Fav Books

Fiction

  1. Short Stories of Saki (can’t say enough; if you are looking for dark humor, the bucks stops here!)
  2. P.G. Wodehouse – Leave it Psmith (One of my fav PGW’s books. Any PGW book will do)
  3. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand (built my basic view of the world with this one)
  4. Fountainhead – Ayn Rand (pretty good, but wait until you read Atlas Shrugged)
  5. Perfect Spy – John Le Carre (Any John Le Carre book on spy warfare is great!)
  6. The Spy who came in from the Cold – John Le Carre
  7. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – John Le Carre
  8. The Day of the Jackal – Frederick Forsyth (it builds and builds, till it leaves you breathless)
  9. The Eye of the Needle – Ken Follett (awesome!)
  10. The Godfather – Mario Puzo (my first book on pure crime fiction, I think. Fantastic!)
  11. Comprehensive literature on Sherlock Holmes (childhood memories, ahh!)
  12. The Complete Book of Oscar Wilde (Sarcasms galore. Greatly inspired by his writing).
  13. Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (read all 3 books in 10 days flat, I think).
  14. The White Tiger – Arvind Adiga (eww..bad book!)

(Tried reading Bill Bryson, Terry Pratchett, Georgett Heyer – found them a bit boring for my style. Actually, Terry Pratchett’s pretty good, read only Good Omens, but not interesting enough that I go out and seek other books written by him. Also debated on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children – not really impressed, and hence not on the list. And no, I don’t like Harry Potter – I will watch his movies, thank you).

Non-Fiction

  1. Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond (brilliant!, loved it)
  2. Collapse – Jared Diamond  (Go Jared!)
  3. The Third Chimpanzee – Jared Diamond (Go Jared!)
  4. The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins (this is better than ‘God Delusion’)
  5. The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell (’Blink’ is bad, haven’t read ‘Outliers yet)
  6. The Long Tail – Chris Anderson (good with fundas, Wired article made into a book)
  7. Free – Chris Anderson (very okish, Wired article made into a book)
  8. What they don’t teach you at Harvard School – Mark Mccormack (Any book by this guy’s good)
  9. Black Swan – Nicholas Naseem Taleb (awesome fundas)
  10. Fooled by Randomness – Nicholas Naseem Taleb (awesome fundas)
  11. India: A History – John Keay
  12. India after Gandhi – Ram Guha
  13. The World is Curved – David Smick

Behavioral Economics

  1. Freakonomics – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
  2. The Logic of Life – Tim Harford
  3. Discover your Inner Economist – Tyler Cowen
  4. Undercover Economist – Tim Harford
  5. Naked Economics – Charles Wheelan

All books are fantastic, entertaining and immensely insightful. But I think I am done with behavioral economics. These books have given me enough fundas. Any more books will probably give me different examples but with the same fundamentals. I will pass, thanks.

Finance

  1. The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham (The Guru, The God, period)
  2. Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis (Entertaining read)
  3. When Genius Failed – Roger Lowenstein (Good one on the fall of LTCM)
  4. Irrational Exuberance – Robert Schiller (The author’s brilliant. Yale professor. The book’s very insightful)

I am pretty sure I have read many more Finance books. Will add to the list as I recollect them.

Spiritual (if you want to call it that)

  1. Autobiography of a Yogi – Paramahamsa Yogananda (my first spiritual book)
  2. Bhagavad Gita – G Venkataraman (can’t remember the exact title, but great read)

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