Start Here: A Quick Introduction
Hello! I’m Malhar, a high school student from Mumbai, India.
I am a philomath — someone who loves learning — and a voracious reader across a wide range of topics. I love learning and synthesising ideas from a variety of disciplines. Especially ideas with a long shelf-life: those that will remain relevant (hopefully) 10+ years from now.
I’m also an investment enthusiast. In fact, Charlie Munger’s idea of worldly wisdom and mental models is what got me interested in interdisciplinary reading and thinking.
Some of my favourite books (so far), in roughly descending order, are:
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Beyond brilliant. An extraordinarily profound book on consciousness/intelligence and how it arises from inanimate matter. Explores an enormous breadth and depth of ideas along the way: formal systems, chess engines, recursion, ant colonies, Zen and musical compositions are just a few examples. I wish there were more books like this…
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. A brilliant exposition on epistemology, physics, optimism and much more. Probably a bit dense for beginners but well worth it. Each page is filled with pure wisdom. For those in a hurry, my favourite chapter is #10, a profound dialogue on culture, mindsets and attitudes towards knowledge (easier to read too!) Check out his work on Constructor Theory.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Applies a scientific prism to comics, to illuminate fascinating perspectives on their effectiveness. Written as a comic about comics, it is reminiscent of strange loops and is the perfect book to read after GEB. Check out this Ted Talk by the author. (Pro tip: read it in conjunction with Scale by Geoffrey West.)
Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. A wonderful read on the underappreciated role of perception in creating value. Great ideas on creativity too. Watch some of the author’s talks to get a taste for his ideas (start here and here), or read these insights from my Zoom call with him.
Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman. A host of colourful anecdotes from one of my heroes and role models. Provides rich insight into the man behind the physics. Read this post by Caltech to understand his personality.
A Mind At Play by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman. A biography of another role model and hero of mine, Claude Shannon. Remarkable insight into his breadth and depth of curiosity. Read this article by the authors; it’s what made me buy the book. Some of my notes from the book here.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack, edited by Peter Kaufman. A compilation of talks and insights from one of my favourite thinkers, Charles (Charlie) Munger.
Algorithms To Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. A whirlwind tour of theoretical computer science: algorithms, optimisation, game theory and much more. Perfect place to start in computation for novices like myself. Full of very interesting ideas and highly readable too.
More Money Than God by Sebastian Mallaby. An excellent book on hedge funds. Extremely thoroughly-researched (as is the author’s other book, The Power Law, which I highly recommend too.) An absolute page-turner; unputdownable.
The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Magnificent insights on peak performance, explored through the lenses of chess and martial arts but with ideas that transfer to almost any creative discipline. I’ve myself experienced many of the concepts the book talks about, which made it highly relatable for me personally. (Pro tip: read it in conjunction with Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel by ESPN Cricinfo.)
I can go on and on rattling off books that I enjoyed, but I will stop for now. Happy to share more names over email individually if you’re interested. As for non-book reading recommendations, I would guide you to these pearls of wisdom by an MIT mathematician; this profile of Jim Simons by Bloomberg; and this write-up explaining AlphaFold. I make notes on whatever content I consume — books, podcasts, documentaries etc. — and share the best ones on Twitter and LinkedIn once a week, every Saturday.
On this blog, I hope to distill my learnings across topics, as articles on the first Saturday of every month. Some inspirations include the column Mathematical Games by Martin Gardner, and its anagram Metamagical Themas by Douglas Hofstadter. As with my preferred sequence of watching Star Wars (big fan), my recommended sequence of reading posts on this blog is chronologically, oldest post first.
I enjoy playing and watching tennis, cricket, and soccer.
I am a huge admirer of Richard Feynman and Claude Shannon.
Feedback and reading recommendations are invited at malhar.manek@gmail.com