Books Recommendations Thread

[Stradlater]

Planning to start The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple after I'm done with Joe Abercrombie. Heard great things about it even though the most praise seems to come from the left liberal media of West. 

Anyway as a history buff I have always been interested in the events leading up to 1857 and how it proved to be a final nail in the coffin for a great dynasty. 

 

About a fortnight ago I finished my rereading of Guns, Germs and steel by Jared Diamond. 

What an amazing book for those interested in Human evolution and anthropology. Highly recommended. 

 

 

Anyway this thread is about sharing and recommending your favorite reads. 

@Gollum @Tibarn @Moochad @Muloghonto

[Tibarn]

7 hours ago, Stradlater said:

Anyway this thread is about sharing and recommending your favorite reads. 

@Gollum @Tibarn @Moochad @Muloghonto

Are you looking for recommendations in general or just books focused on History/Indian History?

 

IMO, there is nothing wrong with reading that Dalrymple or anyone really. I think it's just important to keep an eye out for an author's interpretation of things/events and what they actually can back up factually. That is Tharoor's problem in his books that I read, and it is likely true IMO of what is written by anyone who writes about history. 

[Stradlater]

1 minute ago, Tibarn said:

Are you looking for recommendations in general or just books focused on History/Indian History?

 

IMO, there is nothing wrong with reading that Dalrymple or anyone really. I think it's just important to keep an eye out for an author's interpretation of things/events and what they actually can back up factually. That is Tharoor's problem in his books that I read, and it is likely true IMO of what is written by anyone who writes about history. 

Any good books to recommend on our Post independence events? 

I have had the misfortune to read India after Gandhi by Guha and it was such a huge waste of time that I have maintained my distance from this specific period of Indian history after that. 

 

Also it would be great if you could list out your top 5 non fiction books in general. 

[Tibarn]

44 minutes ago, Stradlater said:

Any good books to recommend on our Post independence events? 

I have had the misfortune to read India after Gandhi by Guha and it was such a huge waste of time that I have maintained my distance from this specific period of Indian history after that. 

Unfortunately I know of one other book that deals with the same material as Guha's. Bipan Chandra, a Marxist historian, has written a book India Since Independence, I haven't read it but I have heard it is popular with UPSC students.  It gives a Leftist view of events, so it would be similar to Guha's but it is supposedly more detailed.  There is a book in my queue called 70 Years of Secularism by Sandeep Balakrishna, but I haven't read it yet, and it is more of a critique of Indian secularism FWIU. Thus, unfortunately, I can't personally give a good recommendation on general Post Independence events. It may be better to piece together many other books on specific topics, IMO.

 

If you are interested in Post-Independence Indian economy, I can suggest the 1st ~150ish pages of Arvind Panagariya's book India The Emerging Giant. It is a very good and objective view of the Indian economy until 2006. The rest of the book is policy suggestions and it goes up to over 500 pages, but the first portion deals with an economic history after Independence. 

 

Two books which cover the genesis and fruit of the intellectual establishment in India Post-Independence are The Genesis and Growth of Nehruviansm by Sitaram Goel and then Eminent Historians by Arun Shourie. 

 

The former one can get for free here:

https://archive.org/details/gagon

 

I can PM you a link if you want the others for free as well, but it is probably against forum policy to post such a link here directly. 

 

 

I will respond later with which 5 books I would recommend 

 

 

 

 

[Stradlater]

13 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Unfortunately I know of one other book that deals with the same material as Guha's. Bipan Chandra, a Marxist historian, has written a book India Since Independence, I haven't read it but I have heard it is popular with UPSC students.  It gives a Leftist view of events, so it would be similar to Guha's but it is supposedly more detailed.  There is a book in my queue called 70 Years of Secularism by Sandeep Balakrishna, but I haven't read it yet, and it is more of a critique of Indian secularism FWIU. Thus, unfortunately, I can't personally give a good recommendation on general Post Independence events. It may be better to piece together many other books on specific topics, IMO.

 

If you are interested in Post-Independence Indian economy, I can suggest the 1st ~150ish pages of Arvind Panagariya's book India The Emerging Giant. It is a very good and objective view of the Indian economy until 2006. The rest of the book is policy suggestions and it goes up to over 500 pages, but the first portion deals with an economic history after Independence. 

 

Two books which cover the genesis and fruit of the intellectual establishment in India Post-Independence are The Genesis and Growth of Nehruviansm by Sitaram Goel and then Eminent Historians by Arun Shourie. 

 

The former one can get for free here:

https://archive.org/details/gagon

 

I can PM you a link if you want the others for free as well, but it is probably against forum policy to post such a link here directly. 

 

 

I will respond later with which 5 books I would recommend 

 

 

 

 

Thanks a lot and yeah I would appreciate the links in PM. 

I have read Bipin Chandra's India after independence and it was as drab and dull as it's predecessor India's struggle for Independence. Same boring Congress bootlicking. 

Shekhar Bandhopadhyay's From plassy to partition and after though has only last few portions dedicated to Post partition India, in my opinion does a much better justice to the topic than Bipin Chandra/Mridula Mukharji. I would recommend if you've not read it before. Full of new research and provides a fresh new perspective to the whole Colonial period . 

[Mariyam]

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

 

A Zoologist's study of the Human as an animal.

 

I have no background in zoology, evolutionary psychology or biology. But I couldn't put this one down.

 

Next on my to-read list is The Moral Animal.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Mariyam

[Moochad]

voiceofdharma.org/books

This website is a treasure trove of books everyone should read. It is down right now for some reason, but hopefully it gets back up soon. 

 

 

 

[Stradlater]

17 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

 

A Zoologist's study of the Human as an animal.

 

I have no background in zoology, evolutionary psychology or biology. But I couldn't put this one down.

 

Next on my to-read list is The Moral Animal.

I would recommend The third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond if you like reading about human evolution. 

[Mariyam]

Just now, Stradlater said:

I would recommend The third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond if you like reading about human evolution. 

Noted.

[Tibarn]

I am having trouble picking a top 5, so I will list some which I consider worth reading and people can look them up to see which interest them. 

@Moochad already shared a link for treasure-trove of books on history at VoD. 

 

For history I think these books are good:

 

RC Majumdar

An Advanced History of India

History of the Freedom movement in India

The History and Culture of the Indian People

Corporate Life in Ancient India (I am currently reading this)

 

Meenakshi Jain

The India They Saw

Sati

Rama and Ayodhya

 

AS Altekar 

State and Government in Ancient India

 

Dharmapal 

Beautiful Tree

 

Manohar Malgaonkar

The Men Who Killed Gandhi

 

For Religion and Philosophy

 

Balagangadhara

The Heathen in his Blindness

 

Jakob de Roover

Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism

 

Jan Assman

Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. 

The Price of Monotheism 

^If you understand the ideas of Normative Inversion and the Mosaic Distinction from those books and apply them to modern Western politics and religion, it will give you a very different insight into basically all the cultures outside of the ME and West.  

 

Economics

Jagdish Bhagwati

Why Growth Matters

 

Thomas Sowell 

Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy/ Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

Discrimination and Disparities 

 

Nima Sanandaji

Scandinavian Unexceptionalism

 

Others

The Ape that Understood the Universe

Blueprint: How DNA makes us who we are

 

I can add some good books which criticize specific religions if one wants to dive into that subject. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Tibarn

[Moochad]

@Tibarn @Stradlater

It turns out the link I shared was the old link to the website. I wasn't aware that they migrated to another site. Here is an updated link with all the books functional there

https://voibooks.bitbucket.io/

 

Shri Sitaram Goel is a must read in my view for any Hindu. Background, he was an ex-communist/Atheists, but he remained a lifelong Gandhian. His criticism of the so-called Secular parties and the RSS as well, are must reads to get a view of these groups from a Hindu perspective. 

[velu]

 

probably read 7/8 books in my entire life , mostly finance/trading related.. 

 

 

by far this is the most entertaining books of all .. wolf of wall street ( minus vulgarity ) among the  books

 

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

 

 

[Jimmy Cliff]

2 hours ago, velu said:

 

probably read 7/8 books in my entire life , mostly finance/trading related.. 

 

 

by far this is the most entertaining books of all .. wolf of wall street ( minus vulgarity ) among the  books

 

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

 

 

Any recommendations?

[velu]

46 minutes ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

Any recommendations?

 

for overall finance or for trading?  

 

books i liked in finance/banking/golmaal .. 

barbarians at the gate

<light years>

liars poker

den of thieves 

too big to fail

the greatest trade ever ( paul johnsons 25billion dollar profit )

predators ball ( abt michael milken )

more money than god 

the big short

house of cards

when the genuis failed

the rogue trader 

 

^^^ checked the list of books i ordered thru amazon , and i paid for every book ( mostly paperback and few hardcover if they are less than 1k )   

 

for trading.. ( almost everything i downloaded or pdf shared with me  for free ) 

 

position sizing 

trading in the zone

 

the volatility edge in options

day trading options for a living

trading options at expiration ( outdated .. may not work for us because of stt on exercising ) 

[Jimmy Cliff]

15 minutes ago, velu said:

 

for overall finance or for trading?  

 

books i liked in finance/banking/golmaal .. 

barbarians at the gate

<light years>

liars poker

den of thieves 

too big to fail

the greatest trade ever ( paul johnsons 25billion dollar profit )

predators ball ( abt michael milken )

more money than god 

the big short

house of cards

when the genuis failed

the rogue trader 

 

^^^ checked the list of books i ordered thru amazon , and i paid for every book ( mostly paperback and few hardcover if they are less than 1k )   

 

for trading.. ( almost everything i downloaded or pdf shared with me  for free ) 

 

position sizing 

trading in the zone

 

the volatility edge in options

day trading options for a living

trading options at expiration ( outdated .. may not work for us because of stt on exercising ) 

Mostly trading. Are the above books useful for a noob? I have very basic knowledge about TA/FA etc.

[velu]

7 minutes ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

Mostly trading. Are the above books useful for a noob? I have very basic knowledge about TA/FA etc.

 

books are not needed .. we get more than enough materials in the net/youtube

position sizing is a must and it is very simple .. i follow it when trying a new strategy .. going thru one or two videos is more than enough 

learn option strategies if you are into options .. most traders in india are option traders , they trade less in equity and futures

 

for intraday i follow only  volume and price action ..

* when comes to intraday no fa/ta  will work .. mathematical indicators like ma , macd , rsi , bollinger etc will never work in intraday

* option sellers always starts with an edge vs option buyers  

[Jimmy Cliff]

21 minutes ago, velu said:

 

books are not needed .. we get more than enough materials in the net/youtube

position sizing is a must and it is very simple .. i follow it when trying a new strategy .. going thru one or two videos is more than enough 

learn option strategies if you are into options .. most traders in india are option traders , they trade less in equity and futures

 

for intraday i follow only  volume and price action ..

* when comes to intraday no fa/ta  will work .. mathematical indicators like ma , macd , rsi , bollinger etc will never work in intraday

* option sellers always starts with an edge vs option buyers  

Interesting. Any recommended Youtube channels for trading?

[velu]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

Interesting. Any recommended Youtube channels for trading?

 

almost all the channels run by desi  traders are there for getting students for their paid course .. many are fake as well 

if you are interested in options , google "option strategies" and try to understand the the basic 7/8 strategies .. read/watch multiple times and once you start trading everything will be simple  

 

check this video by jegan ( 2.30hr video ) .. this guy updates his expiry trades profit or loss in twitter and updates his trade logs as well ..

though his 1 day workshop costs 12.5k ..

 

 

 

https://www.capitalzone.in/

Edited August 31, 2019 by velu

[Jimmy Cliff]

10 minutes ago, velu said:

 

almost all the channels run by desi  traders are there for getting students for their paid course .. many are fake as well 

if you are interested in options , google "option strategies" and try to understand the the basic 7/8 strategies .. read/watch multiple times and once you start trading everything will be simple  

 

check this video by jegan ( 2.30hr video ) .. this guy updates his expiry trades profit or loss in twitter and updates his trade logs as well ..

though his 1 day workshop costs 12.5k ..

 

 

 

https://www.capitalzone.in/

Thanks @velu bhai.

[maniac]

The Future of the Mind- Michio Kaku  wonderful take on consciousness, human brain and future scenarios of how the brain will evolve.

 

Lost city of the monkey god- Douglas Preston. Big archeology buff. Also fan of mysteries in the Amazon  It’s a true story and very well written.

 

Gut- guilia Enders.a wonderful insight and told in a very entertaining way about one of the most important yet also most abused part of the human body