I Love Books

Court of the Grandchildren by Michael Muntisov and Greg Finlayson is a thoroughly readable book, like a pleasant journey all through. Set in not so distant future (2059 AD), its characters and setting are relatable.  It deals with human emotions in an era of omnipresence of artificial intelligence and human like robots, which are much more precise and capable than humans. The bonding between the young lady, Lily, and her great grand-uncle in his 90s who is connected to her by his AI care-giver just for giving the permission for euthanasia death to him is nuanced and it develops over the length of the novel. Lily's great grand-uncle, David, happens to be a key figure in taking climate related actions in his heydays. Through him and his submissions before a court to decide on climate matters, the book is a commentary on the climate change actions being taken today, and their likely impact on the future generations, which we tend to ignore in the present. It draws attention to t

Camsterdam: How I got Caught in the Crosshairs of the War on Terror is a book written by Simon Fidler as his first-hand account of pervasive surveillance of citizens by intelligence agencies. It exposes a scary prospect when an innocent citizen's joke about the country's Prime Minister is not liked by an operative and she wants to fix him. What she has to do is just to get the guy's name included in the list of persons with terrorist connections.  What Simon shows in the book is universal; it is not limited to some rogue or autocratic countries but even the most liberal nations, and it happens all the time - irrespective of whether the country is being ruled by a Gandhi or Mandela or by an Idi Amin or Kim Jong-un. In fact, in Simon's case, it happened in "the mother of democracy", Britain. The problem is that when you give power to a human, he/ she will abuse it (unless they are ethical to the core, but in that case either they will not pick up such a professi