Another Book Review Compilation

Entering college and the ensuing lack of time meant that I have had hardly any time to write a book review, much read a book. Before I entered Yonsei, I read some and posted my book reviews elsewhere; I will compile them here for the sake of unity (and hopefully of conscientious future writing)

Walter Isaacson - Einstein: His Life and Universe
Maybe I'm going too far with my display of ego, but I found that there were striking similarities between Einstein and me (or at least the current me, in case the future me finds this statement abhorrent). He is politically left(which I amuse myself on being), loves and plays brilliant music (oh yes), has a terrible short term memory (OH YES) and has a genuine love for humanity and an easygoing character that is amused by things going around him. The biographer, Walter Isaacson, reasons that what allowed Einstein to come up with his theory of relativity was his craving for freedom and contempt for authority, which allowed him to escape the conventions of Newtonian physics.

Einstein truly loved phyiscs; he carried his notes around everywhere, scribbling equations, even to his deathbed trying to work out his unified field theory in vain. I guess the similarities between him and me end here, because I still haven't found something that I truly love and could devote my life for. Before, I thought I could leave this till I got into college, but for some reason I feel it more urgently now, which explains my want for voracious reading. Do I see myself as a physicist? Maybe - physics seems to be a intellctual science encompassing science and philosophy together, something that might convey deep meanings. But then, other areas of interests are no less interesting...

The length of the book suggests that the book recieve a decent review, but sorry, I can't bother myself, maybe the future me will curse me for doing this, in that case, fuck me.

Maybe I'll come back on it when I'm feeling better. But then, there's the amazon book reviews, so convenient.


Benjamin Franklin - The Autobiography of Benjamin Frankin
I just finished the Ben Franklin autobiography at 1:30 AM, tried to go to sleep, couldn't, and thought that if I were to become a special person, I shouldn't be too restricted by the necessity of sleep. So here I am writing a diary entry and downloading yet another book for my beautiful kindle.

Franklin was truly a renaissance man, his proffesion stretching from printing and engineering to philosophy and politics. Despite being the youngest of 13 children, he managed to educate himself throught voracious reading and was considered precocious by many. To me, he seemed to epitomize the American spirit of experimenting, leaving his family at the age of 17 to work at a printer's house in Philadelphia.

There were many remarkable aspects of him, of which I will mention of few; one was that he liked to read and talk about what he read, which he discussed with his club, the JUNTO. Probably it was his eclectic reading that allowed him to be expert in so many fields and the fact that he valued his book so much made an impression on me. Also, he seems to have led a very stress-free life, with all his affairs turning out to be well, and when they didn't he wasn't much trouble by them. This could be attributed to how he avoided disputes and arguments as he saw nothing good coming out of them. Another interesting aspect of him was his religious doctrine, where he didn't belong to a sect but believed in a "Deity"(which I think strictly means he was agnostic).

I was dissapointed at the fact that his autobiography was rather incomplete as it didn't narrate the last 30 years of his life, which inconveniently happens to be the most important 30 years of his life. Still, his industry at such a young age will inspire me to achieve excellence.

And next time I need to find a way to loosen this ridiculously stiff style of writing. I blame Ben.


Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram
I didn't realise how long Shantaram was til I was halfway done with it(all those page turning, or rather clicking, made SO little difference!). But as Lee Yun-Seok said yesterday at Yonsei(somehow I happened to hear his lecture), a thick book is usually more useful than many thin books, and indeed, Shantaram was engaging and introduced new ideas to me.

What I remember the most is the philosophical discussion between the main character, Lin, and his boss, Abdul Khader Khan. Khader argues that when we judge what is good and evil, we need to judge whether a certain action leads to an increased complexity of the universe. The underlying assumption is that the universe is in an inevitable progress towards ultimate complexity, which Khader calls god; indeed, the universe started out simply, from the Big Bang, and through the expansion of the universe and evolution of living things, the universe has become more complex. An interesting thought.

Also, Lin repeated on many occasions a quote made by Khader that stuck onto his mind: “Sometimes it is necessary to do the wrong things for the right reasons". The reason why this struck Lin was that he believed that even when things were done with good motives, the consequences were not always desirable; this was clearly demonstrated in the car crash of his best friend, Prabaker, to whom Lin had bought a car. That made me think again about my wish to (somewhat vaguely) help those people in Africa(or somewhere) suffering from malnutrition and no clean water; I may have the good reasons, but what if I make things worse than before? Maybe Lin's logic may be a license for complacency and non-committment, but I do think he has a point.


Stephen Fry - The Liar
The comparative shortness in length was extremely freshing and invigorating, but that was as far as the book got. The book was indeed hilarious at some points, but it carries on with the vulgarity, lack of common sense and perculiarity of the characters which gets really inane by the end of the book. Not such a good read.


Michael Sandel - Justice
It's one of those books that makes you think that reading books once is never enough. I really can't be bothered to talk about it, because there's so many ideas to talk about and even more ideas that I didn't understand.

What I understoood(or did I really?) was Sandel conclusion about justice. There are three ways, according to him, that determines justice.

1. Utilitarianism
2. Freedom
3. Virtue

He likes option 3. But I can't quite get why he chose that, except I remember something on how humans don't have complete freedom, because we are, whether we want to be or not, part of the community which has a certain set of morals that we follow. Also, religion and morals must play a part in determining justice, he argues. I sound like a idiot here because I really don't get what on earth he is talking about. But I'll definitely read it again.