in works of passionate feeling and turbulent doubt. Aeschylus was a preacher of almost Hebraic intensity; Sophocles was a “classic” artist clinging to a broken faith; Euripides was a romantic poet who could never write a perfect play because he was distracted by philosophy. They were the Isaiah, Job, and Ecclesiastes of Greece.”

“The Golden Age (of Greece) ended with the death of Socrates. Athens was exhausted in body and soul; only the degradation of character by prolonged war and desperate suffering could explain the ruthless treatment of Melos, the bitter sentence upon Mytilene, the execution of the Arginusae generals, and the sacrifice of Socrates on the altar of a dying faith. All the foundations of Athenian life were disordered: the soil of Attica had been devastated by the Spartan raids, and the slow-growing olive trees had been burned to the ground; the Athenian navy had been destroyed, and control of trade and the food supply had been lost; the state treasury was empty, and private fortunes had been taxed almost to extinction; two thirds of the citizen body had been killed. The damage done to Greece by the Persian invasions could not compare with the destruction of Greek life and property by the Peloponnesian War. After Salamis and Plataea Greece was left poor, but exalted with courage and pride; now Greece was poor again, and Athens had suffered a wound to her spirit which seemed too deep to be healed.”

16. Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine (4/5)

I completely forgot about the existence of this book for more than a decade until I saw it in my library and recognized the cover. This is still just as funny, charming, and outrageously ridiculous as the first time I read it. I also enjoyed it a lot more, considering that I was a kid the last time I read it. Such a fun read!

17. Caesar and Christ by Will Durant (4.25/5)

I learnt more about Christianity than about Rome from this book. The only stuff about Rome I wasn’t familiar with were the Emperors from Tiberius all the way to Commodus and the art and society stuff. That is a lot to not know, but it was a small part of the book. This book is way too short for such a huge time period with so many majestic personalities and monumental events.

“Christianity arose out of Jewish apocalyptic—esoteric revelations of the coming Kingdom; it derived its impetus from the personality and vision of Christ; it gained strength from the belief in his resurrection, and the promise of eternal life; it received doctrinal form in the theology of Paul; it grew by the absorption of pagan faith and ritual; it became a triumphant Church by inheriting the organizing patterns and genius of Rome.”

“The two greatest problems in history,” says a brilliant scholar of our time, are “how to account for the rise of Rome, and how to account for her fall.” We may come nearer to understanding them if we remember that the fall of Rome, like her rise, had not one cause but many, and was not an event but a process spread over 300 years. Some nations have not lasted as long as Rome fell”

May she rise again.

18. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (4.5/5)

The first thing I am going to say about this book is probably the most overused quip ever, that this book is basically non-fiction at this point. I had three recurring thoughts come to me as I read this book: 1) this book has a lot of stylistic similarities with 1984, 2) wow this book is really prescient and 3) I should really write my anti-llm essay pretty soon.

Before I start with the similarities I noticed between 1984 and Brave New World, I want to insert here this famous foreword by Neil Postman to his book Amusing Ourselves to Death.

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

The constant descriptions of all the clocks striking a particular time compared to the first line of 1984, the hate week paralleled in the orgy-porgies, and the use of the police to whisk away the transgressors to a location where the ideology of the Party is revealed by a big man from the party, whether it is O’Brien or Mustapha Mond. All these were similarities I noticed between the two books. Maybe like Christopher Hitchens said, “totalitarianism is a cliche.”

The next thing is the cliche stuff. The whole instant gratification thing feels like a social commentary of the 21st century rather than anything else. Except that we haven’t really figured out how to remove all of pain. The story as of itself was very well written. The only stuff I felt was out of place was the end when John is harrassed by all the “civilized” people into killng himself. I understand it, but I thought it was a shade less awesome than the rest of the book. Also, the whole Fordship thing was very done.

The commentary on the enforced caste system was very illuminating. The Brave New World’s solution to the problem of class revolts is to use Pavlovian conditioning to keep everyone content in their station. Which brings to mind the idea that the places you are comfortable in are the places that are slowly killing you. I think that’s a Nietzschean idea.

John’s entire internal monologue being just Shakespeare is such an awesome touch. When will I get to reading all of Shakespeare’s works?

I will end on a personal note, I keep thinking of everyone using LLM to do their thinking for them as something fundamentally bad for their minds. And this book really pushed me to add more thoughts to that. I am definitely going to at least start writing that essay now.

Completely deserves its place in the pantheon of great dystopian science fiction works along with 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

19. Trust by Hernán Díaz (4.75/5)

the final boss of unreliable narrators.

I feverishly read this book, only taking three breaks. The writing is spectacular, and I will be going around recommending this book to everyone I meet. There are so many phrases in this book which really bring out the beauty of the English language, and they’re sprinkled everywhere throughout the book.

The story is great too, layer upon layer of unreliable narration until you’re left double-guessing every event to remember what the actual truth was. It is not a thriller, nor is it a commentary on rich people like so many reviews of this book emphasize, although there is quite a lot about financial markets in there. It is simply about the human tendency to want to be remembered in a favourable light.

The final thing I will say about the book is that there was no part of the book that felt superfluous to the story. Every page had Chekhov’s gun hanging on the walls. Easily the best book I’ve read this year, yet.

One more note: I find it super interesting that two consecutive Pulitzers were awarded for stories that heavily featured women being put in psychiatric institutions.

• Dua Lipa In Conversation With Hernan Diaz: This is where I got the suggestion from, after watching Dua Lipa interview Ocean Vuong and Khaled Hosseini. Dua asks a very thoughtful question in this conversation that I thought of myself; about whether the Ida in Trust had any parallels to Ida Tarbell who wrote extensively about John. D. Rockefeller in her capacity as an investigative journalist.

20. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (5/5)

I cannot find the words to describe this book. This was beautiful. Simply beautiful.

21. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (4.25/5)

I didn’t think I would love this book this much when I was reading the first few chapters. I almost stopped midway because I thought the writing was too forced and none of the characters were likeable. I was so wrong. It keeps getting better and better.

22. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (3/5)

I can totally see how this could have happened. And I can also see why this is recommended reading in school. Makes me want to read Treasure Island again.

23. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (2.25/5)

Word salad alert! Bunch of neurotic people saying neurotic things. I mean, I get why the book is so popular, the style of the prose is very soviet-essay coded and very memorable. The ideas are well-formed, and the characters are well written, and maybe I would have liked this book at some other time, but I simply couldn’t read this without forcing myself to.

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