Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

"Design is subjective" is something we have heard often but that is not the case says Dan Norman. It should clearly communicate with every user without any ambiguity.

The examples that he quotes to build the book are of a faucet and a door. Design issues that should have been …

DISCLAIMER: I know the author personally and had read early drafts of the book.

Woof, by Aparna Karthikeyan, is the story of a pack of street dogs on some Mumbai beach for young adults. These dogs who have been on the beach all their lives find a new pup abandoned …

What is with Malayali people and the gulf? How do they lead their lives across the sea? Deepak Unnikrishnan's "Temporary People" is a collection of short stories of regular Malayali immigrants in the Middle East. The stories make use of fantasy and hyperbole to convey the 'concealed and relegated' status …

Statistics can be tortured to convey whatever the captor wishes. And this is being done every day across the political spectrum and ideologies.

Hans Rosling feels that while statistics quoted daily all over may provide a negative picture, the world has improved a lot despite people (all over the world …

The Great Depression of the 1930s devastated America and left a lot of people without livelihoods. George and Lennie are two farm hands on the lookout for work. They have been driven out of their previous work due to accusations of inappropriate behaviour by Lennie who is mentally disabled.

George …

Jalaluddin was 13 when his father Humayun passed away, a reign that was precarious. There were many claimants to the throne, from the Surs who were dethroned by Humayun, to brothers of Humayun and even the Adil Shahs from the south.

Until he came of age, Akbar was placed under …

"The Shining" by Stephen King was a difficult novel to read. Not because of the writing but from the disturbing recollections of events by Danny, a central character in the book who is gifted with clairvoyance, a trait referred to as "The Shining".

Jack, his wife Wendy and Danny their …

Mir Jaffer, a name that I kept hearing a lot during the West Bengal elections this year. It was a name connected to Bengal and Indian history but one that I had hardly heard of while at school. And serendipitously I would run into that name again through a book …

I had heard of Nathan Myhrvold's "Modernist Cuisine", a book which merged science and cooking. So when I was gifted "Masala Lab: The science of Indian cooking", it piqued my interest. Krish Ashok does a good job of explaining some Indian cooking processes while providing tips on taking it to …