THE CHAOS THEORY

“The Islam Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained” by DK

This book is one of the clearest big-picture explanations about Islam. It is a perfect introduction for novices, but the sheer wealth of information can also teach so many new insights to the practitioners of the faith.

The book began with the history of the Prophet Muhammad and the birth of Islam. Then followed by the step by step guide about the 5 pillars of Islam, from the syahada, to explaining about the prayers rituals (even how to do wudhu or cleansing before starting the prayer), to everything there is about zakat (or alms), fasting and the Hajj. The book then moves to the holy Qur’an, where it slowly breaks down the explanation of chapters and verses, including the context, meaning, and usage, before continuing the journey of the history of Islam.

It covers everything imaginable about the religion, from Islam’s stance on other religion, the concept of heaven and hell, prohibition of alcohol and eating pork, the background explanation of sharia banking, the switch from community guided by the caliph into an empire expanding through war, the misconception of women’s role status and opportunities (including all the many benefits and disadvantages), to the wonderful hakawati (ancient story tellers), the amazing stories on the Silk Road, and of course the elephant in the room: on terrorism.

It also provides the clearest and most concise explanation about the schism between Sunni and Shia, how the order of Sufi was born, even the controversial sect of Ahmadiyah. And it dive deep into my favourite subjects on Islam: the Golden Age of Islam, and one special chapter on Islam in Indonesia.

Along the way, it touches upon the stories of some of the most notable Muslims in history, from the rightly guided caliphs, to the many emperors and sultans, Salah al-Din, Avicenna, Averroes, Al Bukhari, Sultan Mehmed II, Harun al-Rashid, scientists such as Al-Khwarizmi Al-Haytham and Al-Kindi, Ibn Khaldul, Kemal Ataturk, Ibn Battuta, Rumi, Jamal al-Din al-Afgani, Mansa Musa, Malala Yousafzai, , Malcolm X, to even controversial figures such as Ayatollah Khomeini, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad bin Saud, Mahdi of Sudan, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, Bagdhadi, Boko Haram, Taliban and Al Shabab, and so much more.

All in all, the knowledge in the book is so complete that it could be the only book anyone reads about Islam and still come out very knowledgable. It can also becomes the gateway to further specific studies on the many, many topics presented in the book. Very well written, and very well edited. Well done.

“Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization” by Reza Aslan

On 4 November 1995, a Jewish man called Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin after the prime minister signed the Oslo Peace Accord, which promised to return lands seized in 1967 to the Palestinians as the first step towards a long lasting peace.

Yigal Amir has since been branded a radical, a zealot, a madman, and even a terrorist. But in his mind he’s only trying to safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of biblical Israel. And Rabin’s move, in his view, regressed the utopian dream of the totality of the Promised Land, because Israel needs to occupy all of the lands to ensure the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Indeed, Judaism and Christian Evangelist believe that the Kingdom of Heaven will finally come, and Jesus Christ (PBUH) will come down to Earth once again, when the 3rd rebuilding of the Temple Mount occur in the religious quarter in Jerusalem (the First Temple Mount was built in 957 BC but destroyed in 587 BC, and the Second Temple was built in 516 BC before destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD).

But the problem is, in the exact location where the Temple should be now resides the Dome of Rock, which is sacred for Muslims as it is the spot from where the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven (the Dome of Rock was built more than 600 years later after the Second Temple was destroyed, in the year 692, which then collapsed in 1015, before being rebuilt in 1023 that lasts until today).

To fundamentalist Jews and Christians, this coming of Kingdom of Heaven prophecy somehow justifies Israel government’s awful treatment on the Palestinians, which became the basis of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s style of leadership. And in response, in their first free election in 2006 the Palestinians decided to ditch the pacifist Fatah and voted to give the leadership role to Hamas, which often resort to retaliate violence with violence that often associated with terror attacks. The Israeli-Palestinian relationship, with extremists in both sides, becomes regressively worse since then.

This is by far the most comprehensive book on the history of extremism. It shows the government policies that triggered extremists to react in a dramatic fashion, or terror attacks that in turn prompted governments to impose dramatic measures. It explains the philosophical and theological roots of some of the most notorious extremists in history from multiple religions, which actually shows that religious fundamentalists are not as “crazy” as they are portrayed to be. Instead, they are surprisingly rational, calculated, and also championing social justice although for a very different indoctrinated justifications.

Central to the fundamentalists’ world view is the idea of cosmic war. As the author Reza Aslan puts it, “[t]he concept of cosmic war which in its simplest expression refers to the belief that God is actively engaged in human conflicts on behalf of one side against the other.” It is also the belief that it is not humans that are fighting on behalf of God, but instead God who fights on behalf of humans and using us as a some kind of pawn or soldier.

This is not a new phenomenon, however, because “[w]hen the Babylonians conquered Mesopotamia, they did so not in the name of their king but in the name of their god, Marduk, who was believed to have sanctioned, initiated, and commanded each battle. The same holds true for the Egyptians and their god Amun-Re; the Assyrians and their god, Ashur; the Canaanites and their god, Baal; and, most especially, the Israelites and their god, Yahweh.”

Or in a more recent history, it is what fueled the spirit of the Christian soldiers when in 1099 they launched the First Crusade to slaughter Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem to “take back” the city, with the Crusaders rallied to the cause with the justification of Holy War in God’s name. It is the same justification used by Salah al-Din who then recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, and eventually the Zionists in 1948 who captured the Palestinian land and created the state of Israel. It is also the same justification used by Al Qaeda when launching their terror attacks, George W. Bush on his “crusade” in Afghanistan and again in Iraq using false WMD claims, the counter-attack by Iraqis on fighting the invaders, and the many ISIS and ISIS-affiliate attacks across the world.

Instrumental to this cosmic war view is the role of framing. As Aslan commented, “[s]uccessful framing has the power to translate vague feelings of anger and resentment into tangible, easy-to-define grievances. It can also connect local and global grievances that may have little or nothing to do with one another under a “master frame” that allows a movement’s leaders to encompass the wider interests and diverse aspirations of their members.”

“These so-called “frame alignment techniques””, Aslan continues, “allow social movements like Jihadism to more easily create in-groups and out-groups. They help identify and, more important, vilify the enemy. They can even assist movement leaders in marking neutral bystanders as either sympathetic or antagonistic to the movement’s cause, all with the aim of compelling people to join the movement and do something about their grievances.”

In other words, framing helps converting the collective identity into collective action. And one of the easiest manifestation of collective action is violence, which transforms many complicated conflicts into a simple black-and-white view of us versus them. This is applicable in the Jihadist doctrine as well as the War on Terror that kills more casualties and destroys more countries than the Jihadists could ever wish for.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this book for me is the realisation that there is not much difference between the marginalised extremists throwing rocks in the street or using amateur suicide bombing as its mean to attacks, and those extremists who can have access to world leaders and much better weaponry, better media influence, and better diplomacy at international levels. It shows the gravest problem that the world is currently facing, with its ego and greed, but it also provides with perhaps the simple (but never easy) solution from Aslan himself: strip down all the religious jargons and justifications and address the real human problems and grievances that lie at their very roots, from their economic to social to political struggles.

Because, as they say, there cannot be peace without justice. But as you can tell from the 1 example from the book on the cosmic battle to control Jerusalem, justice is a highly complicated matter.

“Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires” by Juan Cole

This is a very well-researched book about how life was like during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), from the context of geopolitics. While many other excellent books on the Prophet focused on the person or the early Muslim community, this book adds into the dimension of his story by providing the crucial background environment.

It depicts the vibrant mash up of cultures and languages in the region, the crowded markets, the traveling merchants on top of a camel, how the trade routes operate, and most profoundly the influences of political superpowers on the ever changing and ever complicated conditions for trade and commerce.

It also shows the strong existence of Paganism within this rigidly hierarchical society, with Jews and Christian influences slightly receded and played only the minority roles. All of which became the young Muhammad’s working condition as a merchant in his early years, and later on became the political environment during the early days of the Muslim community.

The author, Juan Cole, is a Middle East political expert with decades of experience. And to write this book he reads the Qur’an, the Bible, and their many accompanying texts, as well as many other sacred books such as Zoroastrianism texts, not to mention a huge trove of historical findings – from those carved in stones, to the many scrolls, to academic research findings -, so that he can narrate the stories as accurate as possible with impressive relevant Quranic and Biblical citations to make the points across within the narration.

As Cole remarks, the main purpose of the book is to “puts forward a reinterpretation of early Islam as a movement strongly inflected with values of peacemaking that was reacting against the slaughter of the decades-long war and attendant religious strife.”

Indeed, Islam was born in the middle of a massive clash between two empires, the Romans and the Sasanian Empire (of Iran), that was fought with unparalleled brutality for nearly 3 decades. This shows the extreme difficulties for the Prophet to preach the message of peace, and also explains the context for some of the “war verses” that are often taken out of context and misinterpreted in modern days and/or criticized by those who don’t understand.

However, to be fair, the critics are not entirely wrong. While Cole said the early Muslim community under the leadership of the Prophet “resembles much more the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount than is usually admitted”, he also acknowledges that “[l]ife in medieval feudal societies did not encourage pacific theologies, and Muslims in later empires lost touch with the realities of the early seventh century.” But Cole then argues that, judging Islam from only the later empires is like judging Christianity from the actions of the likes of Pope Urban II, who launched the brutal Crusades in the Holy Land.

In other words, it is true that after the Prophet passed away Islam became increasingly militant, but as Cole remarks, “[w]e might consider some other historical parallels here. The peaceful spiritual founder of the Sikh religion in medieval India, Guru Nanak (d. 1539), was succeeded by more militant figures such as the fifth Guru, Arjun, and then by the tenth, Gobind Singh (d. 1708), who instituted warlike rules for the religion.” Hence, for those who pinpointed Islam as a violent religion by highlighting only the era after the Prophet has passed away, they’re technically right, but they’re missing the larger context: That all from secular to religious empires were also violent in those eras.

Furthermore, the book also highlighted some of the misconceptions of Islam. Such as the Sharia law, where the word sharia in the sense of Islamic law does not actually exist in the Qur’an, but instead the notion of sharia law was constructed by later generations using collected sayings and deeds attributed to the Prophet, which were passed down orally and many of which were actually folk literature, dubious, or even blatant forgery. In other words, there are also political infighting within the Muslim community, complete with all the egos and political agendas.

Another argument from the book is the possible geopolitical reason for the Hijra movement, where “[s]cholars have increasingly also tied the second half of Muhammad’s career, 622–632, to the maneuverings of Rome and Iran, even suggesting that his move to Medina from his hometown of Mecca may have been connected to Roman diplomacy.” The book also shows the massive backlash for the Muslim community in their arrival at Medina during the Hijra, and how the Prophet masterfully ride and change the political tide into a more favourable condition for Muslims.

But perhaps the most controversial argument of the book is about the eternally-debated intelligence of Muhammad before his encounter with the angel, which makes more sense and actually shows the brilliance of our Prophet more than what he was given credit for.

In Cole’s own words, “[a]lthough most of his biographers have treated him as a provincial holy man, Muhammad traveled widely. He would have been acquainted with Roman law, culture, and languages. Contrary both to later Muslim apologetics and to the assumptions of Western Orientalists, he was literate, as any great long-distance merchant would have been. He knew the Bible, probably in written Aramaic versions and oral Arab traditions, though possibly in Greek as well. In his thirties, I suspect, Muhammad’s inner thirst took him to Christian monasteries, eldritch shrines, Jewish synagogues, and Neoplatonist salons in Damascus and Bostra. Unexpectedly, his quest ended when its object came instead to him.”

All in all, as you can see, the book gives the human side of historical Islam, it provides the much needed context to fully understand what really happened, and shed a light into the political operator side of the Prophet, which, given the complicated geopolitical situation of his days, made his role as a messenger of God looks more important and his overall achievements of building Islam as the religion of peace even more impressive.

“The Laws of Human Nature” by Robert Greene

This is the Robert Greene book that I read the slowest. Not because of it’s big size, but because of the wealth of wisdom at almost every page that made me stop and think way too frequently. And ok, because of its size.

While he has written about power, seduction, war strategies, and mastery, he has never actually dived deeper (way deeper) before into the one thing that connects all of these topics together: human nature. And this is what this book is ultimately about.

In an unmistakable, Robert Greene-esque, manner, this book uses many stories from the huge archive of history that are hand-picked to be the perfect examples for the vast literature in psychology amassed over the last one hundred years. It is academic psychology meets the legendary ruthlessness of Robert Greene that turns the precious information into actionable strategies.

As Greene himself remarked, “[c]onsider The Laws of Human Nature a kind of codebook for deciphering people’s behavior—ordinary, strange, destructive, the full gamut. Each chapter deals with a particular aspect or law of human nature. We can call them laws in that under the influence of these elemental forces, we humans tend to react in relatively predictable ways.”

Never thought that Robert Greene can outdo himself, but my God he just did it.

“Amazing Muslims Who Changed the World” by Burhana Islam

This is an inspiring book about Muslims that have made their mark in the world. It is beautifully written and beautifully illustrated, with mini biographies long enough to give us the complete picture, but short enough to make it neat and concise.

The extraordinary characters mentioned in the book range from both men and women, from many different ethnicities, who come from various occupations or roles in society throughout history. They vary from well known historical figures such as Salah Al-Din and Zheng He, to contemporary icons such as Muhammad Ali, Mo Farah and Malala Yousafzai, to several previously-little-known characters that turn out to be exceptional human beings, such as Rufaida Al-Aslamiyah, Khawlah Bint Al-Azwar, Sayyida Al-Hura and Ayuba Suleiman Diallo.

Fittingly, the book is mainly written for young Muslims who are seeking for inspiration from “their own clan”, but adults can also learn a lot from reading it, as have I while enjoying the beautiful but simple narrations.

And boy, what an inspiration. The book serves to show that Muslims can become anything we want to be without hard limitation, from becoming an actor, to athlete, architect, baker, warrior, explorer, healer, badass queen, scientist, senator, gold medalists, poet, DC and Marvel cartoonist, social justice movement leader, to the inventor of algebra and algorithm, and so much more, even becoming a real-life spy.

Now, although the heroes in the book are almost equally divided between men and women, I get the general feel that this book also wants to show that Muslim women are brave, powerful, and can take matters into their own hands (and rightly so in the eyes of Islam) and does not have to fit into the stereotype of oppressed women. Hence, with this in mind, this is a perfect book for my children to read and learn from, especially for my little daughter.

“The ABCs of Success: The Essential Principles from America’s Greatest Prosperity Teacher” by Bob Proctor

This book is the best compilation of Bob Proctor’s thinking, with 67 different topics neatly categorized into bite size chapters in A-to-Z style that cover everything from business to personal matters.

The chapters themselves consist of nearly 4 decades of wisdom acquired from Proctor’s experience as a speaker, consultant, coach, mentor, lecturer and author of more than a dozen books, wrapped within only 204 pages. Hence, the concise, easy to digest, nature of the book.

Although by today’s standard the majority of what he wrote about have become a common knowledge or practice, the book is an excellent reminder of the good old fashioned values and the perspectives that may have been forgotten along the way. It is akin to a last good conversation with a very wise grandfather. A soothing read, R. I. P. Bob Proctor.

“The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness” by Morgan Housel

I know what you’re thinking, oh great not another personal finance book? At first I also ignored this book ever since it became wildly popular, as I simply had enough of reading the type of cliche personal finance books after reading the last 2 books about money by a certain personal development maestro. But then I stumbled upon Morgan Housel’s interview at the Tim Ferriss Show. And, to be frank, he’s not what I thought he was.

He’s not that typical personality that preach about personal finance from the perspective of “expert slash motivational speaker.” He doesn’t make a sales pitch for some one-size-fits-all formula to get rich, like what most of the so-called finance gurus are offering.

But instead, he’s a market guy who understands the complex dynamism of trading/investing, who is obsessed with behavioural finance as the reasoning for market movements and/or business growth, who explains that our relationship with money is not science or math but dopamine and cortisol, it’s fear and greed, it’s pride and envy and social comparisons, or in short our relationship with money is actually psychological.

Right from the start Housel remarked that doing well with money actually has little to do with how smart we are and a lot to do with how we behave. And behavior is not easy to teach, even to really smart people. He then added, “[a] genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster. The opposite is also true. Ordinary folks with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.”

Hence, the unbelievable story of Ronald Read at the beginning of the book, a janitor who gave away $6 million to the local hospital when he passed away, in contrast with Richard Fuscone, a Harvard MBA and former Merrill Lynch executive who lost almost everything at the end of his story. This, in essence, is what the book is about, the good approaches towards money that can be implemented even by the janitor (that we should emulate), and the bad ones even by the likes of the Harvard-educated executive (that we should avoid).

And the first thing that we need to understand is that everyone is different. We have different personalities, different childhood backgrounds, different education, different goals, and thus it is only natural that we have different risk tolerances and attitudes towards money, saving and investment. For example, baby boomers that grow up in the Great Depression era will have different attitude towards risk and reward compared with millennials who live under a low inflation low interest rate environment.

Another important point in the book is that tails drive everything. There are around 15 billion lives that were born between 19th and 20th century but imagine 7% of them were never born, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Gavrilo Princip, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, and Martin Luther King. Or imagine the last century without the small percentage of occurrences such as Great Depression, World War 2, The Manhattan Project, Vaccines, antibiotics, September 11th, and the fall of the Soviet Union. The point is, a small percentage of people or events create the most impacts in history.

The same concept also occur in investing. As Housel describes, since 1980 the Russell 3000 index has increased more than 73-fold, which is a spectacular return. However, if we look closer, 40% of the companies in the index were effectively failures, while the 7% of components performed extremely well and were more than enough to offset the flops. And there’s more. Within the most performing companies in the market there are even more tail events. In 2018, Amazon alone drove 6% of the S&P 500 returns, while Amazon’s growth itself was almost entirely thanks to Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services, while others such as Fire Phone and travel agencies have failed.

This is also where Housel emphasized the importance of “batting average”, that it is ok to have small losses here and there as long as the wins can more than compensate for the whole performance. This approach is valid for money and any other functions in life.

Moreover, in this immensely informative book in just 183 pages, there are many more lessons on the psychology of money that helps to frame and re-frame our mindsets, such as the relationship between luck and risk, the magic of compounding, the difference between fees and fines, how historical trends are not prophecies, how optimistic-pessimistic outlooks can influence our decision makings, and one important mindset that rarely discussed by any other commercial personal finance books: the importance of contentment.

Because ultimately, Housel concluded, “wealth is what you don’t see. Wealth is the nice cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The watches not worn, the clothes forgone and the first-class upgrade declined. Wealth is financial assets that haven’t yet been converted into the stuff you see.”

Indeed, the aim of this book is not to sell the author’s service, but it is to give us the complete psychological understanding of our relationship with money, and how to have a better attitude at it. And for that reason, this book offers a fresh perspective in an already saturated personal finance industry. Which is why this is one of the most influential books that I’ve ever read. No wonder it’s so damn popular.

“Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe” by Jonathan Wilson

This is a romantic book about life as a football reporter in Eastern Europe, a place where the beautiful game is played a little bit differently, where the line between sports and politics is a little less clear, but with passion for the game unmistakably resonates the universal love like in any other parts of the world.

The book tells the tales of local heroes and legends, the larger than life characters, the rise and fall of the local teams, and the memorable moments in their respective national team’s history. It tells the anecdotes such as why so many supporters eat sunflower seeds in Georgia, or which club’s vice president have pictures of Britney Spears in his leather-bound notebook. And of course it tells about all the iconic football matches – the Dynamo Kyiv, the Spartak Moscow, the Red Star Belgrade, the Steaua Bucharest, the CSKA Sofia, the Hajduk Split -, including the ones that the author, Jonathan Wilson, attended himself, from the big name derbies to an invigorated match in the 3rd division pitch in the Bulgarian FA Cup.

The book also tells about the many stories outside the football field that define the environment of the region. Such as the hatred among the former Yugoslavian countries that are reflected in the matches, the deep mistrust of everyday people in Romania, the hooliganism problem in Hungary, the chilling atmosphere during the dictatorship of Stalin, and the many incredible personal stories such as what happened when French player Youri Djorkaeff went to his ancestral home Armenia, or the story of the last plane leaving Bosnia before the war broke in 1992 that was carrying a future football superstar Hasan Salihamidžić.

Meanwhile, as in other many walks of life in Eastern Europe, corruption and bribery are rampant, while match fixing is not uncommon. And while the countries from Baltic to Balkan to Caucasus have transitioned from a communist subject into independent countries, plenty of the embedded old structures are still pretty much in place in their societies, with Soviet/Yugoslav control replaced by local dictators or oligarchs or gangs of mafia that have vested interests in the football matches.

Thus, reporting about football in this part of the world becomes an intricate job, as it often deals more with the likes of prostitutes, kidnappings and even assassinations than just another injury update or a transfer rumor. This, in short, is what makes this book mighty interesting.

“Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World” by Tom Burgis

This is Blacklist meets McMafia meets the investigation attempt in Billions. It is a fast-paced narration of a true story of the names that you’ve probably never heard of, but secretly controls a huge chunk of the world’s money.

The book reads like a spy novel and it is gripping right from the very beginning, with so many mind-blowing plot twists that prove the dirty money behind several world occurrences, from election rig in Zimbabwe, to Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, that Saudi Ritz-Carlton Purge, to the acquisition of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The story has everything, including the plunder of some countries’ assets, the privatisation of power, the usage of “front men” by dictators to manage their billions, the global money laundering network, assassination of political opponents, the jailing of whistleblowers, the prosecutions of “fall guy”, industrial espionage, bribery and extortion, fake suicide, love and kidnapping, dynastic marriage, a family fallout, stock market manipulation, and one particular chapter that explains how a certain American president fits in this network of schemes: not as someone literally implanted by Russia in the US as a puppet per se, as always suspected, but instead as one of the best in his role as a front or a launderer.

Ultimately, I read this book during Russian invasion on Ukraine, as I wanted to figure out why do the British government is so very reluctant to freeze Russian oligarchs’ assets? The key, as it turns out, lies in the difference between tax evasion and money laundering.

While tax evasion sucked money out of the country into tax havens, money laundering has the opposite effect of pumping money into the country. “If you could stop yourself thinking about its origins”, remarked Burgis, “those inflows of dirty money from around the world were just another source of investment into otherwise declining economies.”

And the City of London serves as the laundromat for oligarchs (such as the Trio for Nursultan Nazarbayev – the main focus of the book – or the Russian front men for Vladimir Putin) and their dirty money, where riches from the looting of the ex-Soviet states are sent to Britain and laundered into properties, stocks, businesses, cars, fashion, and other legitimate assets, including a football club.

Hence, the infamous nickname of Londongrad, Boris Johnson’s refusal to publish a parliamentary report on Russian interference in British politics, and the Tory government’s odd decisions in regards with their stance on Ukraine invasion and the sanctions toward Russia. Read the book, and it all adds up.

The book is 465 pages long but I’ve managed to read it cover to cover in just over 3 days as it is so damn engaging. It is with this in mind that I refrain to spill anymore details that could spoil the plot of the story for anyone who wants to read it, despite the massive urge to tell it all. So very highly recommended.

“The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” by Benjamin Franklin

This is a charming little book that serves as the self-narration of the life of Benjamin Franklin. It is about his hopes and fears, about his education, his mistakes, his relatable love of books, his apprenticeship and vocations before life as a founding father, and what life’s like after the American independence.

The book is kinda messy, however, more like a scrappy diary of a busy person rather than a memoir. It is largely broken down into 4 eras with big gaps between the eras, written with untidy narration, which ended abruptly and unfinished as he passed away.

But nevertheless, there’s something about being unfinished and imperfect that makes this memoir feel authentic, that it gives us the raw and unfiltered insight into the person behind the many hero tales and legends about him. And talking about unfinished…