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Bill Bryson the Body- A guide for Occupants

Audiobook

Genre Non fictional

Rating 4/5 for the narration and occasional comical quips typical of Bill! 3/5 for the effort and 2/5 for he actual medical information

Listening time around 15 hours but if you increase the speed to 1.2 the time is around 11 hours without any reduction of understanding!

The grammar and diction is spot on for English words but of course Bill understandably falters with the medical terminology!

Now Bill is primarily a historian, a journalist and in the heart, a funny guy!

I am guessing that one fine day he had an ailment for which he would have gone to the doctor and he would have felt better and that experience would have made him fascinated with the human body and so the journey to the discovery would have begun!

So in a typical history of everything Bill starts every chapter with quotes by great people and some great (i am guessing!) doctors! And like we medical students do in dissection, start from the skin inwards!

So every page is filled with information on the tissue or skin or organ or the function or Bill’s strongest point; History!

He gives a brief description on each and every part of the body like eyes, ears, nose and everything else in between!

He tells you about the miracle organ which is the brain and how many over the age of 60 have some dementia! He tells about Alzheimer’s and its history and the inevitable no treatment!

Most of the disease described by Bill follows the same pattern, first an elaborate history, then the treatment options and the certain conclusion that there is no treatment! He does that with Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart attack and what not!

He talks about diet without any conclusion or a fixed plan! He does not even conclude that diet more in fibre is good because he would present some vague paper which says the opposite! The same with many procedures in the medical field! From all this I am guessing that either Bill did not get a good treatment in some hospital or that he has not realised that modern medicine has no cure for old age!

Of old age itself he mentions that it is not used as a cause of death in America! He also talks about smoking and its effect then he like a pattern concludes that lung cancer can happen without smoking! It is almost as if he is trying to be so neutral that it’s extreme!

He talks about exercise on that we must spend at least two hours on it and then he predictably sates that just because you exercise does not mean that you will have a long life!
It is like Bill shows candy to a kid and takes it away just as suddenly!

In spite of his very obvious disdain for the medical professional, almost every medical fact and quote is attributed to a doctor or another!

His research is vast though but then in the age of internet, you can always get this information with the click of a button or just ask your virtual assistant!

I must congratulate Bill though that he has spent so much time in understanding the function of an organ and trying to understand the history of a disease and in that it is a great effort!

Then he talks about the many wasteful tests or treatment given by the medical professionals which again reeks of a personal prejudice if nothing else.

He talks about antibiotics and how the incessant use may lead to resistance and about similar medications which are being regularly prescribed without any apparent indications or effect quoting some paper or study which is being vague especially since in medical science new evidences keep coming.

Prophetically though he quotes one quote by a doctor about which will be the most dreaded disease to fight in the future and the doctor says, “a disease like flu!” Since this book was written much before COVID; this is surreal!

In the end there is an extended book bonus on sound and ear and that probably was the best part of the book for me since I am an ENT surgeon!

For a medical professionals, this is a good refresher book and too simple while for a non medical professional it’s a good guide book on how your body works though it would have been amazing if it was written by a Medical Professional.

All in all a deeply engrossing book without a boring topic if you are interested in your body!

Go for it!

Audio book
Genre- Spiritual autobiography
Rating- 5/5 for the narration which requires good knowledge of English and diction; 1/5 for the words which need knowledge of Sanskrit or indian words; 5/5 for the true believers who need no nudging; 3/5 for those who are neutral in their viewpoint of Yoga and spirituality of India. Overall a beautiful tale told from the heart!

Do you know what’s the Similarity between Steve Jobs of Apple and George Harrison of Beetles and Elvis Presley!?
They all had one favourite book!
In fact Steve first read this book in teen and later on he used to read it once every year!
Any student of Yoga must read this book without fail!
The audiobook has been narrated by none other than Ben Kingsley who played Gandhi!
The book among other amazing quotes has one which goes, “Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become!”

Listening length around 17 hours but if you increase the speed to 1.2 then it comes down to 13-14 hours without compromising on the flow and understanding.

The language is simple and straight forward and the book is written in simple English which you will understand without any difficulty.

The book is one of the most famous among the practitioners of yoga and those who want to know about the spirituality of india.

Personally though if it was not because of audio; I would have not read the book since I had it with me for the past three years! But the advent of audio book has opened these doors and this is one book which you must listen if you want to enjoy it fully!

If it is not the Sanskrit or Hindi words like Chela or Mahasshai; Ben effortlessly glides through the passages like a musical poem but the moment he meets an indian word is when you realise that a non indian is narrating this book! Apart from this very obvious flaw in the book; the rest of the book is a must read or listen!

Swamiji starts with his mother and father who were simple, decent and religious folks who had a guru of their own (who incidentally is Swamiji’s guru’s guru!). The story lines in between the stories of Swamiji and his family follow a pattern where every Guru and his Guru and their respective Guru’s miracles and nature is described! So first Lahiri Mahashai is described and his miracles then Lahiri Mahashai describes his Guru, Babaji’s miracles and how he met him!

Later on His Chela (or an Ben says, “Chella!”); Sri Yukteshwar is described in detail in most part of the book who later on becomes Yoganand’s guru! The Gurus are shown to be initially simple folks who get the initiation into Kriya Yoga and then they become one of the cosmos or those who become enlightened! It of course needs a strong belief system to accept the miracles of any of the saints as mentioned in the book!

Loss of Yoganand’s mother is being described with lots of emotional stress and how she prepared him. How he had the foresight and how she sent him a talisman. It is an indian fairy tale with lots of emotions. He describes how his belief in God as a saviour and deliverer of miracles like with his sister, and then his bother and visit to Mathura, then his sister and brother in law visit to Dakshineswar temple and his visit to America! Everything falls into place like a self solving jigsaw puzzle!

How he wanted to escape to the Himalayas at the first attempt and his elaborate plans both the times and how like the Alchemist he found what he was looking for so close to home! The story is so similar to Paul Coelho’s version!

In the whole book he describes many magical babas! Like the Gandha baba and the baba with one heart but two bodies! The whole narration is so magical and entertaining to say the least!

Of course most of the book is about Yoganand and Swamy Yukteshwar who is shown to be one of the best teachers you can ever have including his life and subsequent resurrection! The description of the cosmic Hiranyaloka may raise many a sceptical brow but that left to the reader!

Visit to Kashmir and the vivid description of the beauty of Kashmir! Comparing with America and Mexico and yellow stone park and Niagara Falls and Swiss alps which shows how much Yoganand ji has travelled.

A vivid introduction of music and suras and talas and classification system is also given and it was an eye opener to me!

A description of yoga especially Kriya yoga and other types of yoga is also given but this is not a book of Yoga description but of the life and time of the Yogi only!

Description of astrology as a science and how it is so vast which is why it is not understood by many is described! He also mentions his meeting with the great scientist J C Bose and his work and their mutual admiration!

A section is also given for his visit to America where he spent most of his life and how he established yoga centres all over and his Center in Ranchi and his travel with his companion Smith in his Ford!

The story of the agnostic doctor and many other skeptics are told without any morality or judgement which is left to you!

One section describes his meeting with Rabindranath Tagore and his place and it’s like a vivid summary of Shantiniketan and Tagore!

Another section describes in detail of his meeting with Gandhi and his ashram and how his life had affected him and how he initiated him to the Kriya Yoga!

Many places Yoganand ji talks about Jesus and Bible and many lines are repeated from that.

He tells about the lady sage who used to get visions of Jesus and his crucification, then about the lady guru whose Husband itself became her devotee and then he describes about a lady guru who had not eaten a morsel or drank any fluid for decades and still is in the pink of health!

An swami who used to play with lions and tigers!
He describes about the Kumbha mela, about the diet which is very important (vegetarian if you must know!), talks about Geeta (there is a separate book on that!) and much much more!

If you have the ebook or the hard copy then you can go through the amazing photos of the places and people including great Swamis and saint which is a good refresher.

The end is a paragraph narrating how Swamiji attained maha samadhi and how his body did not decay Even a bit…

Read it just for self realisation and to appreciate the simple life of a yogi!
Even if you do not believe, this will still calm your mind!

Listening time is around 10 hours but if you increase the reading speed to 1.2, the time becomes around 8 hours. This does not distort the pronunciation and diction in any way and this may be a good book if you are planning to make the jump to audio book.
There are so many words in many languages and since the aim of the book is to get a feel of diction and pronunciation, a good narrator is an asset!
There is no way that if you had read the book, you could get a feel of the same!
There are some words which are virtually not pronounceable by simply reading so audio narration is definitely the way to go!

Bill in his characteristic fashion starts by telling why he started this book! He starts by giving examples such as “I could care less and I couldn’t care less is the same!” Or how
“Or fly is not an insect but a part of your pant!” Or why “you tell a lie but speak the truth!”
He also states how many words are not routinely used in English but why English is the major language which is spoken as widely as possible!

How English is the biggest export with some mild after sale service problem! Many words are there in other language but not in English but how only English has a thesaurus!
Apparently Eskimos have fifty words for types of snow but not word for snow! Italians have some 500 words for Macaroni and similar examples which just like his other books is more funny when you read or listen yourself!

His subtle humour and quirky comments in between is sure to brings smiles to you!

He then talks about how every country thinks of the other in a derogatory way like We tend to regard other people’s languages as we regard their cultures with ill-hidden disdain. In Japanese, the word for foreigner means “stinking of foreignhair.”! To the Czechs a Hungarian is “a pimple.” Germans call cockroaches “Frenchmen,” while the French call lice “Spaniards.” Apparently We in the English-
speaking world take French leave, but Italians and Norwegians talk about departing like an Englishman, and Germans talk of running like a Dutchman!
Italians call syphilis “the French disease,” while both French and Italians call con games ‘American swindle’!” And this is a shorter version of the list which is a hoot in itself!

You know there are at least seven different ways of telling thank you or express gratitude in Japanese! Everyone knows Arigato gozaimasu! Which is Thank you! Then you have Domo arigato gozaimashita or Thank you very much Followed by Hontoni arigato gozaimasu or Thank you so much!
Again this is an example of a quirk in one language! The book is full of such interesting and many times funny quirks!

He talks about Ellipses, Split infinitive, he tells about the ancient language and about how English has come from the Germanic language. He talks about how Websters dictionary came about in the way he mentioned history in his previous book and then adds the history about the most famous dictionary, The Oxford English Dictionary!

He explains how there were a group of great leaders and thinkers who wanted the pronounciation oriented spelling of words! Greats like Napolen and more recently George Bernard Shaw! In fact his property and will was to have used in the development of this! Like if you want to say Deaf then the spelling in direct pronounciation would be DEF! Psycho must be Siko! Of course it would have been a great step but sadly it was not to be! To know English you must learn the pronounciation and not just read (REED if pronciation proper spelling!). After you read this you tend to wonder why many want to make English so damn hard!

He talks about the fact that the plural of child is not childs but children! Apparently even the plural of many words was similar, like the physical of house was not houses but housen! It’s a mystery of what the letters which come after Q in queue are doing there in the first place! How p is silent in psycho but loud in protest! Of the 26 letters of the alphabet according to Bill Bryson in the book not even a single letter is consistent when it comes to pronounciation!

English may be one of the most common language spoken around the world which is why it has so many words from other languages! You have shampoo from India and Ketchup from China! Even the word Bankrupt is from Italian Banca Rotta! Where in the days of open banking, a failed banker’s bench or Banca would be Rotta or broken! In fact till 1300 or so only the poor or worker class people spoke English! The language of rich and famous was not English!

This and many other interesting facts and quirks specially about GB Shaw and the author’s favourite Shakespeare (here also he states the different spelling); in fact he states so much about him that I understood how he ended up writing a complete big book about Shakespeare!

With all the quirks and facts and trivia, Bill takes you on a journey of a lifetime! Never a dull moment and yes he talks about the favourite word of Americans and their contribution (starts with F!) and many more! He also added some trivia and clues for cryptic crosswords and palindrome and anagram and what not! That reenergised my love for the Hindu crossword!

Just listen with an eclectic mind (I just added that word there for fun!)

Happy reading or listening but remember what Jack used to tell in Will and Grace, “You may have a large vocabulary but a small DICtionary!” Sorry for the pun but it was too hard to resist!

Have fun!

Audio book
Non Fictional Genre but as fun as a non fiction can be!
Listening time-around 15 hours! But if you increase the speed to 1.2 the time taken is reduced so much without affecting the understanding! This is just my personal experience though! You can increase or not depending on your personal preference!

Rating 5/5; for the narration and for the amazing facts! For the quirky tales in between and for making it so riveting!

Nothing about universe is how he starts the big journey ahead! Bill knows it’s a long and arduous task indeed and even then he starts slow!
How the book starts just made me hooked so much that I was planning to finish this rather that Kabir Bedi’s juicy book! This was equally interesting!

See the words how it begins; “To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It’s an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope] these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions o f deft cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence.”

He talks about the how we are such a tiny speck in the universe! How even our own solar system shown in our school projects mislead us so much! The planet are just a small part of the huge system which is mostly empty space! He talks about Big Bang Theory, he talks about singularity and many such technical terms which he introduces and explains as simply as possible.

He then moves on to Pluto and it’s story on how it became a planet and how it’s an odd planet and still debate continues! How Americans wanted Pluto which is why it became the planet in the first place! Venetia Katharine Douglas Burney was a 11 year old girl who won close to 450 USD for knowing some Greek mythology! She suggested that the planet X or the ninth planet which was discovered in 1920s be named Pluto!

Finding the radiation noise is a very interesting piece of trivia which is very famous in the physics world! How a group of scientists worked so much to find the radiation noise only to have been accidentally discovered by those who did not even understand what they found! Reminds me of the episode of Big Bang Theory where a scientist duo will prove string theory and they did not even know what it was in the first place! In real life though the discoverers get the Noble!

Bill talks about the vastness of planet then sun then solar system then galaxy and finally the universe making us very small indeed!

In every scientist or great person he talks about the quirks and the little known trivia like about Isaac Newtons Alchemy connection or about Haley and his comet or about those several scientists which are a lot to name!

So many story lines though fact are reserved for those who work so hard without any reward or recognition of their work! In fact he gives so many examples in this and in one chapter concludes how we are not a society who praise talent or new discovery!

Then he speaks about the famous doctor Parkinson and his other contribution including being accused of assassination! Of course Bill shifts from one scientist to another is rapid succession either describing one who is brilliant but under appreciated or someone who does little but gulps all the credit! It is an unfair world indeed!

He talks about dinosaurs and their origin and the nomenclature! He talks about physics and chemistry and the rise as a field then he talks about Geology with more passion moving on to palaeontology in between giving us facts about History with so much spice thrown in that it sounds like gossip and so very interesting to say the least!

The most dull subjects in most books like Jared Diamond or even our rock star’s Yuval Noah (though Sapiens was equally interesting!) has been remixed by Bill to make it extremely palatable which is a great feat indeed!

He talks about how earth is a dangerous place describing the volcano and the dangerous quakes and describing them in detail akin to a thriller! He talks about the continents drift theory, about the age of the earth and about the evolution of man! All these are dealt with so many interesting stories that you would simply wish that it will never end! Alfred Wegener; does the name ring a bell? Well he proposed that Earth’s continents move very slowly. Over millions of years they can move a long way. Between 1912 and 1929 he published a stream of fossil and rock evidence to support his theory! This was the origin of the continental drift theory which is very well accepted today! But alas, Wegener was ridiculed and his theory was strongly rejected by everyone at that time! So the major intelligent minds of that era rejected the theory which is true! After reading this I say to myself what a remarkable story! Better than a Greek tragedy and true!

He talks about lead and the power of the oil corporates! Clair Cameron Patterson in an effort to guage the age of the Earth wanted to have a clean rock! Clean meant at that time LEAD free! Yes, lead is everywhere! In fact it is responsible for many diseases, memory loss and environmental damage! So his lab was one of the cleanest place!

He talks about different ancestors of earth and how humans may be just born in the last minute or so of the earth total life! How many many species are now extinct only because of the most dangerous animal in the world; the Homo sapiens!
He talks about Java man and about Lucy! So many facts and true trivia is thrown in every line and page that you will enjoy it to the zenith!

Of course many time he would state that we do not know much! He also gets into medicine and throws some light though the amateurishness comes out so I am guessing that others who are involved in their respective field may also feel that Bill has dumbed it down a little too much! But hey it works and how!

Richter magnitude scale and Richter’s magnitude scale – is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and Beno Gutenberg. Since it’s a log scale, an earthquake measuring 5.0 releases 31 times more energy than an earthquake measuring 4.0! But this is not an actual scale! In fact the original scale did not even catch magnitude of less than 4.5! So now a modern method of measuring is used but still it is reported as Richter scale since that’s more familiar! Even when there are changes no one can separate Richter from earthquakes because he earnestly made the effort!

One interesting story; Richard Owen came up with the name dinosaur in 1841 to describe the fossils of extinct reptiles. He coined the word by combining the Greek words “deinos”, which means terrible, and “sauros”, which means lizard! Now before you give respect to him you must also know that he had made no actual discovery himself! In fact the first dinosaur bone was discovered by another anatomist Mantell who met with an accident and got crippled. Owen then started reclaiming and renaming the fossils discovered by Mantell!

He says about two great contributors of evolutionary biology starting with Charles Darwin just when I thought I knew all his stories! But the way Bill tells some of his stories and how his famous book rather than being relegated in a corner was published! This section is a must read!
He then talks about Gregor Mendel who like most great discovery in the book was under appreciated when he was alive so that he left his work and was made an abbot!

Every other great person like Newton or Einstein are mentioned and summarised as soon as possible in between he also describes so many astronomers, scientists and geologists and explorers! It is a wild adventure indeed and you feel so bad when it ends!

Sir ISAAC NEWTON one of the most brilliant minds of the universe used to get up in the morning and wonder who he is and how did he get there! When they later analysed his hair they found so much mercury! An absent minded genius!
He tells how Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev is known as the founder of the periodic table! And how he gets it! Another interesting story line to hold your attention and how.
He talks about squid and how you have never seen them alive! About how little we know about whales and about how water has a special property which makes it perfect for us!
How everything is so perfect for earth to have life and how a small difference in distance would have made a huge impact!

Even if the summary is so long, believe me every page is a treasure house of information and will entertain you like no other!

He ends on a solemn note about the dodo bird and about how we take our position in the chain granted! It is a final call to humans to stop trying to destroy life and otherwise!

Just go for it!

Stories I must tell; the emotional life of an actor by Kabir Bedi

Audiobook

Non fiction

Genre- auto biography

Spoilers None which is not available in the magazines and Wikipedia!

Rating 5/5 for the language and sequence, 3/5 for the truth, 2/5 for some parts which blur the line between reality and imagination! Over all 3/5 because just like a Chetan Bhagat novel, once your expectations are so low then the only was to go is up! Though this one is better than CB’s last torture!

Listening time over 9 hours!

Simple language mixed with so poetry here and there and some prose to give it a literary weight! Sometimes it works while many times I used to feel Kabir Just get to the point!

Kudos to have bared it in the open! The affairs and the sleeping around and the stories About his love life and wives!

The best part and section of the book which has been dealt with the best emotional treatment is the tragic story of his son Siddharth which could not have been easy. Simply to read this section you can read (or listen as the case maybe!) the whole book!

In a more or less chronological approach Kabir starts with his early childhood where his parents were apparently poor! His close friends were at some point Rajiv And Sanjay Gandhi and he used to do horse riding with them! He also went to prestigious schools and finally got a job first in DD then in AIR! As AIR reporter he got the scoop of his life when he could interview the Beetles! Of course it was done with great effort but AIR kept it low profile and lost the tape! So good bye delhi! The description of Beetles interview is gold mine for fan like Kabir and me though! How he managed it is a big scoop though!

So he left delhi because he was fed up of the Bureaucracy in both DD and AIR and the rest of the book and his story is just about how he met, married or lived together and finally left the many women in his life! How he managed to have a connection with every one of them and how he fell in love with many of them and how after some time they drifted away!
Also being fed up with the bureaucracy is everyone’s life story but not many have much choice…

To bare it all in the open takes guts and I am sure Kabir has reached a point in his life where he simply does not care what you think! That’s good because anyone who reads about his affairs and marriage and divorces may not have much thought left! Or for that matter any brain! It is like ok, now his current wife is this person and after some time it is another!

His heartfelt tribute to his mother who herself has at least three biographies written on her and her freedom fight and her Buddhist nature is filled with true pride. His description on how his father aka Baba Bedi is the direct descendant of Guru Nanak and how even he after the being a freedom fighter and an advisor to the Abdulla of Kashmir finally became an actual Baba after undergoing a spiritual transformation just like his mother! After that he developed healing powers and divine intuition which Kabir explains with many examples though being a Modern Medicine practitioner is a little difficult for me to swallow! But that’s their story and Kabir’s narrative so what you or me feel does not make any difference as I mentioned before!

He gives a passing mention about his first love in delhi who shall remain nameless and then he goes on to explain all his relations which are quite a lot! My personal opinion is that the nameless person was his first and may be the only true love and all others are just rebounds!

So first he meets Protima and elevates her to a big diva, he does the same to Parveen Babi also by the way! The after a roller coaster marriage and love the diva has a sudden fall from grace! It is a purely single point of view opinion so difficult to have a neutral opinion! Imagine that when he married Protima he was having an affair with a married lady and he apparently did not want to lose that special bond! Then when he had the affair with Parveen he was married to Protima (though he says it was an open marriage on the verge of collapse which he saved twice!)!

In between he speaks about this magnum opus called Sandukan which is a big TV series in Italy and Italy is one place and country where he is very popular and has saved him many times over! I had never heard of this before so it was new to me and interesting! In fact he was so famous in Italy that no one knew Parveen!

He also mentions many Bollywood and Hollywood people who have done many things and are very famous and popular! It is a big list which you must read the book to know!
He tells about his life in Italy then America and then UK and of course India.
After Parveen gets unstable and moves of his life he has a marriage with Nikki Bedi (she was married at the time! Yes, its bizarre!) which also gets under stress when her popular show gets cancelled (everyone in India will know that incident!). Me thinks that when money is good and you are happy then marriage is cool but when stressed then everything falls apart! Just like everyone else! Finally proving that for all the big height and great look and diction and ancestry; even Kabir is a mere mortal just like you and me!

Before Nikki there was one more wife who is an American and they have a son Adam also; apart from this Protima had two kids Pooja and Sidharth.

If you love reading movie magazines and seeing soap operas then this is gold for you! Go for it! There is so much juice very similar to a gossip magazine like Mayapuri though Kabir tries to be honest!

In one of the chapter he talks about his belief system and gives a monologue on different religions so I have a feeling that he may very soon become a saint! Of course that is after his latest marriage to someone 30 odd years younger to him and that is of course his business so please don’t judge!

He talks about many movies and series and that was a good walk down the memory lane!

Rest assured the book is a juicy page turner and you just can’t stop till you finish it! Read it for fun! Read it even otherwise! It light, its well written, its narrated in his amazing voice and when you compare with your own life; you may end up feeling good! Or bad! None of my emotional business!!

Audible audiobook

Listening time around 7 hours

Diction and language simple English with few technical jargon in between

Non fiction genre

Rating- as a book of history of currency 3/5 as a bitcoin reference book 3.5/5

The author states that this is not the definitive book on Bitcoin but only a book which introduces on why and how Bitcoin are the currency of the future with the central theme that it is not controlled by the central Banking.

It could very well have been called Gold Standard because as far as the author is concerned, gold is the best currency for generations and goes on to compare bitcoin to gold!

Introduction on how bitcoin was invented and gives us some trivia which would be juicy for the tech geeks though it’s something which they would know already! A short introduction is given on how it is mined (this term was very confusing to me and it still is since we always think about the actual mining!). He goes on to introduce on what to expect by frankly stating that he is just An economist with engineering background.

He starts by the history of currency and chief features of currency or legal tender on how it can be
Perishable vs non perishable or Movable vs non movable which good examples!

Story of limestone stock and glass beads as currency. This is probably one of the most interesting part of the book! He mentions the old currency and how they were followed for a long time and how it got wasted or corrupted or lost its value! This is obviously a bed for shining light on the good property of Bitcoin!

Then gold copper and silver are introduced as mode of exchange with benefits and disadvantages of either! He mentions how governments keep gold in bank and release money for gold but then they dilute the value which is not good! He gives the example of how billionaire buys copper and loses but how this can never happen to Gold! On how gold can withstand the fall.
He then mentions how the currency of A state or country linked to gold can still be controlled by the king or the government and how many kings started underscoring the coin and basically reduced their value! In this he gives special mention of how Constantinople survived its currency for a long time and this along with gold is a baseline of a stable currency!
India and China’s dependence on Silver as their reserve automatically reduced their value in time and that was a big reason why their currency is lower placed!

Paper money is your money but controlled by the government so one fine day all the hard cash you have with you can be turned into paper by a simple law of the government!

He proceeds further and explains how the actual reason of worldwar 1 is monetary and if not for US support it would have ended then and there!
In fact after the war many countries lost their monetary value though the maximum brunt was felt by the ones who lost the war! He then mentions how for the first time in history President Nixon defaulted on the gold value of dollar when countries started taking back their gold reserves!

All this finally to get the conclusion that Bitcoin is not centrally controlled!

Remarkable ability of gold to hold it’s place is a constant theme in almost every section and he also gives the famous Marsh mellow and cookie experiment which is about immediate low gratification vs long term more gain! Which is indirectly inked to Time limit and tolerance!
Kenynesian economy is a terminology thrown multiple times which is apparently opposite of the communist economy and it is understood that the author leans towards the former!
He also states on how control by the central bank of currency will always lead to recession; he states this by giving an example of a developer and builder of an apartment with Reserve money which leads to Running out of money and building only half flat but still it can be managed of course!

Swiss bank; which was one of the last institutions not to be linked to international economy after linking to IMF lead to unemployment which was less than 1 before the tie up!
He also states that Conquest is not good even in history since sooner or later you will run out of money so in that case Defensive war is better! In that he concludes that 21st century was most dangerous!

He finally concludes that in any job and especially jobs which have an asshole boss is bad since the fear and desperation will never lead to any positive outcome! And the most important point he mentions according to me is how the public sector banks or banks supported by a central bank are the worst! They do not have to worry about any profit and every loss is absorbed by the government which in turn leads to recession!

The final section goes on to Bitcoin proper on initially payment is done normally and that Cash is fast, quick and safe but has its limitation so the other form is third party in one way or the other and in that trust is a huge factor!
Then he tells how Bitcoin are limited currency which cannot be produced more if you need so there will not be any recession! How it is not controlled by the central government but how he urges that even banks must start to maintain a Bitcoin account so that they do not miss the train to the future! He also states how Bitcoin cannot be hacked since it would take so much more effort and resource and the end result without POW is useless! POW is proof of work which has to be authenticated by a group who are paid for it and they will also never be hacked! Also how the cluster size is fixed and that the original Bitcoin can be modified but that will lead to another currency so it is better to not modify it! Since it is not controlled by a person or a group or even the government; it may be the best currency ever! All attempts are modifying, altering or even changing the cluster size have been unsuccessful even after it was inverted in 2009-10!

All in all a good summary of Bitcoin and one of the initial book if you are interested in money! It however does not tell you about how to invest or how to trade and many other technical aspects which the author explain is beyond the scope of the book!

Read it for some nice trivia on the history of money, silver, gold and finally Bitcoin!

Never by Ken Follet

Book review

Genre- Fictional Thriller

Spoilers- None

For a moment there I was thinking like this is the sequel to the Novel Called Afghan by Frederick Forsyth then I remembered Ken’s great works like the Man from St Petersburg and how he was back into the thriller genre with a bang and how!

Only Ken can make things so interesting that you know there will be something juicy in the coming pages!

The backdrop of the beginning of the novel is the Middle East desert and the Jihadis! Am sure it is sure to raise some eyebrows!

Two chief protagonist are Abdul and Tamara; one Arab turned American and another just another American both working for the CIA! later on major character like Kai a Chinese intelligence officer is added
Then one of the chief characters is the president of US who is a lady! Then after some amazing introductions and routine prez work she is shown to be solving a teen girl problem! It’s endearing how Ken humanises even the most powerful post in the world! Pauline Green is the ever human president who trie to save her marriage and tries much harder to save the world from a nuclear war!

The whole novel goes from one character to another in sequence with closure provided only for two characters while the end is left of a big cliffhanger very similar to the end of sacred games season 2!
Another chief sequence of the novel is the DEFCON levels! Every big section starts with a level and a small note on when it was actually used and then it goes up the level (up or down is for you to read and find out!)

In between he humanises the characters even if that person is the president of US or an agent of the CIA! As far as I was concerned the best part of the novel is the trials and adventures of Abdul the agent and as I mentioned before he was eerily similar to the super character who was an Arab and American in Frederick Forsyth novels (as I remember there were two with this character and both these were so thrilling!). The way Abdul manages to get intelligence and survives the ordeal is simply amazing and I had a feeling that that was the chief direction of the novel! Just at the end of that character plot you have a surprise ending and then there’s that! The whole storyline then changes into the war of words and wits of the two chief leaders, the president of US and the PM of China and how they get influenced by their juniors and advisors and Ken has shown how major decisions are made with not intelligence but with emotions!

In China’s politics you always have the old players who are strictly communist vs young protagonist who is a litte liberal. The flow of information between agencies is a breeze though it’s an open secret but secrets can lead to complications!

Now the whole story starts with a soldier from a major country in another minor country is shot by the guns supplied by it’s major competitor country and then it’s landslide from there! Hope no spoilers here!

With US and China now replacing US and Russia of James bond movies or US vs German of the world war stories; the new war or war stories is between these two apparently!
So many treaties are mentioned which may be true but are just as soon thrown in garbage with great abandon!

US supports South Korea while China is a silent supporter of North Korea who has a supreme leader as it’s president! Both leaders of one side are ladies while of the other are gents!
The leaders speaking to one another is just eyewash! So is the press conference, the regular scandal and the routine barking and nonsense speaking opposition!

All in all a very fast paced racy thriller of recent times till it takes a very dark turn in the end!
Ken Follet Novels are huge but you just can’t stop! In between two audio books I somehow squeezed this one!

Grab it with both hands and NEVER let go till you finish!

Camino Winds by John Grisham

Book review

Rating- 4/5 as a stand alone 3/5 as a sequel

Genre- Fiction whodunit!

Spoilers- None about Camino winds but if you have not read Camino Islands then a summary is first given which pretty much spoils that Novel!

If you have read Camino Island then you would know the characters in the novel! Camino Island was a great novel now for a budding Novel writer and that was the premise. The lead character Bruce was a know it all when it comes to writing a novel and how to make it popular!

How to market the novel and how to go about promoting it! He had even given some insights on rare but interesting topics to write a novel! That Novel had Merkel as the lead female protagonist and she was a budding novelist with one good book in search for another with mounting debts who is ‘enlisted’ by an agency to get close to Bruce and find out about a rare manuscript! Long story short Bruce outwits the whole agency and gets the money and is now the lead of this story! It’s like how Sidney Sheldon introduced that famous lawyer in “another side of midnight” and made a sequel putting many other characters in the lead!

So after getting that background lets move into this island which is over run by a big storm called Leo! The way Grisham describes Leo is simply the best! That kept me hooked to an ebook after a long time since I have moved on to audio books with full gusto!

The premise is that one of the Novelist who had written some good racy thrillers is found dead in the eye of the storm with a head injury under suspicious circumstances! Bruce and his friends minus all the gals of his book club then being the only few remaining residents of the storm raged island then investigate the whole death!

The way they stumble upon one clue to another is real good though it reminded me of a hardy Boys mystery! The way they survived the storm reminded me of how we spent our time indoor during COVID and the dark episodes of Walking dead!

The chief issue discussed in the book is finally how people especially those who suffer from dementia are treated in old age home which is a big business and in true Grisham style they try to find out the facts mentioned in the last novel of this author which he leaves as a hidden manuscript for Bruce and his friends to understand. He also enlists the help in a reversal of sorts from Camino Island of the same group which tried to get him!

It is a good thing that John Grisham in his Gray Mountain or Rooster bar way did not end the novel in a depressing note and the last fifty pages were a thrill run and make up for the slow pace of the start! Just for the satisfying ending and the introduction of a young character with interesting sleuthing skills you can read the whole Novel! With just under 300 pages you can finish it in no time!

Enjoy the holidays!

This was some years back and we were listening to our prized possession, the dangerous audio tape and just when the song black or white song was playing, there came this weird sound as if an eerie ghost has gotten into Michael Jackson! It was the sound you hear from the exorcist girl just before she barfs all over the room and the priest’s face!

Of course our tape was not haunted! It was more serious than that! The tape which was like a prisoner in Papilon was trying to escape the clutches of the plastic of the cassette and had got entangled into the gear system of the tape player! We had to rush to stop the music and slowly take out the tape without causing any damage to the tape reel! (I use the word reel to reduce tape confusion!)

We were like the proverbial doctor in front of the operation theatre of a Bollywood movie telling to the anxious by standees; “we will try our best, just pray”!!

The worst is when the reel gets so looped that the only way to take it off is to cut a piece and reattach it! Now those days all we had was the paper glue or clear ahdesive tape (tape again!) which was good enough but there will be a layer of tape reel with overlap! That portion was always under risk of break and of course you would have lost a part of the song! The most lucky thing to happen is when that position is between two songs! (Which had never happened to us but we had heard stories of it happening to one distant relative of ours and he was a legend in our circle just for that!)

We were not that lucky though and the tape was off in a song called ‘who is it?’
Even now I can sing that song only with a break in between which can be seen only in our tape!
Yes, that song is much later but getting the tape back inside meant that the tape reel has to be carefully replaced without loss of Orientation which means we need to roll back and forth!

Now after sealing with a glue or paper tape, the final test is to let it play and see which sound comes! Many times the sound will be the same music but backwards! That’s the sounds DJ use many times nowadays in their shows and many love it!

Similar thing happens to when you accidentally press the record button instead of play and that portion gets erased! That’s why the first thing we used to do is to break that plastic seal which makes it impossible to record! Of course the humble paper tape again comes to the rescue there when we do want to record over that cassette! Some even stuff small bits of paper which also does the same thing!

This happened to one of my cassette playing Aqua and by mistake my friend took it for his dance act! Just at that exact moment ‘I’m a barbie girl…silence barbie world’ and the whole crowd hooted like there’s no tomorrow!

Karma is a thing since it was the same friend who had spoiled the tape in the first place!

Another thing we used to be experts in was the rewinding and fast forwarding the tape with the pencil! One of the chief reasons we used to buy only Natraj pencils was because it’s size was perfect to fit the hole of the cassette! Then like little Vishnu we used to turn the chakra! Clockwise or Anti clockwise for rewind and forward!

Buying cassettes were an essential part of watching a movie though! Movies like Dil and Aashiqui had songs which were better than the movie itself and in fact in the case of Aashiqui, the music sales would have taken care of the cost of the movie! After a good movie cassette the next thing is to get a cassette with good combination of movies! It was also the time when music albums were a thing but then all the songs were not that good, those times you go for the mixed tape which you either pay or have a friend who has this double tape system! Then all you need is a single friend buying the whole cassette and you can get the best songs from the album!
Since we had the army vehicle and a very music inclined driver, he would get all the cassettes and apparently they also had some system of sharing the cassettes!

Somehow though the songs we played in the car would be faster and would always miss some section or sound which was a little different in our hope cassette player!

It is how the songs of Gentleman in Telugu sounded better than Tamil since the tempo was faster in Telugu! Though the more sentimental songs were better in Tamil for the same reason!

This was especially true for the song ‘beat it’; the guitar riff sounded so different in the car and in our house! Which is when we were introduced to stereo system and right and left speaker!

The next problem was of copying the tape! We used to play two record together but that would always be bad though with our lowered expectations it was good enough for us!
Then came the rich friend who had two tape player exclusive for recording!
A richer friend later on had the CD player and tape recorder!

The first time we heard the CD we never thought it will take off! It used to get stuck and cost a bomb! Of course there was no need to rewind! Then again you could not fast forward a song! It’s either all or none!

Plus we all had those walk man and they were our constant companion! Then some dudes came with disc man! They were bulky, heavy and if you walk fast then the cds used to skip!
Maybe that’s why Audio cds did not make much of a dent in cassette sales initially till the advent of mp3! Anyone with a computer can take your audio cd and rip the songs and use as he likes! That was gold and certain end to cassette! Now no issue of skip or forward track and it was easier to obtain and share!
I knew it was the final straw for the cassette when I took all my old cassette and turned them into mp3 and my last tape player was given without a second thought!

Still remember how before every trip we made mix tapes then mix mp3 in a usb stick and finally now we have Alexa or Amazon or other music apps.

The other day we were planning for a long drive and all I needed was a full charge in my phone and my Alexa auto will take care of everything else!

Of course new problems! We argue which song to select since there are so many!
Sometimes it’s nice to have only two cassette tapes!

The horse, the wheel and language by David W Anthony

Book review

Audio book

Non fiction reference book

Rating 4/5 for the matter but 3/5 for the unanswered questions!

Average listening time in Bangalore traffic! – 16-17 hours!
Language direct and simple but with serious matter…

The introduction is so profound on how it starts with the the thought that when you look into your face you do not just see your face but a museum! The matter in our face is a mixture of generations! Of our ancestors and of our lineage! In the same way language is also a treasure house of history!

The the author dives into the mother tongue and the politics of mother tongue and how there is a new solution for the old problem. He mentions about the last speakers of the Proto Indo European language which he mentions in many places. Shifting between Indo European to indo Iranian to Greek to Yamunaya civilisations he deliberately makes mentions of the language first followed by the wheel then of course the horse!

He mentions about the importance of wool and its role in progress and development. On how sheep first were used for meat and then for wool which can be quantified by the amount of bones in settlement. Now if the bones are of older sheep it means that they have been maintained for wool and not primarily meat.

In the way of Jared Diamond and his Germ guns and steel which he does mention in the Novel, he also states how the hunter gatherer settled down and how the colonies grew.

He mentions the importance of horse in a similar way when first they were used essentially as a source of only meat since unlike cattle they could survive even in cold icy areas because of their nose structure. Later on the horses were used for riding but that was also a temporary stop gap in their use in war when they could invent a weapon which can be fired by a rider.

Then the horse made sure that they can participate or retreat from a battle. They can expand their territory and the horse is thus one of the chief reason for development of progress of certain tribes.

Of course in spite of being an archeologist himself the author does talk about how many things are uncertain or no clear. Even carbon dating is not completely reliable and there occurs changes time and again.

He also tries to get his view of similarity of many rituals and many gods in many civilisation and mentions many such findings and his point of view of the finding.
He mentions how the burials throw lots of light on the rituals and behaviour of a tribe. Like a well decorated or well stocked burial can indicate an important person if that person is old. But seeing such a decoration in a kid means that the importance is lineage driven or family drive.

The other chief discovery is the axle which make the chariot. This is very important because this is much different and more complicated than just a cart attached to the horse. With the discovery of the axle the horse chariot becomes a specialised vehicle which can then be used in war and other places. The typical horse chariot in many civilisations is one riding it with a javelin in hand!

Of course the author does conclude that no one knows when and how this was properly invented and by whom but he does state that the answer is close!

He also states the importance of the lifting of iron curtain which made the result of steppe research more easily available to the western culture and this was a major breakthrough in this field.
He talks of different cultures such as the Cucuteni culture, Khvalynsk culture on the Volga, Nachik and North Caucasian culture, lower don and northern Steppes and the samara culture or forest frontier. Then he goes on to the indo-European and then the Yamnaya culture which was closer to home! He also talks about Rig Veda and the Aryan origin without distorting the hornets nest as much as possible by stating their similarity, the horse and the cart!
In between he talks about different dialects and pronounciation and that’s done with confidence but when you listen to the Indian translation or utterance you will realise that the pronounciation is nowhere close.
The same with the way he describes many similar gods in different cultures.
Of course you must realise this is just an interpretation, it’s a point of view and it’s bound to be biased coming from an archaeologist in America!
Then again in the conclusion he does mention how the history and language is influenced more by political and pre determined variables and that’s not true archaeology!

He talks about the teeth which had no caries because they do not use carbohydrates and had a different diet!
Most of it is highly complex stuff which only a true historian (not me)would properly understand and I don’t want to give an impression that it is easy! It is certainly heavy on the head and it took me close to 16 hours of listening with repeats and reruns!

It is a good continuation if you have finished the simple history novels such as the ones by Yuval Noah and Jared diamond so do give it a go in continuation though it is more detailed than both!
The whole premise is a revelation and if it’s answer you seek then it leaves you with more questions! But the basics of language, the burial site treasures, the importance of animal as a meal or more and the similarity of rituals is digged out for you! Now you make your own deductions!

Happy horse riding!