Myth=Mithya - A Handbook of Indian Mythology - Devdutt Pattnaik (2006)

When one talks about Hindu symbolism in 200 pages you tend to wonder, will the author be able to make justice to the topic. Devdutt Pattanaik's attempt is remarkable. Another well researched book. He defines the hierarchy of Gods. Defines the various residents of swarga, Martya and Patala. The definitions of pitruloka are stated very clearly. The book is divided into 3 parts. The creative forces of Brahma, the nurturing and development phase of Vishnu and the destructive forces of Shiva. Rather than making a chronological statement of events the events are classified keeping the larger theme of the 3 ultimate Gods of the Hindu philosophy. The concise nature of the book will make you finish the book in a day.

The book is an eye opener and is recommended.

Timing the Market - Curtis M. Arnold (1993)

... The Ultimate arbitrator of success, becomes the skills of the individual technician.

The book needs no real review or introduction. This has become a standard text on technical analysis. A very concise treatment of a vast topic just touching the surface of various technics. However, mastering each concept will take a lot of time for anyone and needs practical exposure to the concepts. The book is though short needs careful reading to appreciate and follow the concepts.

Definitely recommended !!!

Living with the Himalayan Masters - Swami Rama (1978)

Swami Rama spent 45 years of his spiritual journey in the Himalayas meeting various spiritual leaders as part of his life. This book is a collection of such experiences. More than his own progress in the spiritual path it's about how he was able to meet other great souls and got influenced through them.

One cannot really comment on the content as the ability to review only comes when one is as capable or attains some authority in the topic to discuss. Reading this book will make one tame ones ego and bring oneself to the realities of the frail undeserving battles we fight on a daily basis rather than exploring the ultimate reality.

A must read!!!

Arranged Love - Parul Mittal (2012)

The summary for the story can he seen here. 

Somehow, I could not quite connect to the story and had to leave the book half way. The story did not seem to connect to IIT or IITians as such unlike Heartbreaks. The writing style seemed much better than Heartbreaks. The character Tanu looked much more acceptable but staying unmarried just to look for her lost love in college days seemed very filmy. Unmarried people in mid-thirties is not unusual in successful or ambitious people but getting stuck on to their past relationships cannot be stated as the only reason. Suhani the protagonist of the novel seemed to have a persistent aversion for IIT men looked pretty unusual. There is definitely some aspect of stereotyping involved with people of a group but you still have people who belong to the group but are different. That moderation didn't seem to come out in the novel. It was just all extremes put together. Overall seemed like a medley of well known stories with substantial dosage of double meaning words seemed to be the central theme of the novel. 

Will it attract the audience or keep them glued to it? I am not sure. It could not keep my interest for too long. But definitely a light hearted reading material if you have got a copy. The author could have avoided reference to Chetan Bhagat and his credit issues. That was not relevant to the story at all. 

Jaya - an illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata (2010) : Devdutt Pattanaik

Indian mythology is always linked to religious sentiments in general. Here the author takes out the emotional aspects and presents an analytical explanation of the text. More over he presents a comparative reasoning of the text with other well known mythological texts around. Mahabharata was not just a war or a story of Pandava's win over the Kauravas. It's story of a generation or yuga. A time where the same mistakes have been committed again and again by various members of the clan. Every person in the clan supported a different reality of life. It's a story of the dwapara yuga to beginning of the Kali Yuga to be aware and not make similar mistakes. The manner the author has expressed this definitely presents his mastery on this topic.

A book that can change your understanding of the great Indian epic.

What the customer wants you to know - Ram Charan (2007)

Most books and articles by consultants start with MBA bashing. Certainly not this one. Here is a book that has picked up the basics of B2B marketing, modified the terminologies to common man's terminologies and presented the concept very nicely. In short it suggests to create a Value Creation Sales Process to show the customer a Total Value of Ownership. To achieve this, use the whole organisation to assist sales team to create a Value Account Plan. VCS, TVO and VAP are the only terms used to explain the whole sales process. The rest of the book is about a short case study and intra organisation collaboration and how customer is able to realise the TVO with the VCS process. Thus helping the organisation realise better revenues and profits.

Good refresher if you have gone through the B2B marketing courses. Otherwise a great introduction to the topic. Definitely recommended.

The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone - Shashi Tharoor (2007)

A definite reflections on India in the twenty first century by a great critique of our time. The book is divided into six parts.

1. The transformation of India
2. Ideas of Indianness
3. India at work and at play
4. Indians who helped make my India
5. Experiences of India
6. The A to Z of being Indian

The book has a lot of highs and some lows. The first three sections are remarkable when you see the author identifies contradicting identities of Indianness and presents them. His treatment of religious fundamentalism is definite and thorough. The minutiae at which he has observed some activities and thoughts definitely mandates appreciation. The fourth chapter which is a chapter of biographies is a definite eye opener. There are so many great Indians whose contributions are marginalised is definitely something we should be sorry about.

Last two chapters looked too much of a personal opinion and could not hold my interest. But overall a great book and author is a not only a great observer or critique he also has understood India through the plurality she represents. A remarkable achievement in explaining India of modern times!!!

The Longest Day - Cornelius Ryan (1959)

Excellent research. A complete minute by minute update on the Normandy attack on 6th June 1944. Better known as the D-day. Highly acclaimed and even movies are made on this book. The book per-se needs no introduction or review. I personally felt the book was way too detailed than I could gut. Yet will recommend anyone who is interested to get a full account of the D-day. Not a must read...

Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy (1981)

Most management books are to be read with an expiry date. Then there are books that pass a time test. This is one of them. Don't get into the future predictions. You will realise most of them failed the test of time. Still this is an excellent book to understand advertising. Interestingly, some of the suggestions have made it to text books as well. Where is the Internet advertising? That never existed in early 80s. If the principles of advertisement matters to you and not operations in advertising it's a great book to read. Extremely easy and a fast paced read.

Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse (1922)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)#section_4

The book needs no review. This has been critically acclaimed and has been adapted to movies already. You can read a nice review in the link above. A man's learning of life cannot be passed on from a person to another it needs to be appreciated through one's own experiences.

Accidental Billionaires - Ben Mezrich (2009)

Undoubtedly, a great story about a success, betrayal and aspirations of a group of people who have acquired money at a very early in their lives. Personally, I did not find anything very aspirational in the story. But one thing for sure a great technology company can be established by a technologist himself. Overall a good read and may be more enjoyable than the movie The Social Network.

TATA - The Evolution of a Corporate Brand: Morgan Witzel (2010)

I always get a feeling being politically correct business literature is the in thing in India. I cannot find a good reason to appreciate this book beyond the fact this is a book by the Tata's about the Tata's for the masses. After all the copyright is owned by Tata Sons. Is it not a good book to read at all? Won't really say that. If you are not aware of Tata group structure inter-relationships it's a great book. I have a great respect for Tata group companies. But the biggest issue I saw in this book was everything Tata does is great or ethical kind of writing. Tata's have their fair share of controversies and none of them make a mention other than Tata finance one. This book is about signalling. We want you to believe in our story in the manner we told you. Definitely, a case of reader's discretion recommended.

Our Iceberg Is Melting - John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber (2006)

This is a perfect coffee table management book you may find in a business hotel's bookshelf. The book can be read in less than two hours. The background can be found in the following link:

http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/our-iceberg-is-melting

The nice thing about this book is it makes change management extremely palatable. It's about identifying change, communicate effectively the change across all affected party in a manner that's acceptable but yet not rousing panic,  create awareness and come up with a change that's acceptable to all even if that means complete change in the way processes work in the setup. Once it's all done, set up a team around it who can keep the new processes going. The only problem is by reading this you may get a false feeling that it's all so simple and you make it all happen. Backing this book are a good 5-6 books worth of research which John Kotter has written. 

A beginner's insight into change management. But don't forget to complete the supplemental readings if you actually want to have a formal experience of change management. 

Strategy and the Business Landscape: Pankaj Ghemawat (2009)

This is not one off coffee table management books for your bookshelf to decorate. This is all serious stuff if you are really keen in reading a book on strategy that summarizes 40 years of strategy literature in less than 200 pages. It expects you are at least exposed to business strategy as a discipline understand Porter's five forces, a bit of game theory principles and lots more. Presents all these in six chapters of rigorous drill on strategy and organization competitive sustenance theory. As part of the book a good refresher to the subject after 5-6 years and more importantly I found the chapter on corporate strategy very nicely dealt with. How companies on completely diversified portfolio of businesses come of with a  corporate strategy is a definite eye opener. This could be due to the fact that I was not exposed to these as part of my formal education.

A great book for academically inclined as a refresher. If you are not please avoid.

Think: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye - Michael R. LeGault (2006)

A good summary review can be found on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_(book)

However, what I will like to write here is what I found about the book which are different than what is mostly commented. Think is not a true refutal for Blink. Blink says decision making can be made in a blink for people who are exposed to the field so much that it becomes habitual to their decision making process. Even other cases taking a decision is more important than an analysis paralysis.

Think has definitely something we need to seriously think about. There are some classic examples cited which looks like so much of a common sense that you tend to realize it every part of your day-to-day life. Politically Correctness (PC) behavior is a classic example of the same. Similarly, lots of cases have been described which in true sense someone needs to ask but no one would just because it will make you look like a rebel and leave you fight a loner's battle. Towards the end the book becomes a bit monotonous when the author proposes to suggest solutions for American society of the future to break the vicious circle. It's aparent as the real problem is who will bell the cat. I guess the author has definitely expressed his frustration in expressing the lack of a society which has degraded in its ability to make critical thinking as a way of life.

The only unfortunate part to it is, what has been written about USA is probably happening in India as a much rapid pace. The complete lack of respect for education, mushrooming of technological institutes all over the place and simplifying admission processes as some institutes are trying to create a barrier in pushing mediocrity into technology education are just a few to talk about.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - Larry McDonalds (2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Colossal_Failure_of_Common_Sense

The book seemed a bit biased. The author has brought out some instances which definitely will not pass a common sense test. But was it all to it is questionable though. However, there is no doubt that success leads to corporate hubris among the high level execs and definitely get them blinded. Does that mean Lehman could have been saved? Not sure if that was true when every well known bank had gone through the same fate till they exposed themselves to govt. intervention. I think the viewpoints expressed should be respected but there needs to be an alternate view which needs to be given some thoughts to as well. 

Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Amy Dockser Marcus

This is a perfect coffee table history book. The times of Arab-Israel crisis is discussed from various sources known at that point in time. More than book it has been made to represent in a journalistic style where the history is depicted as in a first person account. The good part is you can always understand the text easily and bad part is you never feel like reading a real history book. The 2004-06 section in the book is not quite an important read. It's more like what happened to various people and places described in the book when the author was doing research.

Overall, a good read but in the end of it you still will not get a real understanding of the history per se. But you will definitely enjoy reading the book like a novel.

The Idea of Justice - Amartya Sen (2009)

You can read a wikipedia review.

Unfortunately, I did not feel wikipedia review is justified by stating the book is a critique and revision of Rawl's ideas. Rawl's has been used more like a central theme to which other concepts are compared with to make the complex theory understandable. However, just a few word of caution on when you start reading the book. This is not your one other coffee table books. Very detailed and thought provoking in style and content. Needs extreme patience and concentration to really make sense of the book. Definitely, gives a thorough understanding of justice, reasoning and principles behind them.

If you have serious appreciation for the concepts of justice and reasoning no book can be better to get a wide perspective.

The Mind of the Maker - Dorothy L. Sayers (1941)

One of the hardest books I have read to make meaning out of. The concepts and thoughts presented around trinity and comparison of that to a creative professional's mind is definitely interesting and thought provoking. But at places I find the book is way to complex to follow. I would read ten to fifteen pages at a time and rumage over it for sometime and then read the next couple of pages. When it comes to last two chapters I just could not keep my flow with the author and had to resort to my own interpretation. Definitely a great thought provoking book but needs real focus to make maximum out of this book. Unless you have a serious interest in Christianity and Theology, you will not make mcuh gains from this book.