Tune

The Stranger by Albert Camus.  Originally written in french language. The author won the nobel prize of literature in 1957 at the age of 44 and three years later he died  in a car accident.  The book tells the story of a man who killed another man in accidental or incidental circumstances. The entire book […]

A natural story of the future by Rob Dunn. The title of this book is really cool. The author is professor of ecology in  North Carolina State University and the book explains the ecology laws in a modern context including the implications of global warming to urban geographies. It is explained how the present and future

Aura by Carlos Fuentes. The author was often named as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. This book is magic –or perhaps more accurately– it is written and experienced as a dream. This short novel is about Felipe Montero,  a historian that is hired to translate and to put together a memoir

The Age of the Vikings by Anders Winroth. The author is professor of medieval history in Yale University. This book blew my mind and the reason why I like it so much is because it mostly relies on archaeological and experimental evidence. There is a lot of literature written in the form of poetry about

Talent is overrated: what really separates world-class performers from everybody else by Geoffrey Colvin (2010). This book presents a very simple idea which I like very much: Greatness is not necessarily the result of an innate gift or talent, buy the product of a large number of hours of hard work.  Here I just mention

The rise and fall of the dinosaurs by by Stephen Brusatte. So far this is my favorite book of the year. I would like to review this book by summarizing some cool things I learned about dinosaurs. They existed for 160 million years and all over the world there is lots of evidence of their

The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Several times in the past years I had attempted to read Dostoyevsky’s novels, but at some point I gave up. I guess I was not ready yet for him.  The House of the Dead is my first novel of Dostoevsky that I successfully completed reading and it

Napoleon’s Buttons by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson (2004). This book is about the role of chemistry in history. It is a brilliantly written narrative of how several chemical inventions changed the course of history and how the people behind these inventions, sometimes inadvertently, contributed to drive entire nations towards making and sustaining wars

Replay by Ken Grimwood (1986).  I discovered this book thanks to a recommendation from someone online, and I think it is probably one of the best novels I’ve read this year. The book is about Jeff, a 43-year-old man who works in an office and is unhappily married. Suddenly, he dies and wakes up as