Once Again!


Hi! I bring few reviews again.

I offered my opinion on Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained in the last post. Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion though on religion, is not in the same vein. This is an erudite, yet, a searing attack on Religion and concept of God. I read the book many years back. I  had dabbled with the question of God for some years and read about atheism desultorily. I did not know that such unassailable arguments existed on atheism. I had never come across a book on ‘lack of faith’. The book blew my mind. For months I walked in seventh heaven. Secret of life had been revealed to me. Bibliography provided me reference to many other works and over the years I read some beautiful books on the subject. God Delusion has been on the ‘best-seller’ list for long and many of you must have read it. It is criticised for its trenchant, polemical prose. I think religious propaganda- as is plainly evident in the country today- is so blatantly wrong, harmful and preposterous that such severe criticism is not only deserving but badly needed too. I would plead with people of contrary faith not to shun the book. If arguments presented feel foolish to them, they can practice their beliefs with reinvigorated vigour.

I wrote about John Keay’s India Discovered previously. I offer another book on recent Indian history, VP Menon’s Integration of The Indian States. I can unhesitatingly say that this is a story straight from horse’s mouth. VP Menon was secretary in the Ministry of State under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, during the momentous year, 1947. There can not be a better person to relate how India came into being in those fraught times.

In my previous post I shared my brief and bemused meditations on the nature of time. Sean Carrol’s From Eternity to Here is an excellent disquisition on this baffling feature of our universe. It is written for physics-challenged individuals like me, so go ahead and pick it up without any trepidations, if the subject intrigues and interests you.

Most of you would have read James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. It is a warm, feel-good book, written well.

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