BookReads
This page hosts a collection of books I have read so far. The reviewed title are the ones that I thoroughly enjoyed reading (all the review are mine and are not ChatGPTied). I picked up reading habit at the age of 19 when the first book I read was titled, Relentless-The Power You Need to Never Give Up by John Bevere. Since then I have been highly interested in reading genres that include God and Science, Science and Technology, Early Church Fathers and how they shaped Catholic theology and Church teachings, and Christian Apologetics. I am not fond of reading science fiction at all and hardly recall reading one.
The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI: Dr. Fei-Fei Li
I took a fairly long time for me to finish this book. I remember starting it in the month of August last year right before I planned to give my final doctoral defence. This book majorly focuses on two aspects: (a) struggles in the life of a US immigrant, and (b) life as an academic researcher/scientist. I believe researchers in the academic world (& especially an immigrant who stepped in the US for the first time) would be able to highly relate to most of the experiences shared by Dr. Li. Based on the past experiences that people have expressed with time, newly recruited faculties go through tremendous levels of pressure in setting up their own labs, hiring quality grad students, finding a niche research topic, and then developing a very strong research program in the field that amazes all the interested experts. All of these have been beautifully shared by Dr. Li where she especially highlights how holding onto one “idea” could change the face of academic research forever. Dr. Li focused on the “dataset” aspect within the field of AI. Not to my surprise, this idea was “built” over time with the help of grad students, postdocs, and other experts. The idea of releasing a large-scale dataset got cemented through several experiences, conference presentations, and often hard critiques, which later on proved to be one of the major aspect that drove AI and deep learning research. I highly recommend this book to those who are willing to believe in the power of an “idea.”
Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust: Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis
One of the best titles I have read in the Science and Technology genre. As a researcher applying artificial intelligence (AI) to agricultural big datasets, this book helped me stretch my thoughts on how we can make AI more transparent and explainable to layman audiences. It’s a great read for those who are either learning about AI techniques to analyze big data or are midway in applying these techniques already. The book will equip you to thoroughly reason why the AGI we talk about is still far away from human creativity and understanding of the world around us. It will also help you understand why and how the AI we encounter in our daily lives, be it a helping robot or a real-time monitoring device, needs data that the existing amount of annotated dataset cannot satiate.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: Cal Newport
In the present age of ADHD, I highly recommend this book! The book describes several rules for navigating your path to help you achieve more focus. Therefore, I’ll categorize it as more of a self-help genre. It will ask you to take a few extreme steps, such as deleting your social media account among others. You could certainly do that to gain more focus at your workplace, but be aware of FOMO! 😧
Keeping one aspect of social media aside, this book also presents some of the experiments conducted on humans to help better understand how we can achieve “deep work” that ultimately leads to more contribution to our careers.
Can Science Explain Everything? : John Lennox
Dr. Lennox is one of my favorite writers who thinks critically and presents thoughtful evidence about the presence of God behind this universe. Being a mathematician, I love how he takes both his science and God seriously! Dr. Lennox has penned this book very thoughtfully. It’s difficult for me to summarize the whole here because he has presented numerous theories and pieces of evidence for the existence of God.
Based on the gist of this book, people often misunderstand that science and religion do not mix and tend to think that science has all the answers. But it’s not true as far as I see this book describes. It takes us on a journey from different worldviews being considered (in terms of giving an absolute answer about objective morality and the origin of the universe) and then explains why Christianity stands as the only religion after several tests. Dr. Lennox presents those thoughts very logically and with a touch of rationality.
The last chapter’s heading was “Entering the Laboratory: Testing the truth of Christianity,” which was very motivating to read. It is a must-read for all avid readers
2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity – John Lennox
Another title from Dr. Lennox that I thoroughly enjoyed reading back in 2020. This book presents some of the dangers posed by AGI if not leashed properly with proper ethics in place. The author discusses ideas that prove human creativity is far beyond the reach of AGI. Dr. Lennox explains how complex the human body is, along with the patterns that our brain is capable of picking up from the surroundings. I would highly recommend this title if you enjoy reading in the God and Technology genre.
Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn’t Make Sense – Ravi Zacharias
“If God is good, then why is there suffering?” This is a very common question asked by many atheists and agnostics. In this book, Ravi tries to address the logical fallacy that entangles itself with the idea that because there is so much suffering, therefore God does not exist! He also presents some of his own life’s testimony and other incidents that cement the idea that God is indeed present in the shadows. Moreover, he takes us on the journey of philosophically trying to understand the Book of Job from the Bible. Please give it a try, even if you don’t believe in the divine being!
Grand Weaver: Ravi Zacharias
This book is one of my favorites. I read this title back in 2017 and since then it has been on my recommendation list. This book is basically Ravi’s testimony and an his thoughts about God shaped his life through life’s trials/suffering. I would highly suggest it to the readers who might be going through tough times and need a pinch of hope to re-stir their faith in God.