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Continued from previous post … 12. Non-Fiction: Chanakya's New Manifesto by Pavan Varma Chanakya's New Manifesto is about solving the current problems plaguing the country with help from age old concepts and core principles prescribed by Chanakya.   By the way; the full title of the book (main title and the sub heading and sub text reads: "Chanakya's New Manifesto to Resolve the Crisis within India") and the book does justice to the title. The author does a decent job of identifying the problems which India, as a country, is facing now and also makes an attempt at understanding the source of the problems. As an ordinary citizen of India, I was able to closely identify with the problems and the source of the problems. The author places his thoughts in a very objective manner and you find yourself nodding your head in agreement at several instances in the book … even when he challenged Democracy and other 'usually considered good' things. The b...

Started the month with a novel titled 'Asura - The Tale of the Vanquished'; followed by PKD & Hitchcock short stories and before picking up a novel by Clive Cussler 'The Golden Buddha'. Later in the month, I also reviewed a non-fiction (a first for me) book titled 'Chanakya's New Manifesto' besides reading a lot of short stories from my monthly regulars. Also, started reading short stories from the thick fat volume titled "World's Greatest Selected Short Stories" (WGS) which has a collection of about 80 short stories by various authors.   New authors this month : Anand Neelakantan was the new author for me through the novel, 'Asura - The Tale of the Vanquished'. The BlogAdda Book Review program once again introduced me to a new author, Pavan Varma through his non-fiction book on the current state-of-affairs of India, "Chankaya's New Manifesto". It has been a long time since I read non-fiction and it was a decent ...

  Continued from previous post …     11. Hitchcock – Auction at McKay's Corner by Alan K Young This story came with a twist at the end and for once even I was confused. There is an auction and it seems that there are 2 characters in the story who are preparing to scam some of the members of the audience. The climax is pretty anti-climactic.   12. Hitchcock – The Shadow of Silence: Nature Morte by Vincent Mc Connor A gentleman lives his routine life auctioning art. A beggar sort of a person keeps insisting that he visit his home to see an old painting of his. He finally relents and his life goes into an overdrive of 'how to steal the painting which could fetch him millions'. He plots and conspires and put his plan through … only to be left speechless (and almost tearing his hair apart, figuratively) after a visit by the Chief Inspector investigating the case (of the murder of the beggar).     13. Hitchcock – The Shadow of Silence: ...

  Started the year (and the month) with the last episode of the DORK trilogy by Sidin Vadukut, following with PKD short stories and a novella the new 3 Investigators 'Crime-busters' series Attempted to read a new short story collection of ACD but stumbled … couldn't even finish the first one and never moved beyond. I will probably try another set of ACD stories. Next I picked up the Hitchcock series books and read a few stories from all 3 of them (the 4 th one is still not in my possession). Also picked up the Prof. Shonku collection by Satyajit Ray and read the first short story. I even started off with a short story of O Henry … from a collection of over 200 short stories by O Henry.   Towards the end of the month, I picked up a Robert Ludlum (a thick novel at 585 pages) and while I was reading it, RIP by Mukul Deva arrived from BlogAdda.com for review.   New authors this month : The BlogAdda Book Review program once again introduced me to a new...

Book: F?@K Knows Author: Shailendra Singh No. of Pages: 234 Genre: Self Help Publisher: Rupa Publication Please read the following line 10 times (or at least 5 times; its important) before proceeding to read the rest of the review … (if possible – no one is around – say it out aloud) F?@K! F?@K Knows! F?@K Off! F?@K Me! F?@K it! F?@K! F?@K man! F?@Ker! F?@K-shit! F?@K! F?@King unbelievable! If you felt uncomfortable reading the above line multiple times … then this book is NOT for you. If you could easily sail through repeating this line multiple times AND you are interested to hear from someone else, how screwed up your life is and how can you make an attempt to make it better … then and ONLY then should you pick up this book and attempt to read it. The philosophy of life and how to live through it is aptly summarized in the title of the book. The title ‘F?@K Knows’ is the all-pervasive ANSWER to all those ridiculous ‘Why Me?’ questions we keep troubling oursel...

I feel good to report that I successfully completed my attempt at GM Diet :) Seven days of a restricted diet … it's not easy !!   I did give myself the 'discounting' of my morning and afternoon/evening tea and an occasional tasting of sweet ;) My weight moved from 92 to 89 … a difference of only 3 Kg against the expected drop of about 5 Kg … but its fine. If I can reduce 2 kg every time I try it out and if I can make the GM diet happen at least 5 times in next one year … I would have reached my target of 80 and that would be a great achievement. It is easy to lose a few kilos with the GM diet … the trouble is maintaining one self and not regaining the lost kilos. Let's hope, that   I continue to lose and don't gain much … the weight that is.