{"id":433,"date":"2005-06-09T03:58:01","date_gmt":"2005-06-08T22:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2005\/06\/09\/book_tag\/"},"modified":"2005-06-09T03:58:01","modified_gmt":"2005-06-08T22:28:01","slug":"book_tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2005\/06\/book_tag\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yazad<\/a> tagged
\nme<\/a> with this book meme that’s actually hopped from LiveJournal to the
\n"other" blog world. Sorry, my response has been late. But getting the
\nflu has at least one upside, and that is that you find some time to write stuff
\nlike this. You can’t work even if you want to because your taste buds are shot,
\nand without being able to taste food properly, a chef is pretty useless.<\/p>\n

Here we go then…<\/p>\n

Total Number of Books I Own: <\/b>Like Yazad, I never counted. I estimate
\nseveral hundred (at least 700 or so). I got them insured for Rs. 50000 which is
\nmuch lower than what they’re worth. The collection also grows faster than I can read
\nthem, so I have about 20 books still to be read. <\/p>\n

Last Book I Bought: <\/b>I spent many hours at bookshops in Singapore
\nduring my last trip a couple of months back (when I
\nwasn’t eating<\/a>, that is), and the last<\/i> book I bought was a double
\nvolume of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen
\nConfidential<\/a><\/i> and A
\nCook’s Tour<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

Last Book I Read: <\/b>Why
\nMen Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What to Do
\nAbout It<\/a>. <\/i>I borrowed this from a friend because the title got me
\ncurious. (I’m always curious about books on human behaviour.) It turned out to
\nbe mostly crap and I read only 3\/4 of it. Does that count? If not, the last book
\nI read completely was Frederick Forsyth’s Avenger<\/a><\/i>.
\nIt was entertaining but set off my "bullshit meter" far too often.<\/p>\n

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:<\/b> I can’t possibly restrict it to
\nfive, but those are the rules, so let’s give it a shot.<\/p>\n

On
\nWriting Well<\/a><\/i> by William Zinsser: This book is invaluable to people who
\nwant to be better writers. When you read it, you will realise how much more you
\ncould be. I owe much of my penchant for simplicity and clarity to this man. It’s
\naffordable, so you should buy a copy too.<\/p>\n

The
\nDesign of Everyday Things<\/a><\/i>: If you think I bitch too much, you can partly
\nblame this book. It opened my eyes to the world of design, and showed how poor
\ndesign is responsible for product screw-ups. If you’ve wondered why people push
\na door when it’s clearly marked "Pull", this book will tell you. (And
\nit’s a design problem, not a user problem.)<\/p>\n

Peopleware:
\nProductive Projects and Teams<\/a><\/i>: Every person who manages a team of
\nprofessionals in the IT business should have a copy of this book, and even if
\nyou’re not in IT, a large part of the management advice in this book
\nwill still be useful to you. Stuff like how overtime doesn’t help in the long
\nrun, or how motivational posters actually have the opposite effect… here, read
\nthe sample chapter online<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Influence:
\nThe Psychology of Persuasion<\/a><\/i>: Robert Cialdini has written a wonderful
\nbook on how we are manipulated by other people all the time. He describes these
\n"weapons of influence", why they work, and how to protect yourself
\nfrom them. <\/p>\n

It
\nRains Fishes: Legends, Traditions and the Joys of Thai Cooking<\/a><\/i>: Believe
\nit or not, this book has only 30 recipes, but its value lies in the detailed way
\nthe author explains the principles of cooking and combining flavours. I’m a
\nstrong believer in teaching people how to cook<\/i> rather than teaching them
\njust recipes, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Read her pieces on balancing
\nflavours<\/a>, making curry
\npastes<\/a>, and cooking to
\ntaste<\/a> rather than blindly following recipes. This book closely competed with
\nthe far more formidable tome on Chinese cooking, The
\nModern Art of Chinese Cooking<\/i><\/a> by Barbara Tropp. So why did It Rains
\nFishes<\/i> win? Because Tropp’s book is not in the least for the casual cook. It
\ncan be intimidating reading it if you’re a novice, but a great learning
\nexperience if you’re not (and I wasn’t.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs<\/b><\/p>\n

Is there anyone out there who hasn’t been tagged yet? People like Yazad have
\ntossed their nets out to catch everyone. After much cross-checking, here are my
\npicks:<\/p>\n

The Raving Atheist<\/a><\/p>\n

Shanti Mangala<\/a><\/p>\n

Sandeep<\/a><\/p>\n

Jace<\/a><\/p>\n

Anita Bora<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yazad tagged me with this book meme that’s actually hopped from LiveJournal to the "other" blog world. Sorry, my response has been late. But getting the flu has at least one upside, and that is that you find some time to write stuff like this. You can’t work even if you want to because your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}