5 books I recommend reading during the lockdown

We had asked you, dear readers, to send us a list of books you're reading during the lockdown.
Rediff reader Rajiv Aggarwal who works as an anesthesiologist at a private hospital in Kanpur shared this list of books he wants everyone to read.

With social-distancing being the only means at our disposal to ward-off this dangerous pandemic, all of us will find ample time and resources that were otherwise elusive.

While mobile phones and TV with illimitable resources at their command will consume most of your time, I bring to your notice a couple of books which may provide a not-so dreary diversion to a stray person.

1. Rational Optimist- How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

In inclement times our innate tendency to believe in an impending calamity rises to fore.

Cassandras thrive and air thickens with a gloom of thick pessimism.

A dose of well-reasoned optimism is the need of the hour.

Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist- How Prosperity Evolves is one such well-written book.

Ridley convincingly shows how our lives are consistently moving towards betterment.

There is no reason for pessimism.

2. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

All of us have crannies in our mind that are clogged with things that we want to do, tasks that are highly accessible, yet we keep postponing these inexplicably, denying ourselves a few moments of joy.

I had wanted to read Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat for long.

A few months ago I finally got down to it.

It is incontrovertibly one of the funniest books I have read.

Most readers would have devoured it long-long back. I implore those who haven’t, to profit from my foolishness.

3. Goldilocks Enigma-Why is the Universe Just Right for Life by Paul Davies

Origin of life on earth is baffling.

Certain parameters in our physical world, like mass of elementary particles, their charge, the ratio between basic forces of nature like gravity and electromagnetic force, seem so accurately fine-tuned that even a millionth change in their value would make life impossible.

Such facts delude us in believing that the whole purpose of this inconceivably huge universe was to lead to human evolution.

Paul Davies, in his incredibly well-written book, Goldilocks Enigma-Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, explains this illusion and the concepts inherent in it splendidly.

It is difficult not to fall in love with Davies' elegant prose style.

4. Spy Who Came in from Cold by John le Carre 

I’m sure all readers have a list of books they consider paragon of a particular genre. For me, John le Carre’s Spy Who Came in from Cold is such a book in the espionage category.

I read the book in a trance, decades back.

I read it again after many years to confirm if it really possessed the charm, I had found in it on my first reading.

I was happy to note that I still found the book a great read.

Le Carre published a novel few years ago in which the story picks up where The Spy Who Came in from Cold ends. More on it later.

5. Double Helix-A Personal Account of the Discovery of DNA by James Watson

The discovery of the structure of DNA is clearly one of the tallest scientific achievements of modern science.

It explained a mammoth quantity of facts in biology.

Further it spawned the growth of many new streams of studies in biology.

This knowledge is now such a ubiquitous fact in biology that it is impossible to conceive of the world when humans did not have this know-how.

It is quite simply THE molecule of life.

James Watson’s Double Helix-A Personal Account of the Discovery of DNA is the story of the discovery of DNA, straight from the horse’s mouth. And a luscious, enchanting tale it is.

Many-many years back I was in Afghanistan for a little more than a year, as a team member of a medical-help group.

We were stationed in the holy city of Mazar-E-Sharif, in northern region of country, bordering Uzbekistan.

Fabled Oxus river, the Amu Dariya, flowed a little distance from the city.

Country had suffered one of the most severe wars in its strife-riddled history of centuries.

Devastation loomed large everywhere I visited; the villages, the provinces and the cities. But there was a passive optimism in almost every citizen.

I became aware of it increasingly as I befriended many local people.

It was a way of life with most and was reflected in their vigorous involvement with the immediate task at hand, the immense joy they derived from small leisure activities and the unperturbed acceptance of fate. ‘Migozarad (It will pass)’, a graffiti in Persian, one came across frequently, scrawled on the bedraggled walls of road-side public buildings now gone to seed.

It captured this attitude quite aptly.

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Tell us what books you are reading during the lockdown.

Send us a picture of the book and what you like the most about it.

Simply write to getahead@rediff.co.in (subject: The book I am reading) along with your name, age and location. We'll feature the best responses on Rediff.com.

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