On Books, Music, and Other Things

The Indian Association for Science Fiction Studies (IASFS) successfully organized its 23rd Annual/8th International Science Fiction Online Conference on the 21st July 2024. It was an online conference and theme of the conference was "Spotlight on Professor. Jayant V. Narlikar's works". The IASFS has been organizing its annual conference for many years now, both in-person and virtual. This was the first one I could attend in spite of being a life member for many years - something or the other, usually work related - would come up. Attending this edition of the conference was easier because it was completely online. The conference included a pre-recorded video by Dr. Narlikar himself. It was a privilege to listen to him. Mr. George Dimitriu, a renowned Romanian SF write, delivered a special guest lecture. The keynote was delivered by Dr. Ashish Mahabal, an Astronomer and Data Scientist at Caltech.  The conference consisted of interesting papers analyzing various works of Dr

These are the books I read so far this year. Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier Learn Like a Pro - I finally finished this. The Priceless Gift of a Rich Cultural Education - An extremely inspiring book on how one man gave himself a wide-ranging education by reading good books. The book suggestions are out of date but that is irrelevant. Learn Like a Polymath: How to Teach Yourself Anything, Develop Multidisciplinary Expertise, and Become Irreplaceable - Avoid. Zen in the Art of Archery - Avoid. Why ? Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner - Reread this after ages. Not as inspiring towards the end as it seemed earlier. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair Siddhartha   The Odyssey - Did not finish, dropped off at 70% Steppenwolf - One of my best loved books of this year. A Man Called Ove - My best loved book of this year so far.  The Return of Vaman: A Science-Fiction Novel - I had to reread this for a paper I was writing for the