Ten Books

Many of my colleagues or family members will not see me without a book or a paper with me most of the time. Even when I go out to eat with my family, I will always bring something to read. I can't stand the idea of doing nothing or lepak (apparently now an English word) or spend more than ten minutes conversing without purpose. Will try my best to read wherever and whenever I can even before dozing off to sleep. So when the Education Minister tweeted about listing ten favourite books, I thought it's a nice idea and will play along.

It is difficult for me to select any favorites because I tend to read a lot in diverse topics and one can't really compare when it come to different topics. Also most of time, I buy books for references rather than reading them cover to cover and besides that, I tend to read papers more these days. Hence, I will just simply list what I have read for about 70% of the book and keep returning to them when needed. Some of these will be pretty dated because I use them while I was a student. In no particular order, they are:

1. Relativity, Groups and Topology II, edited by Bryce DeWitt and Raymond Stora. This book contains lecture notes on theoretical physics from the well-known Les Houches school. It is about 1000 pages long and I would be kidding to say I have really read even half of it despite being interested in almost all the contents. I include this here is because this is where Chris Isham expounds on his canonical group quantization programme. Even though the notes are more than twenty years old, I still ask my research students to read it.
2. Chris Isham's "Lectures on Quantum Theory". I didn't quite use this book while I was a student but I find it extremely clear and contain technical gems in it. Again I always recommend this to my students who are studying foundations of quantum theory.
3. David Bohm's "Quantum Theory". I find this useful in explaining wave mechanics of quantum theory. Note that this book is on conventional quantum theory and not Bohmian mechanics. The book I have is handed down to me by my late second eldest brother and was published in Japan by Maruzen.
4. "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen & Martin. This is a book that I had as a present from my eldest brother even before I really learn particle physics during my undergraduate. The book is pretty dated by now but it is the one I used to learn particle physics and even quantum field theory very quickly. Note: Alan Martin was one of my lecturers in University of Durham.
5. Felsager's "Geometry, Particles and Fields". I bought this book while I was in Cambridge and found it useful to help me build concrete ideas on differential geometry in relation to field theories and particle physics. At the time, it was published by Odense University Press but presently is published under Springer.
6. Geroch's "Mathematical Physics". Another book bought in Cambridge (Heffers Store). I didn't quite use it while I was a student but I found it unique, giving a bird's eye view how mathematics is used in physics. It gives my first contact with Category Theory.
7. d'Inverno's "Introducing Einstein's Relativity". When I first learn general relativity during undergraduate, we had to use difficult books like Misner, Thorne & Wheeler or Stephani & Stewart. We even refer to Spivak's 5-volume set for differential geometry. I do not recommend these for the beginners. When I started teaching, I found the book by d'Inverno to be more friendly for students.
   
   Now the above are really technical books but I do read popular materials, self-help books and religious books. Among them are:
8. Casti's "Paradigms Lost". This is a great popular science reading that deals on the big questions of science and the open questions of disparate nature. 
9. Covey's "The Speed of Trust". I could have listed his father's more well known book of 7 Habits. I prefer to highlight this book instead due to the problem of trust in our society and in our organization. We spend too much time and energy to neutralize distrust, which could have been used in much more fruitful way.
10. Al-Attas' "Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam". S.M.N. Al-Attas is a well-known local scholar on Islamic philosophy, education and Malay culture & history. Have read most of his smaller booklets but this one seems to be written more comprehensively and coherent.

Note, the above just give you a glimpse of books that I'm reading. Would not really call them favorites but more accurately the books that have influenced in my early learning days. There are many,many more books that I wished I could have read as extensively as the above and I hope I will get the time to do it. 

Aside: Sometime back, we used to joke about if we are allowed to bring a single (technical) book (or two) to a desert island, what would it be. My choice would be Analysis, Manifolds and Physics which cover most of the maths you need in physics. It has now a companion volume.

Finally, here is a pic of me with a small part of my book collection.

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