The Man who Never was

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear My rating: 4 of 5 stars Things which I appreciate about the book: 1. Atomic habits have useful, practical and implementable methods for habit formation, with anecdotes which keep you interested. 2. The author tries and keeps his methods simple, so that there is little friction when trying to implement them. At the end of each section, method or process, it is summarized in one line or process flow. Which I found easy to follow. 3. It explains why many people start with new habits, but aren’t always able to achieve success in implementing and internalizing them. 4. Methods which touch upon related concepts in behavior, cognition and learning (e.g. Willpower is a limited resource, which can run out during the day) 5. The author tries to cover all possible scenarios when it comes to the positives and negatives of habit formation. The book goes one step further, in

ദൈവത്തിന്റെ വികൃതികള്‍ | Daivathinte Vikruthikal by M. Mukundan My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews Choosing the third seat on the row adjacent to the side road, overlooking the beach, I opened the book currently in my reading list. It was Mukundan’s book, ദൈവത്തിന്റെ വികൃതികള്‍ (God’s mischief). Like his masterpiece മയ്യഴിപ്പുഴയുടെ തീരങ്ങളിൽ Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil (On the Banks of the river mayyazhi) the man has a keen ability to get into the nitty gritty (निजी ) lives of the people of his land. In other words, the story of mayyazhi is the story of her people. And in this novel, Mayyazhi’s own writer explores his favorite muse in further detail. A sequel to the previous mentioned books, in many ways Mukundan’s work is not centered on a few characters, rather, it is the retelling of the collective memory of the land through the ages, through revolution, through socio-economic change. He also has that whole ‘existence is suffering’ vibe coming from many of the PO

The Defenders by Philip K. Dick My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Tempest by William Shakespeare My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m among that minority who is not a fan of Shakespeare’s particular school of writing...Now there be some fighting words! This is not a disparagement of his works, nor am I calling them overrated. After all, if multitudes across generations were entertained and inspired by his works, who am I to argue? Yet the fact remains, the Shakespearean school of ‘not’ calling a Rose a rose doesn’t gel with me. I’m however intrigued by the characters that he conceived, as well as the worlds & setting he constructed. In them, where often the supernatural, surreal and authentic go hand in hand. Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Taming of a screw, these are all works I enjoy in prose, rather than screenplay. Perhaps it might be because that was how I was first introduced to them, in school. There is no argument of how influential these works are. The reason I decided to revisit the tempest after the last t