Pratik

Reading this book is an experience. It takes you to a college campus in cold Minnesota and to a billionarie's estate in pleasant Paris as the author grapples with the reality of today's America riddled with gun violence. Sharp, incisive, and soul-searching, the book entertains yet makes you ponder through delightful and developing characters.

Three thousand years of history can be extremely difficult to capture in one book, but Wilkinson does a great job of not only walking us through Egypt's past but also examining the influences and context that shaped the events. There's a lot of information here, and I listened to the audio version, so I took my time going over it over the past two months. I'm sure I can't give an exam on Egyptology anytime soon, but at least things seem more familiar now, and I have a better understanding of the region. It was not just building pyramids and tombs, although it seemed to take up a lot of their time, but also intense politicking, controlling people for their own selfish ends, and making horrendous strategic errors that doomed a long line of people. But it's a wonder that the civilization lasted so long, especially considering how quickly empires have collapsed since then.

Our bumbling and dysfunctional Holmes & Watson are back for their sixth murder. This one is more meta and explores Hawthorne's relationship and past more than the previous editions. But I liked how that part dovetailed nicely into the murder they were solving.

I misunderstood the premise and perhaps didn't know much about the author before I started reading this. I was intrigued by its Succession-like setup and by the interpersonal dynamics of the siblings throughout the book, but didn't realize that Alice-Jack lust story was the centerpiece. It's just not my jam.

Nothing ever happens in a Jane Harper book, at least in the present, but she has an uncanny ability to slowly peel away the social dynamics and tenuous relationships of an otherwise small and friendly community. The 'Last One Out' documents the dying embers of a small town besieged by a mine that's slowly crowding out its residents and the environment, while also threatening to bury secrets from its sordid past. Harper reveals how nostalgia for a long-gone place can have real-world effects and steal whatever good remained in its people.

My second Yann Martel book after the seminal Life of Pi, which I adored. It's about loss and grief, and how people across time, tied by a common thread, deal with them in their lifetimes. As is with Martel, the high mountains, which in fact are not even mountains, are an allegory to that thread that binds their grief. Chapters 2 and 3 spoke more to me, and I'm glad I persisted after the relatively lackluster Chapter 1.

This was a disappointing read. I was a big fan of his "The Psychology of Money" which had some genuine insights on how you think about money. This book felt like an addendum to that book or rather a book that should've been a blog post. The advice is sound and sensible but there was much repitition with plenty of quotes by famous men sprinkled in.