Why should engineers should read more fiction?
3 – Travel (intercontinental)
For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions stopped or severely curtailed all travel, especially international travel.
The joy of fiction is that it transports us to new places without ever leaving the comfort of our own armchair/bath/bed – wherever you do your most relaxed reading.
Of course, I can pick out snippets of useful information from travel guides, scour articles for the do’s and don’ts of business etiquette in other countries, or dip into non-fiction travelogues, but for me, a good story will always stay longer than bare facts.
Make me care and I’ll come along for the whole journey, good and bad.
My recommendation: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate …but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.
In the early 80s, Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum.
Continue to number four – Travel (temporal)
The full list of 10 recommended books (and a few extras) is available here
Fiona Erskine is a professional engineer and the author of Jaq Silver thrillers The Chemical Detective, The Chemical Reaction, The Chemical Cocktail and genre defying Phosphate Rocks: A death in Ten Objects.
The Chemical Detective 