Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens A brief history of humankind

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that was hard to put down. I enjoyed every page of this book and was longing for more once I finished it. Harari is an Oxford historian and globally known intellectual who does a good job of connecting the dots. In this book, he talks about how Sapiens managed to accomplish a lot and do a lot of damage at the same time.

Sapiens covers the history of money, religion, corporations, war, technological revolution, and different ideologies. I particularly liked how he studies homo sapiens as an alien anthropologist would. Considering the current political atmosphere in the world, Sapiens answered a lot of my questions and brought clarity about how we managed to get here.

This book is an easy and engaging read. I’ve heard that Yuval has gained quite a following in Silicon Valley, especially for his next book after this called Homo Deus, which is a meditation on the future of humanity.

An Unquiet Mind – A memoir of moods and madness

This is an autobiography of Kay Redfield Jamison, a well accomplished clinical psychologist who has done plenty of research on bipolar disorder and manic depression as well as her own challenges of dealing with this type of mental illness. I have loved ones who suffer from bipolar disorder so this book was a bit emotionally intense to read for me. In the meantime, it is the best description I’ve read about the day-to-day experiences of someone suffering from BP. She also has a great sense of humor and her writing is engaging.

Order Out Of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine

Order Out Of Chaos
Order Out Of Chaos

I found this book in our hallway. One of the neighbors had done a book purge so I dug in and took a few books for myself. This one was from the mid-80s, but I decided to read it anyway because Ilya Prigogine is a physics Nobel prize winner. Scientific books don’t become obsolete as fast. This wasn’t an easy read and it took me a while to finish it. I didn’t understand half of it, but the half that I understood was amazing.