Things i have read, that have changed me, and hopefully that others will enjoy.

Death in the Afternoon - Ernest Hemingway - my favourite author and my favourite book ever - The grand problem of life and all arts sublimated into the world of Spanish bullfighting.

West with the Night - Beryl Markham - The first commercial bush pilot out of Kenya and her memoir of growing up in Africa.

Life of Van Gogh - any edition.

The Third Chimpanzee - Jared Diamond - winner of the Pulitzer Prize, (for Guns, Germ and Steel), this book is about the origins of humanity, neandrathals, cro-magnons and apes to how/why have peculiar behaviours from why we do drugs, cheat from a biological perspective - to how we are closer to the chimpanzee than the 2 species of chimp are to gorilla etc.

Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan - also winner of the Pulitzer Prize. This book is about many of the aforementioned - and was written in the 70s, but many additional postulates - such as that 'the light' we see near death may be our first formed memories (the birth canal).

Fermat's Last Theorem - Simon Singh - why a^3 + b^3 = c^3 cannot be solved.

The Music of Primes - Marcus du Satuoy - The Reimann Hypothesis, and trying to find the pattern in primes. email me if you know the answer I will call the press for you.

The Elegant Universe (mildly out of date now) or any book on String theory. and Calabi-Yau geometry. Lisa Randall laments that to paraphrase - how easy can you make something before it loses its context, which is true of all these books I think. It must be a very rich field.

Eat the Rich - P.J. O'Rourke - A treatise on economics by visiting New York, Cuba, Sweden and Albania, from a journalist who writes for rolling stone.

How and Why we Age - Leonard Hayflick

Harpo Speaks - The Autobiography of Harpo Marx, centres around growing up in the ghetto of lower east side.

Any book on the History of Wine. totally fascinating.

The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck, nobel and pulitzer prize winner and founder of PSBI. Her story of a chinese farmer.

Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith - the original book which began the study of economics period. It is one of the best books ever.

My life as a Quant - Emmanuel Derban - not for everyone, but recounts being a quant on Wall St. and options theory and working for Goldman Sachs. He could write about anything in my op. he is plain intelligent and yet funny.

Connections - James Burke - History of Development of Modern World

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood - problems of art

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood - possible problems and directon of modern world.

The Unanswered Question - Harvard Norton Lectures - Leonard Bernstein - A first and real true analysis of the factors which shape music. They should make it a required reading textbook for any one in first year music.

Plato - The Symposium and any all of it Plato, and any and all analysis.

Miles Davis - Autobiography. despite his faults - a true artist.

 

 

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