I really enjoyed reading "The Blue Machine: How The Ocean Works".
It turns out the Ocean is fascinating, and I learned something crazy:
"Between 1950 and 1973, world fish harvest trippled, but the amount of fish directly consumed by humans stayed the same. The rest went into fishmeal, as a supplemental food for livestock, and this became an essential ingredient for modern industrial farming".
I didn't realize that fishmeal was a primary input to modern animal agriculture. Global fish stocks collapsed not only because people ate fish, but also because of animal agriculture in general. It's fascinating how it's all connected.
Also, sea turtles cry 8 litres of tears an hour.
Needless to say, this book ended up as a permanent fixture on my bookshelf.
Without a doubt "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing.
Read it, read it now.
It's the kind of book that you once you read, you'll never forget. 4.8 stars with 23k reviews on Amazon. Similar survival story vibes as books like "Into Thin Air" or "Into the Wild" but just on another level. It follows the story of a journey to Antarctica in 1914 that goes wrong and ends up with the ship trapped in ice for many months, and follows the crews absolutely insane attempts at survival.
I am waiting for time to forget enough of it so that I can read it again.
Definitely adding this to my list. I was stationed in Antarctica for three months earlier this year and it really gave me a newfound respect for these early explorers. I can’t imagine navigating such an environment with only relatively basic equipment and the stars.
Culture of Flowers by Jack Goodie. An anthropology book that compares the culture of Flowers across civilizations. "No flowers in Africa" to China being most gifted place in terms of flowers. Variability across Europe and Muslim civilizations etc etc.
As an Indian, I found how civilizations treat luxury (flowers) and necessity fascinating. Apparently Europe had a culture of garlands before the banquet culture. India is still predominantly garlands expect for a few highly westernised places. Muslim treatment or rather rejection of flowers in mosque but giving the world spectacle of flower gardens was very fascinating.
The book is not going to win any prize for prose or even coherence structure.
I’ve been getting into self-optimization lately, and sleep has been a game-changer. Two books that really opened my eyes are Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and Outlive by Peter Attia. Walker breaks down why sleep is so critical, while Attia ties it into the bigger picture of health and longevity. Also been exploring Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Protocol.
"Heavenly Numbers: Astronomy and Authority in Early Imperial China" by Christopher Cullen
I read it for a course assignment. The book is structured as a continuous narrative of the development of astronomy throughout the Qin and Han dynasty in early China. It balances general information with mathematical details very nicely, so I feel it will appeal to both readers interested in the history or the astronomy. A pretty fun read for me, despite my purpose.
I think Your Money or Your Life (Vicki Robbins, 1992) predates it and helped inspire Mr Money Moustache, but Collins’ book is great too.
For everyone reading this, pursuing FIRE will impact your life more than any other book. Set the ball in motion and wait. Soon you’ll have time to enjoy all these other great books.
The Ray Tracer Challenge by Jamis Buck. It uses Cucumber tests to specify the behaviour of the code, without giving you the code. Not a single weekend project. I've been doing it in C++ to learn about the modern language, but any language can be used.
I don’t read much non-fiction but for this year my pick is “Everyone Who is Gone is Here” by Jonathan Blitzer.
It’s a well-researched and original account of immigration at the US Southern border. It tells the story of many individuals and also whole Central/South American countries. The news media will tell you about caravans and people sneaking through Mexico but it’s hard to get a spin-free version of who is actually coming here and why.
It was enlightening and infuriating. Both political parties have lied to us for their benefit, and it made me realize I understood almost nothing about immigration before reading this. Highly recommend. Those of us who were born in the US are very lucky to not have to fight our way in.
I am a terrible reader and I'm really ashamed of it. I don't know how people can read that many books, I think in my lifetime I've finished at most 4 books? and two of them were technical books.
I think I suffer from aphantasia which may be related to the impossibility of getting hook to anything by reading. I've tried mangas as well and it's a bit easier, but still find hard to really enjoy.
Of course, most of the books I tried are the ones that I had to read in school, but I also tried a few recommendations from friends and the result was the same.
To build up the habit or hopefully get passionate, try to read with/for your or your relative’s kid(s). Not necessarily together with the same book, just sit beside them on the couch, park, or wherever and see what conversation follows.
Need time to read? I find the best ones are while waiting to board your flight, Uber, and other transport.
"The Alchemy of Air" by Thomas Hager. This covers the discovery of fertilizer, its strategic implications (it was the oil of its day), the creation in Germany of the Haber-Bosch process for producing fertilizer and gunpowder precursors from air, and how it fueled two world wars. An incredible story that is not widely known these days.
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. This is an old one, but still a classic. The first half is like a scientific detective story about the discovery and development of quantum theory itself, in Germany and Denmark, and can be read by itself as an engaging history of physics. Then Hitler rises to power, we learn how most of the characters we've met so far escape to England and the USA, and the others except Bohr become part of the German nuclear project. It then becomes an engineering management history of the Manhattan project, and a fascinating look at the challenges they overcame. The final chapter is a sobering play by play description of what happened to the people of Hiroshima, and was hardest but necessary to read.
It turns out the Ocean is fascinating, and I learned something crazy:
"Between 1950 and 1973, world fish harvest trippled, but the amount of fish directly consumed by humans stayed the same. The rest went into fishmeal, as a supplemental food for livestock, and this became an essential ingredient for modern industrial farming".
I didn't realize that fishmeal was a primary input to modern animal agriculture. Global fish stocks collapsed not only because people ate fish, but also because of animal agriculture in general. It's fascinating how it's all connected.
Also, sea turtles cry 8 litres of tears an hour.
Needless to say, this book ended up as a permanent fixture on my bookshelf.
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