Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Some books I liked

Even though I read only a few books this year, it has been more satisfactory reading than before coming to terms with the sort of problems that have been bothering me. A few selections from this year: Piketty's 'Captal21', Emmanuel Todd's books particularly 'The explanation of ideology' and 'The causes of progress' and now 'Ardor' (which I am still reading) by Roberto Calasso. Some of the reviews of Calasso suggest that it is the final book in a whole body of work. But I think it can be read by itself and gives some glimpses of Hinduism to an agnostic like me. Ignore the horrible review by Pankaj Mishra (His review of 'The Namesake' I liked, but he seems to be writing a lot of rubbish) . Two books I read earlier and keep going back to are "The sources of Social power" by Michael Mann and "In an Antique Land" by Amitav Ghosh.
P,S. Some are surprised that I included Amitav Ghosh. I am not the only one impressed by his early work. I think that when he was young, he let things come to him and changed somewhat when he started having opinions. I am not an enthusiast of his later work including 'The Glass Palace'. There is a much better review of Roberto Calasso's Ardor by David Shulman (pointed out by Sreenivas Paruchuri); unfortunately it is behind a firewall.

No comments: