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Human Universe by Brian Cox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This short but excellent book takes you on a journey from the primordial soup to the Inflation Theory and how we fit in between. This is a story of our existence, the stories behind equations and the people who created them. This book builds around the Drake equation, and each element of that equation has a story to tell.
The narrator Samuel West has done a fine job but at places that needed a bit of dramatisation with an American accent needs work!

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Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was my first introduction to Charles Dickens’s humour and comic style. Charles Dickens doesn’t give you a breather; new characters and plots are thrown at you at a vigorous pace and I wondered how people’s patience would have been tested back in 1846 when it was first released as a monthly feature.
A notable chapter is ‘The Thunderbolt’ and man what an explosive start! You imagine Charles Dickens sitting at his table writing this with all gusto and then he pauses and puts the pen down and looks straight at you. Right up until this moment you have been judging away his characters and now when he speaks to you and strips your assumed morality bit by bit, you have no response. Then he peers past you and talks to humanity itself.
Forgiveness and redemption is the central theme in the closing chapters. Furiously frustrating was the scene where Florence offers forgiveness to a certain character and I wondered whether her devotion to her father has blinded her.
Dombey and Son is definitely a good read (or listen), the humour is brilliant, the drama and emotions is definitely a rollercoaster ride but the ending is as expected though I secretly wished otherwise!
The narration by Owen Teale is brilliant once you get past his Game of Thrones image, though it did fit in very well to paint a Dickensian backdrop.

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The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Robinson Crusoe meets NASA. I would definitely recommend this audiobook. The narrator, R.C. Bray has managed to capture the key element of the character Mark Whatney, that is, his sense of humour and has kept that alive in the entire narration.
Here is a character who due to incredible circumstances is left stranded on Mars but manages to keep his sanity intact and survive! I liked the story because most part entails describing in detail the facts and figures of staying alive.
Give it a go.

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The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A riveting storyline and incredible narration. In my opinion if you combine all the Ocean’s Eleven series then you’ve got yourself the Gentleman Bastards, now throw in the murky and colorful Renaissance era set in an alien plane and we have the first of the series of the Gentleman Bastard come to life. Each character has been portrayed well by the author and combined with the wonderfully animated narration by Michael Page.

The narrator has brought to life the vivid tale of the Gentleman Bastards’ antics and there are many memorable moments in this tale but the one that stands out for me is when Locke punches the ‘Spider’!
And look out for Father Chains.
It’s well worth the read or listen.

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21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been through Sapiens and and Homo Deus and I thought the suppositions would come to an end. I was wrong. The book seemed like a summary of both his previous books with the pages filled with Artificial Intelligence, algorithms, religion, data mining, self-driving cars, social media and a good sprinkling of philosophy. He has done a good job of grabbing different strings of thoughts and tying them together to make up for the nice flow in the story but I think I had enough. The narrator Derek Perkins has done a great job.

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The Search for the Buddha: The Men Who Discovered India’s Lost Religion by Charles Allen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Buddha and the Sahibs as narrated by Sam Dastor was an interesting listen. This is the story of the rediscovery of Buddhism by a few men who took an interest in the pursuit of the knowledge rather than wealth of the land that they ruled over. I found the most colourful character to be the Transylvanian Bodhisattva – Sándor Csoma de Kőrös.
But what irked me most was the mispronunciation of lot of words not native to Sam Dastor; it is evident that the narrator nor the producers of this audio book took any effort in getting it right and it is rather unfortunate. Despite this, I would recommend this book for anyone who loves history and the work of the orientalists.

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Railways and The Raj: How the Age of Steam Transformed India by Christian Wolmar

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“..in short, the system works..” and the author carries on describing the current Indian Railway and the chaos that surrounds it, and this line could very well feature in anyone who has had a journey on the Indian railways. Being a fan of the Indian railways, I enjoyed listening to the book. The author lays out the reasoning behind the birth of the railways in India (to necessitate the propagation of the Raj), the people who built and ran them, the Indians who feared it, then loved it and went on to use it as a propaganda machine for the freedom movement. Want to know how weddings, litigations and deaths kept the Indian railways going or that a Noble prize nominee and Indian Astrophysicist and his ‘river physics’ influenced the railway construction or want to know the story behind the ‘Lonely Line’ then pick up this book.
The narrator Jonathan Keeble has done an excellent work.

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Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This definitely was the longest book in my Audible library, and took a good few months to complete this! But, in the end I could say ‘Napoleon the Great, indeed!’ as the author intended it to be.
I must confess that my knowledge of Napoleon Bonaparte was not beyond what I learn’t at school to start with, but at the end of what seemed to be a complete narrative of Napoleon’s life, I ended with a love-hate relationship with this larger than life character. I swung from him being a role model to dictator to taking pity on him on his later life.
This book is a good listen (apart from the time when you hear the narrator wheezing through some of the lines-must be the cold flu!)
Give it a go.

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A History of the World by Andrew Marr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Writing a history of the world is a ridiculous thing to do, the amount of information is too vast for any individual to absorb, the reading limitless and the likelihood of error immense,”-as narrated by the author in the introduction chapter. With that word of caution, we can then step into the rest of the chapters narrated by David Timson, taking them in as a casual read rather than a decisive work of the history of the world.
You name it, it has it- mother, artificial intelligence, slavery, the Incas, the British East India Company, Founding Fathers, Vikings, Musa, religion, etc,.
I found myself pausing every so often to reach out to google the information thrown my way.

And I ended the book thinking …maybe Thanos was right!
May be you end with a different perspective….so read on.

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Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First of all, it was a pleasure to listen to the book narrated by the author himself. You can feel the power of his arguments and the passion for his cause.
This book, as I put it, is a catalogue of crimes committed against India due to colonialism. The book lays bare for all to see the rape of India by the British Raj. Facts are presented of the plunder and so are arguments set forth of ‘the goodness’ of the Raj, and the surprise caused by this juxtaposition flys in the face of those people who still think India under the British Raj fared well.
A well researched book worth the listen.

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My Indian Odyssey by Vincent Ebrahim

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is Vincent Ebrahim taking a journey across India in search of his roots and all the while narrating about his experiences. He weaves through iconic sights and sounds that makeup the nation with a perspective that comes with travelling to parts unknown. His describing the curious residents of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai or while trying to keep his balance while riding the Royal Enfield Bullet in the foot hills of Himalayas brings a delight to the listeners.
This is an easy listen and engrossing podcast.

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Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

God helps those who help themselves- so did this just obsolve God of all responsibilities? Are you aware of the significance of Nicolae Ceaușescu final speech in 1989? What is a soul? Are we just algorithms? Are we losing out to AI? Phew!
I began listening to this book after a deliberate delay from when I completed his first book- Sapiens, a brief history of humankind. And I was not disappointed. Once again, Yuval Noah Harari puts forth countless arguments that makes you think and may be react upon, but as with his previous book, this work too is an overload of information and the added suppositions.
Give it a go.

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Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book could have been so much better. Few might be in awe of Chris’s journeys and few would be inspired and what passed through Chris’s mind during his travels we may not entirely decipher but for the author to draw parallels from his own life and to set aside a chapter to himself did not add to the charm of this book.
A good read but nothing more.

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