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Book Reviews & AI Discourse
Thinking openly about the intersection of literature, philosophy, and artificial intelligence.

Book Reviews

Personal book reviews exploring the line between human and AI-assisted writing, with full transparency on which parts of each review came from where.

๐Ÿ“š Book Reviews

Into the Dream Lab by Michelle Carr

Disappointing to read as a person who is curious about dreams and mental health, for someone who has been researching the same for the past two years. Still interesting enough to learn new techniques ...
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Down Under by Bill Bryson

Never knew Bryson was such a funny writer. In all those reading during the college days, I saw his โ€˜A short history of everythingโ€™, misjudged him to be a philosopher or an imitator from โ€˜A brief histo...
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The Corporation by Joel Bakan

New ideas and understanding of corporation spring forth in Joel Bakanโ€™s The Corporation. He presents facts from historical precedents about Fordโ€™s lawsuit from his partners, General Motorsโ€™ misalignme...
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Its a simple story set in Africa about a time when old times were being replaced by new times. Endearing old times derived from nature were replaced by rigid customs named after humans. Stories are th...
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The Infinite Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallby

Narcissistic minds show their true colours when faced with challenge of scaling a complex and unwanted solution for societyโ€™s problems. Their romance with idealism takes a backseat and practical matte...
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Imperial Twilight by Stephen Platt

Stephen Platt's Imperial Twilight tells the story of the Opium Wars with more sympathy for the Chinese side than most Western historiesโ€”but it is still a Western book. The narrative arc is familiar: a...
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Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is a classic story about survival, not of spiritual growth. It contains hints of colonial anxiety - or lets say colonial supremacy -, which do not diminish after isolation from humans ...
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel C. Dennett

Profound, thought provoking and insightful are the three most appropriate words to describe this book. It takes on a humongous task of understanding human mind - particularly consciousness - and prese...
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The Open Society and its Enemies vol. 1 by Karl Popper

โ€˜Socrates Good, Plato Badโ€™ is the only way I can summarise this book. Although it may seem controversial, Popper has persuaded me enough to let go of any reservations against the phrase. Popper dissec...
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Memoirs of a dutiful daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

The book is appropriately divided into 4 books, each representing a phase of her life - childhood, school, high school, and college. The first book describes a happy childhood of a curious mind - yet ...
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The Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtel

The morning after reading the book, I wake up with a different feeling. I doubt if my thoughts on a book so impactful towards society are fair, or will it carry the bias of a critic more scientificall...
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Plato and platypus walk into a bar

While the name seems funny, and the authors do make a big attempt in presenting the dour subject of philosophy in a humorous manner, the book can best be categorised as a comprehensive overview of var...
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Words by Sartre

The origins of poor literature and trash writing lie in a personโ€™s desire to write long sentences to exude sophistication. The academic rigour and necessity of coherence creates lines of unnecessary w...
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Age of Revolutions

I did not like Zakaria when I read him in the past, but I kind of loved this book. Its a good story and he starts by building solid foundations. Probably it resonates with me because of the depth of D...
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The Algorithm

I am impressed by the book and discussions in it. While it can be adjudged to be in the mould of Soshanaโ€™s Digital Surveillance2, but in my opinion it is better. There are a few reasons, why I think i...
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Adults in the Room

I am flabbergasted and at a loss of words to do justice to this book. Any amount of words cannot capture the complexity and hypocrisy of EU that is represented in this book. While I was aware about th...
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The Utopia of Rules

There are books which you read and think โ€˜thatโ€™s so me, and it captures my thoughts very well.โ€™ This is that book. While, I am not an anarchist, the bookโ€™s theme of least bureaucracy is what I aspire ...
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Buddha and his Dhamma by Dr. Ambedkar

These were the dark ages of Vedic religion, and the defenders of the Vedas were transforming it into an almighty which could not be challenged. These were the right circumstances for a new religion or...
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The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber

It presents archaeological evidence of how I thought the ancients might have lived. But, mostly it presents evidence of how bureaucracy - something I have inherent dislike for - might have come into b...
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The Capitalist Manifesto by Johan Norberg

Wow, is the first word to describe the1. Its amazing, and presents data that is counter-intuitive to general societal discussions. First one that pops to mind is that beyond a certain number, the joy ...
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Maybe, its the bookโ€™s theme that pushes her to take an extreme view like this, but such a monotone overdrive is not worth it and is never going to convince people of her take. She will lose the โ€˜patho...
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Godel, Escher and Bach, Douglas E. Hofstadter

Most books on AI and data, in order to sound sophisticated and advanced, only discuss math, current topics and eye grabbing trend setting, but GEB begins with an attempt to define or discuss โ€˜What is ...
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Numbers dont lie

Fews books and people will do a better prognosis on numbers and their interpretations as Simil does in this book. Although, I am disappointed with the proportion of qualitative versus quantitative asp...
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The Anarchy

It could and most likely will become an influential book for nationalist Indians in the future. It is divisive in nature, and as a typical book is biased towards only one side of the story. While it b...
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Soros on Soros

Great things are paradoxical and so is this book. I can judge this book in hindsight which allows me to be more critical of George Sorosโ€™ current mindset. But, at the time of this bookโ€™s publication, ...
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The Psychology of Trading, Brett E. Steenberger

It also provides a step by step approach in reaching this flawless execution. Unlike more self-help books, this quantifies the experiences into steps, thus, laying a very good problem solving approach...
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The Gambler

Classics have a style and story that are keeping me glued to them for a long time. This is probably the third book that I have finished in one sitting or atleast the same day since I started. Granted ...
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Quantum by Manjit Kumar

In my understanding Einstein was right to come up with the arguments with thought experiments time and again. I can imagine it been annoying to Bohr, because I find Bohr to be an egoist. This is proba...
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Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire

Firstly, isnโ€™t this strange that Optimism - the word -, is used for the first time in literature in this book. That should be sufficient reason to read the book. However, in a positive scary manner, I...
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The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova

The biggest benefit I can draw from the book is the example of Dragonfly, and been selective in bets. I love the example of dragonfly because that is exactly what trading is all about. Particularly sw...
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Thus, Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche

The book begins with a satire on religion, but with the central character names Zarathustra as an ode to Nietzscheโ€™s favourite religious character - Zoaraster. Nietzsche was hugely inspired by the cha...
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On the Good Life, Cicero

Cicero leaves behind a good deal of knowledge from his time. He discusses the morality of his peers, and also his aspirations of a fair and just society. While his notes are written mostly in his time...
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