How can you write political satire that can be hard-hitting even when not very direct? You piggy back (pun intended) upon allegory. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell is a satire on Soviet Russia (under Stalin, I guess) drawing upon animals from a barn.

The animals in a barn rise in …

When Yuval Noah Harari had to teach history at university, he made notes and "Sapiens" was born from those. But don't let any of this guide your decision to read the book.

The book starts with the question, are we humans different? Does race, religion, gender etc define us? Or …

EF Schumacher was a famous economist with the British government. "Small is Beautiful" is his collection of speeches. He covers a lot of topics like the energy crisis, pollution, capitalism, socialism etc. It is in this book that he first makes use of the term "Buddhist economics" which refers to …

Can an incident in life affect you so much that you are willing to sacrifice your career and your love? Larry returns from the first world war as a different person. His lover, Isabel is anxious about their future together. Larry breaks the engagement because he wants answers to some …

Ashoka is a king we idolize, one who gave up violence to take up the path of the Buddha, one who spread Buddhism the world over. We learn about him as children and admire his greatness. But that's only now! Just 100 years ago, we weren't even aware of him …

After having been underwhelmed by Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead", I was reluctant to read another of her hyped books. "We the living" is set in the Soviet after the Czar was overthrown in a revolution.

Kira's family returns to Petrograd after being exiled by the revolutionaries. All family members struggle …

"Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World" by Hugh Miles is a biography of a TV network hated in the west as a mouthpiece of the terrorists and in the middle east as a mouthpiece of the west. If they are hated by everyone and yet have a …

What's the first thing one picks up when intending to go sightseeing? Most likely a guide book? The popular guide books (like Lonely Planet) cater to more than sights ie food, experiences etc. Christopher Hibbert's "Rome: The biography of a city" is an unconventional guidebook that intertwines history of the …

How did Rome end up becoming such an important city? How did it's story start? Michael Grant, tries to compress nearly 1500 years of history into 300 pages. The book's language is simple but condensing so much into a single book is quite overwhelming. Nevertheless, this book is a great …

How would you feel if you made millions of dollars through trading? In seventh heaven, I guess?

How would you feel if you made millions of dollars betting against the herd? When the herd's collapse could shutter some of the biggest financial institutions and push thousands of home owners on …