THE WORLD ACCORDING TO WARP - REVIEW OF KIP THORNE'S "THE SCIENCE OF INTERSTELLAR"

The first thing I have to say is that you must first watch the movie Interstellar (2014) before reading this book. The second thing is that I am astounded at the pains that present-day Hollywood directors like Christopher Nolan take to get the science right!

WORLD WAR III - REVIEW OF MARK LEONARD'S "CONNECTIVITY WARS"

Connectivity Wars: Why Migration, Finance and Trade are the Geo-Economic Battlegrounds of the Future (2016), a book edited by Mark Leonard, is published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the book can be downloaded for free here.

ADVICE ON MONEY - REVIEW OF ROBERT T KIYOSAKI'S "INCREASE YOUR FINANCIAL IQ"

I read my first Robert Kiyosaki book Rich Dad, Poor Dad (1997) about five years ago. Since then I have been hooked on Kiyosaki's writings and I have read several of his books more than once.

It was only by reading Kiyosaki did I fully appreciate the importance of money and a financial education. During my PhD years I was much influenced by one of my professors who said: "Some people know how money works; some people know how ideas work." I aspired to be an ivory tower thinker with not much involvement with mundane things like money.

THE PREVALENCE OF FORCE - REVIEW OF DAVID GRAEBER'S "DEBT"

In his book Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), David Graeber proves to be an original and provocative thinker. Graeber is a professor of anthropology and described as an anarchist (I suppose he is an economist of the Left while Murray Rothbard, the Austrian economist would be an anarchist of the Right). Graber was one of the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

THE INDIAN AUSTRIAN - REVIEW OF SAURABH THIRANI'S "SPOT THE NEXT ECONOMIC BUBBLE"

With the ongoing economic crash in China and the US Fed increasing interest rates, there is a lot of volatility and anxiety the world over. Several economists and investors were bullish about China over the last few years. I felt that it was a good time to re-read Saurabh Thirani's Spot the Next Economic Bubble (2012) which was quite prescient about China.

BUNGLING TOWARDS INSIGHTS - REVIEW OF MARIO LIVIO'S "BRILLIANT BLUNDERS"

Science is obviously a very human endeavor and is riddled with mistakes along the way. What makes it an enduring structure is that the mistakes are weeded out in due course by competing investigators. This mistake-making is the theme of Mario Livio's delightful book Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein (2013). Livio himself is an astrophysicist with wide-ranging interests and is well suited to delve into the creative forays of the scientific mind.

AMAZING AMAZON - REVIEW OF BRAD STONE'S "THE EVERYTHING STORE"

Brad Stone's The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (2013) won the 2013 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award which is a superlative achievement. This book, however, is not like other FT-Goldman Sachs award winners such as Raghuram Rajan's Fault Lines (2010) or Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo's Poor Economics (2011) which were more formal and academic. Stone's book reads more like a popular yarn, something that Walter Isaacson would be proud to write.