A history lesson about a much forgotten (and ignored) genocide and how it was avenged. Also a very informative book about the geopolitics of Armenia, USSR, Ottoman empire and Germany in the World War I era. To the million and a half Armenians who perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks during the First World…
This book came to me through the On Being podcast. Anam Cara means “Soul Friend” in Gaelic. One should consider oneself very fortunate if there is even one of these in your life. Here are some highlights from the book that spoke to me. It is surely a book that one needs to read again…
Small, matter of fact book, that explores the Japanese concept of ikigai and the Okinawan lifestyle, follows up with concepts from Antifragile (Nassim Taleb), Blue Zones (Dan Buettner) and Man’s Seach for Meaning (Victor Frankl). A little bit of everything. Excerpts: Ogimi, a rural town on the north end of the island with a population…
A good primer for particle physics, quantum physics, thermodynamics, evolution and entropy. In addition to the parts, this is a book about the universe and how it functions. The concept of quantum tunneling as it applies to the Higgs field is particularly riveting. Just like in The Alchemist, Brian Greene says at at the end,…
Writer and painter move from LA to San Miguel de Allende and become part of the local community. Their journey over 15 years: We were busy, successful, tired. In youth we’d both traveled widely on shoestrings, lived in Europe, North Africa, India, Japan. Now we had the money but no time. Instead we read about…
Bravery is common. Resilience is common. But heroism has a philosophical component to it. There’s some great “Why?” that heroes bring to the table—some incredible cause or belief that goes unshaken, no matter what. And this is why, as a culture, we are so desperate for a hero today: not because things are necessarily so…
A great book if you want to understand the history of Chile and what animates the Chilean soul. Excerpts: This book is an exercise in nostalgia. No one passes by casually, however lost he may be, although many visitors decide to stay forever, enamored of the land and the people. This elongated country is like…
Interesting travel and relationship book. Recommended by my wife. Excerpts below: “Marriage is no longer about making alliances to further your parents’ interest or about linking a dependent female to a dominant male. Now both women and men can say they want to marry someone with similar ideals, talents, aspirations, and qualities. We want equals,”…
This is a scary book. It is also a book that will force you to examine your values. Here are 3 videos that made me more interested in this: A few interesting tidbits from the book: Neuroplasticity – the ability of our brains to develop the parts of it that we train – is an…
A beautiful, modern take on the Rumi and Shams love story by Elif Shafak. Two storylines – a modern one and an ancient one run in parallel. Some quotes from the book: In many ways the twenty-first century is not that different from the thirteenth century. Both will be recorded in history as times of…