What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures - Malcolm Gladwell (2009)

The Wikipedia link summarizes the theme of the book very well. However, I could not really correlate one story with another. I think each of the articles in the book are great but together as a book they do not provide enough interest. Each article is nicely written. Characterstic of the master story teller in Malcolm Gladwell.

I will advice anyone trying to read the book to read it as 19 pieces of essays loosely interconnected without trying to make sense out of it as a compilation.

Overall a good book to read if serious reading is what you like.

The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman (2005)

Some books are great when it's read in the times if is supposed to be read. I think the book has reached the expiry date. For the book to be talking about technology innovations in 2005 this is a great book. But when you read it in mid-2011 it has reached to its expiry. The settings and arguments are good but I must say not worth the time or effort to read it now.

The Bachelor of Arts - R. K. Narayan (1937)

The book does not need a review. But it's interesting still for me to write a couple of lines on it. A simple story written in 1937 but quite modern in its approach. The outline of the story is already stated in the Wikipedia link. What made this book unputdownable was the classic R.K.Narayan story telling. This is a book with a balanced dose of humour, emotions of an adoloscent, parental concerns and a man's confusion on choosing the right approach to his career and life.

Overall an interesting read.

Zero Percentile - Missed IIT Kissed Russia - Neeraj Chhibba (2009)

The book is about a student whose ambition was to get into IIT but could not make it due to circumstances which were beyond his control. Beyond that there is nothing much around IIT. The book has some typical situations of a transitional Russia and how harsh it had been for people in general. The book has very limited depth and towards end author tends to give a long discourse on love, sacrifice and has tons of rhetorics which only dilutes the theme of the story. The protagonist has been shown to have a champion business sense who could strike a deal with any situation.

Overall a very average book. Recommended if you have nothing better to read.

The Immortals of Meluha - Amish (2010)

010A definite page turner as there is not much of substance in it. A book of fantasy using some of India's mythological characters and tries to portray a bunch of standard philosphical concepts into a Mahenjadaro, Harappa structure. The level of conceptual research is lacking nor any originality. Someone actually conceived a "Lord of the Rings" trilogy without the depth but definitely for the Indian audience there will be an interesting movie around this trilogy.

If you have not read the book, I will suggest to hold on. You may watch the movie and need not read the book.

Recommended if you have no other interesting book in your bookshelf to read.

Heartbreaks and Dreams! - The Girls@IIT - Parul Mittal (2010)

Story looked quite predictable from the title but more close to reality than the earlier two instances of IIT story telling of Five Point Someone and Above Average. But writing style and quality was not as appealing as the other two books are. There are definitely some high points and low points in the book but not a book which will make you keep glued to it. In the days with limited communication opportunities and a closed social circle there is bound to be a lot of inner desire to socialize with the opposite sex. I guess the book focused too much into that aspect than getting to a complete view of the IIT life.

Overall a good read but not a great one.

The Macintosh Way - Guy Kawasaki (1990)

Is it worth reading or writing a review of a book which has been well accepted in market and is kind of a real life case of Guerilla marketing at its best? Personally, I felt the text is a worthwhile read but as you read to later chapters they seemed like a drag. But overall a great book to read. The Macintosh Way is doing the right thing in the right way. Morever there are lots of instances shown where you can directly relate why some operating platforms succeed while some do not. The first part focuses on doing the right things like setting up a right work environment, rewards, customer support and markting communications. Second part focuses on doing the right things like evangelism, providing right level of communication through user groups and demos that appeal to customers and users beyond the regular sales presentations.

One thing that stands out clearly in this book, is the difference the product mindset in the executives and particularly the CEO bring into the company: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and John Warnock all had one thing in common they all loved the best in the products and brought out that class in any products they built or tried to ingrain that culture in the organizations they built. Otherwise the management literature has questioned several of their management styles but seldom they had questioned the DICE framework (depth, indulgence, completeness and elegance) of the great products they built.

I guess there are lots of personal biases in the book but overall still relevant book for someone who is looking at building insanely great products. You can read the initial chapters in details and skim through the later chapters as they looked more like adding best seller value to the book than substance.