...shoOOonya...

Over the last 2 months, i have not only tried to be more active on the blog but also managed to cover a significant part of my book-reviews back log. I still have a lot of book reviews to post but I have another patch of life where the blog needs to take a back seat.  Along with my usual role of a Change Management Consultant, with the resignation of the Project Manager; i have been given the additional role of 'acting/interim' Project Manger and it is seriously taking up all my time (and more).  Also, my younger brother is getting married in a little over a week so I will be busy in that too.  All in all, I dont see myself posting anything on the blog for almost a month from now. Hopefully, life in office would have stabilized a bit by then and I would have time for my blog and pending book reviews once again.    See you later ... 

​   Book: The Great Indian Democracy Author: Manivannan K No. of Pages: 208 Genre: Fiction, Humor Publisher: Pirates     How do I review this book? It reminded me too much of the DORK series. I could draw some invisible parallels between the two books in terms of core concept. The GID is a light read with a heavy dose of satire on the Indian Political system, the stand-up comedy trend and even on the way guys look at and think of girls (and categorize them in weird categories). All with a help of a dork like character who encounters other dorky characters to fulfill their mission of making his life hell … in a humorous kind of way. The climax unexpectedly turned out to be quite predictable ... what an irony ! The author actually had some good context and situations to weave a better story ... it could have been better. Maybe the author needed a push to be more creative with the storyline and sequence of events and their treatment. ...

​ Book: Potluck: Metro Diaries Author: Namrata No. of Pages: 162 Genre: Fiction, Short Stories   Publisher: Amazon   A collection of very mushy love stories with an occasional spark of bold and scandalous variety sprinkled in between for some change and spice. I am not really a reader of the love story genre but an occasional foray into the mushy / emotional stuff is not bad for the reading appetite. And the risk with short stories is definitely less.   In the Metro Diaries, the author takes you on a near poetic ride of the emotional world of hearts in love … and that too, love which is not simple but complicated as usual. The author spends most of the words on exploring the inner thoughts and feelings of the people in love or those who are grappling with the concept of love and are unable to make up their mind about it. The stories hardly have too many things happening or sequence of events forming a storyline – there are a running comme...

  ​  Book: The Art of Seductive Communication Author: Karma Peters No. of Pages: 151 Genre: Non-Fiction, Self-Development Publisher: Self Published using Smashwords   Plenty of good straight-forward to-the-point advice in bite sized chapters (calling them chapters is actually a hyperbole) The book is easy to read and assimilate with each chapter offering a piece of advice followed by explanations and examples. Most of the advice is pretty much common-sense but it is good to have it all in one place … as a reminder for you. If you had no time, you could read the table of contents and get a gist of the book. Also, the table of Contents is a summary of the book and can serve as a quick reminder for you when you have read the book and want to remind yourself the key principles. Mind you, it has a looong table of contents. Of course, the worth of such a book is not in the beauty of how well it is written. It is in how well you a...

As a voracious reader and a budding author who is too lazy to write, i have a soft corner for books and their authors. So i will always be ready to extend a helping hand when it comes to reviewing books and talking about authors. So this post is a spotlight on the book "Metro Diaries' by the blogger author Namrata who is popularly known by her online identity of Privy Trifles. She is a prolific reader herself and reviews books at http://www.privytrifles.co.in/ Well, as i said, this post is to shine a spotlight on a book and the author. So here we go ... About the Book: Love is one of the most amazing feelings on this earth, one that makes you the most powerful person or the most helpless person in a split second. These stories capture those feelings of despair, longing, love, lust, desire, want, dejection and admiration to create deja vu. Hold onto your hearts as you flip through these pages and take a walk down the memory lane as "Metro Diaries" w...

Preface to the blog post J Blogs are conversations Sometimes they are conversation which the blogger has with himself / herself while there are times when the conversation is with the readers. If the reader has a point of view and would like to join the conversation, he/she will comment and the conversation continues. Sometimes, conversations lead to blog posts. Ideas discussed spark off things in the bloggers head and they end up writing about it on their blogs. This blog post is one such conversation which started with email exchange and then the summary of that email exchange culminates in the blog post. I came across the news item about Myntra 'shutting down' their website and going completely mobile. Since Myntra is now owned by Flipkart, it was their decision to do this and I had a perspective on it. I share the news item and my perspective with the one and only one, Nikhil Kulkarni , with whom I have had countless discussions and brai...

  ​  Book: Lead Tin Yellow Author: Doug Gunnery No. of Pages: 348 Genre: Fiction Publisher: Partridge India   Difficult to rate this book ... I liked reading it but wasn't really excited about it. It could have been a fast paced action suspense thriller but the author chose to give it a steady pace without end-of-the-chapter cliff-hangers which are typical in murder mystery and chase oriented novels. Surprisingly, I did not feel bored though. It was different and I somehow liked it, even though it was not my usual taste. There was a certain definite quality of the writing (I can't really place my finger on) which kept me going till the end. It was an interesting read and the 'relatively slower' pace also made it more believable. The unsuspecting protagonist thrown into a dire situation suddenly becomes a hero doing things he couldn't have imagined. That's not what happens here. The response of the pr...

If the children can't go to school, why not take the school to them and make it enjoyable – as enjoyable as a boat ride on the river . With these thoughts, Ajeet Singh started a novel and innovative 'boat school'. Considered a stepping stone in the world of learning, the children spend two hours after their regular school day and study, play or revise without any pressures or tensions. This interesting concept got coverage in leading newspaper as the ' Varanasi Boat School '. I first read about it on DoRight.in and was intrigued by it. I almost dismissed it as a random gimmick but something told me that the boat school was not just floating around … it was just the first step in the Journey of Doing Right . I did a bit of googling and found that Ajeet Singh means serious business here and it is not a temporary experiment. In fact, he is not alone in this initiative either. I saw a couple of boat school and other innovative sc...

  ​   Book: I Am Pilgrim Author: Terry Hayes No. of Pages: 624 Genre: Fiction, Thriller Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books   A deeply entwined story with various facets The author delves deep into the psyche of the protagonist and the villain - other characters have their significant role to play and hardly anyone is marginalized but the author spends so much time (and words) on the two central characters that by the end of the book - you feel for them, you feel with them and you feel like them. The book starts off with a murder - an almost perfect murder - and it is seems like a murder mystery ... which it isn't the story veers towards the life of an ex secret service agent - our protagonist ... and we feel that the story might go down the path of another Jason Bourne ... but it doesn't the story also begins to follow the life and times of the 'villain' giving us an in-depth view of his life through the words of...

  ​   Book: 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts Author: Ryan Andrew Kinder No. of Pages: 111 Genre: Non-Fiction Publisher: Self Published using Amazon Digital Services   A really nice book for all those who were lazy to write (but wanted to write) and their excuse for not writing was a lack of inspiration for a plot idea. The book is even good for that amateur who wants to start writing but facing 'start-up' issues. This book gives you a thousand (quite literally) prompts .. which can act as a plot line or a starting point for a short or a long story. You could potentially write extremely short flash-fiction, a short story, a novella or even a full length novel using those ideas. At the beginning, the book is not event trying to make you write a story … it simply gives you a nudge – a thought on which to write a few lines and paragraphs. Then it gives you an idea to expand with varied constraints of time as well as word limit (from 55 ...

    ​ Book: Potluck: A Literary Collection of the Critique Group     Author: Various Authors No. of Pages: 250 Genre: Fiction, Short Stories   Publisher: BecomeShakespeare.com   From the Book Blurb: " From the intimate to pure fantasy, from first person experiences to travelogues, Potluck is a collection of stories and reflections by a group of Mumbai-based writers from diverse backgrounds. Working mothers, single women, senior executives, a Catholic priest, a Hindu monk, and a writer from Slovenia, are all a part of the Critique Group. You might relive a fond or long-lost memory or be happily transported into a new world as you savour the stories " There is an interesting background about how this book got written and how the various authors came together. The 26 stories in this book are of varied style and have a strange but very interesting quality to them. They had depth and their pace was just right to create the desire...

​   Book: The Hoard Author: Neil Grimmett No. of Pages: 378 Genre: Fiction Publisher: Grimpen Publications    As with the earlier one by Grimmett, this one is not easy to review. The book has a central plot and its pretty interesting with some good amount of suspense and twists ... BUT ... his book is not just about the plot. It is about the varied emotions and feelings of the different characters in the story. Grimmett pays a lot of attention to character development and what goes on inside the head and heart rather than narrate a series of events forming a story. Yes, that makes his book slow ... but it is an entirely different quality and I must say, that I have enjoyed both his books. In this particular book, the story revolves around a FACTORY where explosives are manufactured - A place where RDX is manufactured. We have often talked about explosives when we hear about war or acts of terrorism but have we ever given thou...

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