Reading Highlights 2023

2023 had ended up being one of the busiest times in the history of Transcelestial! I have had this post sitting in draft for over a year but I finally have been able to polish it up a bit and release. Just combined my reading highlights from 2023 below.

Previous reading recommendations can be found here. My other reading updates can be found on my Goodreads.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Like everyone I first encountered his work in the movie Arrival - which I found is based on his short story, Story of Your Life. Quick side trivia - Stephen Wolfram (of Mathematica and A New Kind of Science fame) was science consultant for the movie and wrote an amazing nerdy deep dive on bringing the visual language to life on his blog - read it! Anyway, so I read Story of Your Life and forgot about Ted Chiang until recently when he visited Singapore (Singapore Writers Festival Nov 22) and I went to see his talk on "Time Travel in Fiction and Physics". I loved the fact that he approached the whole topic as a physicist rather than a writer. I picked up a signed copy of Exhalation and poured through all the short stories as fast as I could (yes, its an anthology). Tower of Babylon was the first story he ever wrote and I think after Story of Your Life, was my favorite. The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate remains a close third favorite. I hope he writes a complex full length novel - which I can guarantee it will be absolutely epic!

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

Tony & Zappos came up during one of my chats with Vishal (who is a dear friend and also a Managing Partner at 500 Global). Vishal long ago pointed me to Something Ventured (an eye opening masterpiece on the origins of Venture Capital and it's surprising roots in deep tech), so I treat his other recommendations very curiously. I had never heard of Zappos before that (being in Asia!) but as I listened to the audiobook (it listens like a fast paced movie!), it can be best described as a Customer Success primer weaved together with the rich narrative of Tony's life. The core tenent of a successful business is happy customers and if you are a CEO who truly believes that, you should give this a read. "Everyone's goal in life is Happiness" - great phrase from the book, something Will Smith/Chris Gardner also indirectly touches upon in The Pursuit of Happyness! But everyone takes a different path to get there. For Elon (& many like him including myself) it might be seeing things we had read in science fiction come to life by your/your team's own hands and efforts. For Tony, it was building a community of like minded folks, family, and creating a business where people remember you for delivering a world class service. The book can be an excellent handbook for every founder who is looking to build a truly exceptional brand. The book also came at a time in 2023 when Transcelestial was going through some uncomfortable but necessary changes and it was great for Tony to share scarily similar stories that happened multiple times in Zappos's history - so it gave me a lot of operational and emotional support unknowingly. It's sad he passed away so young but a short life well lived and fully delivered is better than a long unfulfilling and unpromising one.

Lone Wolf and Cub (Omnibus 1) by Kazuo Koike

I came across this epic manga in order to fill a hole created by watching Ninja Scroll and Seven Samurai too many times. Since its an old manga, I had my expectations set low (being aware that dialog etc might be dated) but it totally blew me away. The movies (of the same) starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō are a MUST see - especially the Criterion Channel Edition prints. It is a classic father-son story set during the Edo/Tokugawa Shogunate period where the father (ex-Shogun Executioner) has fallen from high power, his family slaughtered and now roams the Japanese countryside with his infant son as ronin-to-hire. The trope of a dangerous fighter with a youngling going on various quests have influenced many movies, shows, games and stories since. This is a redemption arc storyline and even when you know the father-son duo will eventually get justice for those who murdered their family, the intensity and heart is in following their journey. I immediately ordered the remaining Omnibus editions for the entire series and intend to fully complete it someday (as I realized the movies only cover a small portion of all the escapades).

Essential Bukowski by Charles Bukowski

Since high school, summer and winter vacations for me meant reading poetry. Since we were a very middle class family, growing up we mostly went to my mum's parent's place (her side was rich but she refused to inherit any of it) which was a huge "haveli" (old era mansion) tied to green fields, rivers, hills and forests until the eyes could see in all directions. Giant bale's of hay would be the usual afternoon resting place for reading escapades. Reading high literature hindi and english prose and poetry in such an idyllic environment transforms you in many ways. As an adult for the last 15+ years, I didn't look at poetry much until I came across a poem - "Roll the Dice" (below) from Bukowksi (thanks Lex for introducing!) when I first started Transcelestial (and now it's permanently printed and stuck above my monitor at work for the last 7 years!). It instantly resonated in words the ethos of artists, creators, dreamers and inventors - of builders, of those who see what can be rather than what is. This book is one of the best collection of his other works - each perfect for a point in your life, past or future. There are many editors who have modified his originals to make it more "digestable" so would recommend sticking to this book and checking Reddit on which are the more unedited authentic compilations coming up in the future.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Being a huge fan of the movie by Studio Ghibli / Hayao Miyazaki, I waited until I had received the beautiful Folio Society version of the book. Howl's Moving Castle is set in the Moving Castle series/universe comprised of - Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. It's surprising how much Miyazaki is faithful to the book but did a great job stripping down the book to the core essence of Sophie's journey. Diana Wynne Jones has also written another great magic series - The Crestomansi - which is awesome magic universe too. Coming back to this book, we follow Sophie Hatter, a young girl, who is eldest of 3 sisters and is extremely kind hearted and talented with hats! She can unknowingly speak life into unanimate objects. Jealous of her, the Witch of the Waste curses her to become old and Sophie runs away and stumbles into Howl's enchancted always-on-the-move castle with some unique characters. The book is based in the fictional kingdom of Ingary (whose capital city is Kingsbury). The book goes into a lot more worldbuilding, character development and background lore building of both. It's one of the only other fantasy universes apart from the Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin that I see myself living in if offered. The best way to visualize the feeling of reading this book is - imagine a lazy saturday and you are sitting comfortably on a sofa, on the open large balcony of an old castle, overlooking the Mediterranean blue waters, with the midday sun shining through a bunch of leaves, while a cool sea breeze flowing through your hair. And you have nothing else to do and nowhere else to be anytime soon.

The Time Traders by Andre Norton

This is technically a repeat. I had first read it in high school and was completely blown away. I would say this is one of the 3 books that was responsible for my life long attachment to science fiction. Andre Alice Norton was one of the few people I have seen who can effortlessly write both compelling science fiction and switch over to high fantasy just as easily. The Time Trader (Ross Murdock) series starts with this book and there are 6 others - Galactic Derelict, The Defiant Agents, Key Out of Time, Firehand, Echoes in Time & the Atlantis Endgame. The book starts with a fascinating premise - what is the best place to hide a top secret research facility during the Cold War? The answer is not a location in space but a moment in time. It's a James Bond-esq adventure novel following a Ross Murdock, criminal turned US special agent, who is trying to find the hidden Russian base somewhere in the vastness of prehistoric time, working with other agents and piecing together puzzles from various time periods. The mechanism used to time travel here is unique - a many-to-many system rather than one-to-one like in most science fiction stories and novels. The various trips Ross and other agents take are fast action packed adventures with some very real consequences and beautiful description of natural landscapes in the past. In the end, the book has a major twist and completely changes the sub genre it has been playing in so far and sets up the framework for the next 6 books! I will not spoil it.