A group of men gathered together for a feast and started a discourse on the nature of Love. Everybody presented their own notion of love one after another. The dialogues were half playful and half serious, but always entertaining and fascinating. Every speaker seemed to best the one preceding him, and Socrates gave the climatic, noble speech. Just when one thought that he couldn’t be topped, a drunk came in […]
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“Walking” by Henry David Thoreau
In this inspiring and thought-provoking essay, Thoreau beautifully articulates how Man derives his sustenance, his physical and spiritual well-being, his imagination and inspirations, from Nature, the Wild. Thoreau’s essays are always delightful, refreshing and stimulating, but above all, he urges readers to action, to adventure into the wild and seek the springs of life. On Walking If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think […]
Read more“Traitor to His Class” by H.W.Brands
A detailed account of FDR’s life and times. It covers FDR’s personal life (his relationships with his mother, wife and mistress), his apprenticeship in politics under Woodrow Wilson, whose internationalist idealism inspired FDR to lay down the foundation for the United Nations, his fight against polio, his economic policies emphasizing government regulation and intervention (the New Deal) during the Depression, and his international leadership in forming an alliance with Churchill […]
Read more“Losing My Virginity” by Richard Branson
The subtitle of the original version reads, “How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way”. Branson certainly delivered the goods. I can’t imagine anybody else having more fun doing business than he has. He described his strategies and adventures in such a straightforward and engaging manner, that I’m convinced this is how all business should be done. Life is a series of challenges for Branson, […]
Read more“The Universe in a Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking
A Rehash of “A Brief History Of Time” Hawking re-organizes materials from “A Brief History Of Time” in a tree-like, instead of linear, format, explaining complex physics models as clearly as possible without the use of mathematical equations. The theories of the black hole are based on principles of thermodynamics, Einstein’s curved space-time and the holographic principle. The latter states that all the information in a multi-dimensional space can be encoded […]
Read more“Building The Getty” by Richard Meier
Architect Richard Meier gives a detailed personal account of the building of the Getty Center, one of the most important works of architecture in recent history, which took 13 years to complete and cost one billion dollars. Meier’s design philosophy emphasizes the human scale, freedom of movement, the experience of space and light as one moves around in the building, the relationships between solid and void, between openness and closure, […]
Read more“The Abolition of Man” by C. S. Lewis
A thought-provoking, occasionally humorous essay in defense of traditional values and the emotions associated with them, against nihilism and reductionism. The danger of reductionism, Lewis cautioned, is that, like the basilisk who kills every living thing it sees, reductionist approach tends to break things down to measurable quantities, and in the process lose sight of quality and value. It’s dissecting the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs. Lewis also made […]
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