Worlds in Pages

Plus: A Secret At The End! 😀

I started listening to the audiobook of “The Three Body Problem” by Cixin Liu on 20th January 2023. In the past 17 days, I have been deeply absorbed into the world painted so masterfully by Liu. His writing is so descriptive and detailed, that this almost feels like a parallel reality that could certainly happen. Thus, this trilogy of books lives up to its collective name - “Remembrance of The Earth’s Past”.

This is cutting edge science fiction and many of the philosophical, political, social, and especially scientific and technological aspects it dives into are exceptional. The author is clearly accomplished in his understanding of complex scientific phenomenon and theory. His worldview and imagination are one of a kind. No wonder these books have won various sci-fi and literature awards at the world stage.

Now the reason I mention this is that back in late January, I was hanging out with a few friends, discussing this series of books and another one of my favorite sci-fi trilogies - “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. I told my friend how I listen to the audiobooks of this series at least once every year.

Lo and behold, when I met him again last weekend, he had bought his own copies of both these series - “Three Body” and “Hitchhiker’s”. Not only that, he got me (!) a special edition collection of “Hitchhiker’s” with all the five books (yes, amusingly this series of books is a “trilogy of five”). It also contains behind-the-scenes material like letters between the author and publishers. Fun times! Books are amazing.

This act of generosity by him made me think afresh of my relationship with books (Poem 1, Poem 2). In these two earlier poems, I have written about how books make me feel. Today, I write more about the relationship I share with them.

Alright, poem starts in 3… 2… 1!

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I open books to look inside
at people and at worlds.
I find that there's a universe
hiding among those words.

There's lessons and experiences
that I am yet to gain.
It's a like a direct download
of this knowledge to my brain.

The stories in these pages
hold adventures full of awe.
The vista painted by them
has these hues I never saw.

Whether I read, I listen,
or I watch a summary.
The fodder in these books
always leaves me hungry.

Hungry for delight and wonder,
hungry for some thrill.
Hungry for the vessel of my
mind to never spill.

Somehow in these alien worlds,
I find that I belong.
This habit of a lifetime,
will now last me all life long.

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That’s it! Thanks for reading edition 97 of Hello Universe! Check out Some Fun Stuff below.

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Some Fun Stuff

This is a place where I share something cool to read, listen to, and watch. Click on the underlined words to visit the links!

1. Read the subject of today’s poem - The Three Body Problem Series by Cixin Liu: You already read a lot about them in the intro above. Go for them, you won’t regret it!

2. Listen to Faded by Zhu: Remember that concert I talked about last week? Zhu was there. This song was the crescendo of his performance. I love the deep house electronic dance vibes. My friends have been playing this off and on in parties for 10 years now and it still feels fresh. What a delightful track, listen now!

3. Watch DIYPerks: The DIY genre on Youtube is hugely popular. But no one does as much of a polished and innovative job as DIYPerks. When it comes to custom-built electronic or computer projects, he absolutely separates himself from the pack for his deep knowledge, humble presentation style, and unique solutions to tough problems. Even if you have no plans on building a fully functional 3 screen laptop from scratch, it is just super entertaining to watch a fellow human figure it out and bring it to life in a 12 minute video. More power to people like him.

That’s it for this week, see you next Tuesday when Hello Universe turns 98.

Yes, 3 weeks later, Hello Universe turns 100 weeks old. It’s quite a milestone and I have something special planned for that week.

If you’ve read so far into this edition, here’s the plan - dedicated Hello Universe readers may have observed that when someone comments on my posts, I sometimes leave a mini poem reply. Well, my 100th edition is going to be full of these mini poems. So, leave a comment on this post about who you are, what you do, and what do you like about Hello Universe. I’ll do my best to reply to you with a mini poem that we can then feature on week 100.

Bye now! 👋