Review: The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I heard first time about this book when my close friend Danish Gondal talked about it. He said he read it as a child, in Urdu, and it devastated him. Since then I was curious about it.

As it's a short book, and I am lagging behind my reading goal this year, so I picked up to finish it quickly. While I was reading, I was constantly telling myself to get too emotionally attached as any dark twist could come and devastate me too (Danish is a lot stronger mentally and emotionally than I am). No dark twist came. Hemingway doesn't play cheap-shots. It's not a thriller, but every bit as gripping.

It's a tale about an Old man who goes fishing. The old man is smart and humble, and poor, and skilled at fishing. And he's self-aware. He knows his weaknesses too.

I think it's a book about we we try our best to succeed in our missions, and in life, and we do too. Without giving much thoughts to the missions themselves. I think it's a novel about you have to be wise too, in addition to being clever.

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Book Summary: Seven habits of highly effective people

This is a work in progress.

Summary of first 22 pages:

Character Development is the primary way of being effective. Personality Development is also important, and the lack in any of them would result in failures, Character is primary, and Personality is complementary.

Author and his wife were being bad parents because they were seeings their son's failures in life as their failures as parents. Once they realized their mistake, they accepted their child for who he was, and stopped measuring him against society's expectations. As a result, their son, who was behind academically, physically, emotionally, soared in all aspects of life.

Review: Jub Zindagi Shuru Hogi / جب زندگی شروع ہوگی

Jub Zindagi Shuru Hogi / جب زندگی شروع ہوگی by Abu Yahya
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

What a beautiful book! nay, astounding! Oh it was all of it. Beautiful, astounding, gripping, enthralling. I cannot tell what it was - I can try telling what it wasn't: ordinary.

You don't know till very deep in the book who the hero is, who you're rooting for, and where the story is going to go. It talks about everything.

It's like an old but energetic, eccentric but eloquent stranger telling you a story, that is unfolding as you're hearing it, while at the same time, he starts talking about things long past, but equally interesting.

No book has ever made me want to be a cat so bad!

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Python progression path - From apprentice to guru

I thought the process of Python mastery went something like:

1. Discover list comprehensions
2. Discover generators
3. Incorporate map, reduce, filter, iter, range, xrange often into your code
4. Discover Decorators
5. Write recursive functions, a lot
6. Discover itertools and functools
7. Read Real World Haskell (read free online)
8. Rewrite all your old Python code with tons of higher order functions, recursion, and whatnot.
9. Annoy your cubicle mates every time they present you with a Python class. Claim it could be "better" implemented as a dictionary plus some functions. Embrace functional programming.
10. Rediscover the Strategy pattern and then all those things from imperative code you tried so hard to forget after Haskell.
11. Find a balance.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/2576240/878451

Review: The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting by Jason Fung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As Dr. Fung says "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

I lost 10 kgs (22 lbs) since January 1, 2019 (that's 19 days) following the guidelines in this book.

This book was so terrific, I used to stay up till 4 am reading it.

On Dec 31, I was 60 kg overweight, now I am only 50 kg overweight. Let's see how his advice holds up in the long run. We all know, the conventional wisdom does not.

Rating it 5 stars for now. Will come back and update the review in few months. Hopefully for the better.

Currently my mother is reading it, and she has already decreased her insulin more than 25 units per day while keeping her glucose in range.

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Review: Apology

Apology by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Writing a review for classics is almost useless. You cannot hardly say something that hasn't been said before. However, there are those that know me, to whom my familiar and inexpert opinion may matter more than the expert review of a stranger. For those I write. And for myself, for I am among those too.

This is an elementary text for people who need to learn the basics of Philosophy, which is everyone. Socrates not only does teach us how to argue, but also how not to plead innocent. He preferred death over unrighteousness, because he made it clear he was let to live, he would continue to do the same thing.

He teaches us about the importance of doing our duty, even if the cost is death. "For wherever a man's place is, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying"

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