The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2016

Rating: 5/5

The context for the “intimate” part of the title is the incidence of bipolarity and schizophrenia in the male members of Mukherjee’s family — two of his uncles and a cousin were diagnosed with the disease - which would be a constant threat hovering over the family. And this sets the tone for Mukherjee’s fascinating and detailed exploration into the subject of genes. 

He divides the book into six parts, starting from 1865 until the present day, covering the history of genetics ranging from Mendel’s first experiments with peas to genome mapping. He combines significant academic rigour with writing flair while covering the 160-year journey that shaped human understanding of genetics. While parts of the book make heavy reading, Mukherjee keeps most of it interesting and sometimes even manages to convert potentially academic and mundane topics into racy narratives. The section on the race to discover the DNA structure by multiple scientists is one example. Or the race to map the human genome between a private company, Celera and the Human Genome Project. The Book of Man chapter, somewhere in the middle of the book, is particularly interesting with several factoids about human genes. 

The most fascinating parts of the book, as to be expected, cover the debate around eugenics, contrasting the benefits of manipulating genetics to avoid serious disabilities in humans, with the potential violation of individual rights and the marginalisation of certain sections that it could ultimately engender. There have been several instances in recent human history that foretell the significant negative implications of eugenics, such as the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, Nazi Germany’s policies and prenatal genetic testing, we need to tread along this path with extreme caution. While Mukherjee does not provide any concrete solutions, the book does make one pause and think.

Ultimately, The Gene turns out to be a great combination of history, science, personal narratives and some guide rails for the future of genetics!

Pros: Rigorous research and a fascinating look at the history of the gene

Cons: Heavy reading in parts

Chip War, Chris Miller, 2022

Rating: 5/5

“Chip War” is a detailed documentation of the history of silicon ships covering the early days of the industry and the early years of companies such as Texas Instruments and Intel, the attempts of countries such as Russia to emulate the American success, Japan’s (mainly Sony’s) rise, US’ eventual dominance, the emergence of Taiwan as an offshore centre and ending with the current geopolitical implications entering around China and Taiwan. The breadth of the book is tremendous, and Miller manages to cover it in about 350 crisp pages without skimping on the important details.

The only complaint I had was that a major portion of the book is largely like a historical narrative on the subject, not surprising given Miller’s background as a historian. For someone like me who’s been a stock market analyst in the technology sector, most of the information was not new. But even then, there were these little nuggets of information, the small insights into events and people that took the industry forward and some interesting anecdotes that compensated for this. Also, the last part of the book which covers the future implications of this race between the US and China to get the upper hand in this area, exacerbated by China’s intent to eschew economic integration, constitutes a well-written opinion piece. 

Overall, “Chip War” is a fascinating read for all, easily understood by readers new to the topic and with enough nuggets to satisfy even those familiar with the topic. Jerry Sanders, co-founder of AMD, had famously said that semiconductors were the crude oil of the 1980s. Since then, their importance has only grown and one could argue that the outcome of this chip war has the potential to influence the future of individual countries and even humankind, making it an incredibly relevant topic and the book an interesting read.

Pros: The breadth of coverage of the topic, interesting factoids and anecdotes, insightful discussion into the current and potential geopolitical implications

Cons: May drag a bit in places for readers familiar with the subject

Ghachar Ghochar, Vivek Shanbhag, 2015

Rating: 5/5

This book was originally written in Kannada but has not lost any of its essence in translation and so kudos to Srinath Perur who translated it to English. It’s a psychological drama centred around a household comprising the unnamed narrator, his parents, uncle, separated sister and his wife. The story deals with the sudden shift of the family from poverty to wealth and the magnification of the already existing dysfunction that the wealth brings about — “it’s not we who control money, it’s the money that controls us. When there’s only a little, it behaves meekly; when it grows, it becomes brash and has its way with us” as the narrator points out at some point in the story.

Ghachar Ghochar is a nonsensical phrase made up by a couple of the story’s protagonists to suggest the hopeless entanglement of a loose string. It captures the crux of the story as feelings of love, anger, greed, power, and fear get mired with each other leading to the slow downward spiral in many of the characters’ morals. There is enough of each character to feel sorry about and yet enough to despise them. Despite being a very short book and despite being set in very simple surroundings, there’s an underlying current of foreboding and darkness throughout the book. This is captured beautifully in a chapter on the family’s battle against an invasion of ants, making them “a family that took satisfaction in the destruction of ants”.

The key thing that struck me about the book was the simplicity yet profundity of Shanbhag’s writing in Ghachar Ghochar. While the book can be read easily in less than 2 hours, there is enough to relish while reading the book and enough to contemplate after completing the book. As that narrator expressed, “words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered.” 

Pros: Simply yet wonderfully written, short

Cons: Nothing really

Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith, 2020

Rating: 4/5

To start off with, Galbraith’s (JK Rowling’s pseudonym) “Troubled Blood” has an interesting premise — a woman, Anna, hires protagonists Cormoran Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott, to investigate the disappearance of her mother, Margot Bamborough, a London-based GP. The interesting part is that Margot disappeared 40 years earlier and we have Strike and Ellacott revisit the lives and motivations of several possible suspects, some of who are dead, including an incarcerated serial killer, Margot’s husband at that time, her medical colleagues, patients and friends. And in between trying to solve this case, Strike and Ellacott must grapple with other cases and personal issues such as his terminally ill aunt, his suicidal ex-girlfriend, Robin’s PTSD from an earlier incident and her messy divorce. That gives enough material for Rowling to make this a 900+ page book, without it dragging at most times!

The mystery is of a high quality. The various characters are fleshed out well and the reader is privy to most developments through the book. Astrological clues are also neatly woven in the narrative, in the form of the scribblings of the initial investigator who slowly lost his mind. For a change, at least in my view, Rowling has handled the emotional elements, especially the potentially romantic track between Strike and Ellacott, quite well. I always thought that romance was the weakest part of the Harry Potter books and the Strike-Ellacott relationship was handled awkwardly in the earlier books in the Cormoran Strike series. This time however, there is far more maturity (and far less cringe)!

Rowling has borrowed the title of the book from Edmund Spenser’s epic poem, “The Faerie Queene”, and has a verse from the poem as an epigraph to each chapter. The epigraphs, very cleverly, appear to have clues to the direction of the story. Given my unfamiliarity with the poem, these allusions escaped me but (important: the following link has major spoilers) http://strikefans.com/the-faerie-queene-epigraphs/ is a very good source to understand the linkages between the poem and the book. 

The missing star in the rating is for the excessive length. While, as mentioned above, the book does not drag for most of its length, the reader tends to lose the plot and forget the characters if they take a long time to finish the book (for example, it took me a month and half to complete this book due to a lack of time to read). Rowling seems to be going the way of the Harry Potter series with the Strike books — the first two books were about 450 pages long, the next two were 500 and 650 respectively, “Troubled Blood” (the fifth of the series) is almost 950 pages long and “The Ink Black Heart”, which has just released has crossed the 1,000-page mark!

Pros: Interesting premise, fast-paced towards the end, relatively better handling of the emotional parts

Cons: Excessive length

The Billion Dollar Spy, David Hoffman, 2015

Rating: 5/5

“The Billion Dollar Spy” is a fascinating book on the world of human spying during the Cold War and is largely centred around the experiences with Adolf Tolkachev, arguably America’s most valuable asset. He provided significant information on various important developments in Russia’s defence and offensive plans between 1977 and 1985 that were relevant for even decades after that and helped America widen its military capabilities significantly over its rival. And with the changing dynamics once again between America and Putin’s Russia, despite the technological advances in spying (superbly described in Nicole Perlroth’s “This is How They Tell Me the World Ends”), this topic takes on a contemporary hue once again.

Tolkachev was a senior engineer in a top-secret design laboratory and a specialist in airborne radar. He proactively approached the Americans to pass on critical information, largely motivated by significant disillusionment with the Soviet system and its failure to provide its people with a better life. He was not averse to material compensation either, including both significant amounts of money and small personal things for his family, especially for his son, that were impossible to obtain in Russia at that point of time. The money, however, seems more to have fulfilled his desire of being seen important given that it would have been very difficult for him to spend such large amounts of money. And for eight years, he was a passionate and conscientious spy, taking enormous amounts of risks. 

Importantly, the Tolkachev operation, codenamed CKSPHERE first and CKVANQUISH later, not only provided America with invaluable information but also changed its previously timid approach towards Cold War operations in Moscow. He is estimated to have saved almost two billion dollars in R&D costs for the Americans … and hence the title of the book.

Hoffman captures multiples nuances of spying extremely well — the actual tension during the exchanges (making parts of the book page-turners) and the fears of being caught, the small details including the types of equipment used and the process to exchange information and most importantly, the personal motivations driving Tolkachev and his various American “case officers”. Tolkachev’s struggles with the Soviet system, his need for constant reassurances and his fear for his life (and his constant requests for a poison pill in case he was to be captured) and the Americans’ dilemma between maximising the information that could be received from Tolkachev and their desire to protect him from unnecessary risks are well captured without slowing the pace of the book. Some of the details are amusing and almost unbelievable such as the use of pop-up dummies in car seats so that the case officer could slip away without being noticed by the KGB or the usage of lights in Tolkachev’s residence to signal his readiness for a “dead drop”.

The book, however, is inconsistent about the tricky ethical and integrity issues associated with spying. It conveniently paints Tolkachev as a hero of sorts, even though he did his own country great disservice and partly for monetary remuneration while it presents an American who spied similarly for Russia as a treacherous villain. And that’s jarring for a non-American reader such as me. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting insight into the world of spying and a quick read at that.

Pros: Fascinating insights into cold-war spying, interesting short read, personal nuances captured well

Cons: Inconsistent about the ethical aspects

Hickory Dickory Dock, Agatha Christie, 1955

Rating: 3/5

It’s rare for an Agatha Christie-Hercule Poirot novel to disappoint me but Hickory Dickory Dock is one of those. The book starts off with a series of thefts of mainly minor items (such as a stethoscope, lightbulbs, and boracic powder) and some trivial but vicious acts (such as a slashed rucksack and spilt green ink on someone’s notes) at a youth hostel located on Hickory Road run by the sister of Poirot’s secretary. Poirot gets attracted to the case due to its ordinary yet seemingly perplexing nature. Soon thereafter, there is a murder and events unfold true to the nature of a Christie novel.

There are a few things to like about the book. It is short and a page-turner, there are several characters that have interesting back stories and who could be the killer, and the unconnected events are neatly untangled at the end.

However, as I mentioned at the outset, the book does disappoint on various counts. First, while the title is a continuation of Christie’s practice of using nursery rhymes, the connection is extremely tenuous in this case. The hostel is located on Hickory Road and there is some brief reference to people “being in the dock” but that’s about all the connection there is. Second, when I re-read Christie’s books, I can’t help but notice the racist treatment of some characters in some of the novels. Well, it was written 67 years ago, so perhaps we can ignore it. Third, it is not clear how Poirot arrived at some of the conclusions that helps him solve the crime. There is no way in which readers can solve this themselves and that feels a bit unfair. Fourth, and this is perhaps a minor thing, I enjoy the dynamics between the investigating officers and Poirot is many of the books — the police holding Poirot’s views in contempt initially and then recognising his abilities eventually. Finally, and importantly, the best part of the Poirot books for me is the eventual denouement where Poirot gathers all the characters in one place and explains how he solved the case. That is sadly missing in this book. So, this is not a book that I intent to re-read ever!

Pros: Page-turner, unconnected events that neatly fit together at the end

Cons: No final denouement, all the steps behind Poirot’s solution are unclear, disappointing title

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi, 2016

Rating: 5/5

When Breath Becomes Air, like Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (which is probably the best non-fiction book that I have ever read), is about our own mortality and reflects on impending death. But it is also an autobiographical memoir of sorts, published posthumously after Kalanithi’s death from lung cancer. And while it does not have the prescriptive elements that Gawande’s book has to deal with ageing and death, it is a wonderfully crafted book on Kalanithi’s life as a medical practitioner and what his rapidly deteriorating illness meant for his family and for him.

Kalanithi was an extremely accomplished man with multiple degrees in English literature, biology and in philosophy in science and medicine, from Stanford, University of Cambridge and Yale School of Medicine and was a neurosurgeon and writer (and it was unfortunate that his life was cut short at the age of just 37). And it’s his love for English literature that shines through the book. He covers his early life in the deserts of Arizona and his subsequent career path in medicine in the first half of the book and muses on his terminal illness in the second part. The early days of his career take up a disproportionate part of the book but that’s understandable as his rapidly declining health towards the end left his manuscript incomplete. And the book is quite short at about 150 pages anyway. The only complaint, if any, is that the publishers should have split the book into chapters which would have made it easier to read, rather than lump it into two large halves. 

His writing is wonderful and the crafting of sentences exquisite — “when there’s no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool” for example. When Breath Becomes Air is bookended with beautifully written foreword by Abraham Verghese, an author and physician, and epilogue by Lucy Kalanithi, Paul’s wife, where she describes his last days and the ups and downs of their relationship and will leave readers moist-eyed. The best few lines in the book, in my view, were clearly the last words that he leaves for his baby daughter — what a beautiful legacy for her to have! 

While the Kalanithi’s story was tragic, there’s a heart-warming postscript fortunately — Lucy seems to have found love again. In a happy twist of fate, John Duberstein reached out to her after his dying wife, Nina Riggs, connected him to Lucy — Nina died of breast cancer and penned her memoirs too during her final days. And after a period of being “pen friends”, Lucy and John met and are now together. They surely deserve some happiness now! 

Pros: Moving, well-written, reflections on mortality

Cons: Despite the short length overall, the first quarter drags