Book Review: Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci

Book Review: Deliver Us From Evil

‘The heart-racing follow up to The Whole Truth from the international bestselling author . . .’

In South America a wealthy ninety-six year old man reads a book late into the night. Within an hour, he is dead, the secrets of his past starkly revealed. Six months later, in Provence, Shaw -the shadowy operative from from The Whole Truth – witnesses the murder of a mysterious man, his body left lifeless at the bottom of a pool. Shaw barely escapes the incident himself; and with a new partner in tow, begins to realise that there has to be another organization at work that rivals his own in secrecy . . .

Meanwhile, half a world away, journalist Katie James is working on a story of international importance. But shortly after meeting with a potential inside source she is smuggled unconscious onto an aeroplane, headed to an undisclosed destination.

In the days to come, Katie and Shaw will be reunited in a deadly dual of nerve and wits against a surprising, secretive enemy and lead around the world at a breakneck pace. Filled with the breathtaking plot turns and remarkable characters that only David Baldacci can deliver, this is the most explosive thriller of the year.

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Book Review: Duel by Tariq Ali

Book Review: Duel

Born in Lahore, Tariq Ali’s grandfather was Prime Minister of the Punjab and his uncle was head of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence. While Ali has written extensively about the country, his latest offering The Duel sees him assess the prospects of the contending groups in Pakistan, drawing on extensive first-hand research and personal knowledge of many of the key players involved. With customary verve and acuity, he considers the causes and consequences of Pakistan’s rapid spiral into political chaos and explores a number of controversial topics, including America’s complex relationship with Pakistan and the power each country wields over the other. Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, it’s the only Islamic state to have nuclear weapons, and its border with Afghanistan extends over 1000 miles. It’s also the likely hide-out of Osama bin Laden. It has been under military dictatorship for 33 of its 50-year existence, yet it is the linchpin in the United States’ war on terror, receiving over $10 billion of American aid since 2001 and purchasing more than $5 billion of US weaponry in 2006 alone.

These days, relations between the two countries are never less than tense. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf reported that US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage threatened to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age” if it did not commit fully to the alliance in the wake of 9/11. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said he would have no hesitation in bombing Al Qaeda inside the country, “with or without” approval of the Pakistani government. And recent surveys show that more than 70 per cent of Pakistanis fear the United States as a military threat to their country. With increasingly bold attacks by Taliban supporters in the border regions threatening to split the Pakistan army and with the only political alternatives being as corrupt as the regime they seek to replace, the chances of sustained stability in Pakistan look slim.

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The New Age Of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks – C.K. Prahalad

The New Age Of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks – C.K. Prahalad

From the greatest minds in business today comes a groundbreaking new blueprint for executing the next stage of customer-created value. C.K. Prahalad, the world’s premier business thinker, and IT scholar M.S. Krishnan unveil the critical missing link in connecting strategy to execution–building organizational capabilities that allow companies to achieve and sustain continuous change and innovation.

The New Age of Innovation reveals that the key to creating value and the future growth of every business depends on accessing a global network of resources to co-create unique experiences with customers, one at a time. To achieve this, CEOs, executives, and managers at every level must transform their business processes, technical systems, and supply chain management, implementing key social and technological infrastructure requirements to create an ongoing innovation advantage.

In this landmark work, Prahalad and Krishnan explain how to accomplish this shift–one where IT and the management architecture form the corporation’s fundamental foundation. This book provides strategies for

• Redesigning systems to co-create value with customers and connect all parts of a firm to this process
• Measuring individual behavior through smart analytics
• Ceaselessly improving the flexibility and efficiency in all customer-facing and back-end processes
• Treating all involved individuals–customers, employees, investors, suppliers–as unique
• Working across cultures and time-zones in a seamless global network
• Building teams that are capable of providing high-quality, low-cost solutions rapidly
• To successfully compete on the battlefields of 21st-century business, companies must reinvent their processes and culture in order to sustain innovative solutions. The New Age of Innovation is a complete program for achieving this transformation to meet the needs of the end consumer of the future.

The new global standard for innovation and corporate growth

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Family Wisdom – Robin Sharma

Family Wisdom – Robin Sharma

Learn how to liberate the natural leadership potential of your child while creating a richer, more rewarding life for yourself in the process. Unlock the best talents and highest abilities of your child. Deepen the relationships between you and those you love. Inspire your children to be strong of character and wise of mind.

Teach your kids how to dream big dreams and find true success. Bring balance back into your life and live with greater simplicity, joy and peace. Get back to what is most important in life and enjoy its gifts.

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Who Will Cry When You Die? – Robin Sharma

Who Will Cry When You Die? – Robin Sharma

This really is a wonderful book. It will make you realise how precious each day is in our life and how grateful we should be for all that we receive during the day.

Do you feel that life is slipping by so fast that you might never get the chance to live with the meaning, happiness and joy you know you deserve?

If so, then this very special book by leadership guru Robin S. Sharma, the author whose The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari series has transformed the lives of thousands, will be the guiding light that leads you to a brilliant new way of living. In this easy-to-read yet wisdom-rich manual, Robin S. Sharma offers 101 simple solutions to lifes most complex problems, ranging from a little-known method for beating stress and worry to a powerful way to enjoy the journey while you create a legacy that lasts

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The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success – Deepak Chopra

The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success – Deepak Chopra

BASED ON NATURAL laws which govern all of creation, this book shatters the myth that success is the result of hard work, exacting plans, or driving ambition.

In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra offers a life-altering perspective on the attainment of success: Once we understand our true nature and learn to live in harmony with natural law, a sense of well-being, good health, fulfilling relationships, energy and enthusiasm for life, and material abundance will spring forth easily and effortlessly.

Filled with timeless wisdom and practical steps you can apply right away, this is a book you will want to read and refer to again and again.

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Book Summary: Mission India : A Vision For Indian Youth by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Book Summary: Mission India : A Vision For Indian Youth by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Each and every Indian can make a difference, especially the nation’s youth’

Mission India is a road map for the youth of today who will shape the India of tomorrow. The mission is to transform India into a developed nation and one of the world’s top five economic powers by the year 2020. Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Y.S. Rajan examine India’s strengths and weaknesses to show how this goal is not an unrealistic one.

This inspirational book introduces children to the unknown success stories of India and discusses the country’s problems at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It looks at different aspects of national life, and clearly explains the achievements and challenges in each of these areas. It also discusses the ways in which today’s youth can make a difference to the country.

Based on the central tenets of the runaway best-seller, India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium, this book seeks to inspire readers with the crucial sense of purpose which is essential for developing a strong and prosperous nation.

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Book Summary: Inspiring Thoughts by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Book Summary: Inspiring Thoughts

As the tenure of India’s most popular President comes to an end, here comes a book which will keep alive his legacy to the people – a collection of the best thoughts and quotes carefully selected from all the writings of Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam. Thought-provoking, insightful and inspiring – these quotes will make you reflect, rethink and rejoice along the journey of life.

A book to cherish – An ideal gift for all occasions.

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Book Summary: The Family And The Nation by Acharya Mahapragya

Book Summary: The Family And The Nation

As we talk of rising economic prosperity and a strong and confident nation, this book gently reminds us of the values that make for a truly sustainable society, at the heart of which is the family.

For it is not economic growth or military strength alone that make a society strong. Sustainable success comes from values, and these can sustain a society, and a nation, even in times of hardship. The book attempts to express an ideal by which society may prosper, and speaks of how spirituality can help create a noble nation and a better world.

aIt provides a valuable counterpoint to the modern-day emphasis on consumerism and the philosophy of more is better, highlighting the sanctity of the natural world and its great power to evoke human creativity and love.

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Book Summary: We,the Nation : The Lost Decades by Palkhivala

Book Summary: We,the Nation : The Lost Decades by Palkhivala

India, the sleeping giant of an economy – in the words of Lee Kuan Yew – is, at last, slowly stirring from its long night of slumber, drugged as it has been for decades with the opiate of socialism. This amazing subcontinent with its mosaic of colours, cultures, contrasts and maddening contradictions, always has, thanks to vast quantities of its own indigenously manufactured red tape and venal politicians, been held in thrall for so long. It is only now, and that too hesitantly, that India is moving to take its rightful place in the community of nations of the world.

What ails India, what its potential is, how magnificent its heritage is, how richly endowed it is by both history and nature, are all highlighted in this book. The author brings a razor-sharp mind to bear on the myriad subjects he touches, ranging from the noble Constitution of India, the man-made malaise seizing India from time to time, eminent personalities, to the daunting task of redesigning India for the 21st century. The convoluted problems that India is heir to, and confronted with, are analyzed, and unlike most armchair critics and analysts, solutions and suggested.

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Following Fish: Travels Around The Indian Coast – Samanth Subramanian

Following Fish: Travels Around The Indian Coast – Samanth Subramanian

In a coastline as long and diverse as India’s, fish inhabit the heart of many worlds—food of course, but also culture, commerce, sport, history and society. Journeying along the edge of the peninsula, Samanth Subramanian reports upon a kaleidoscope of extraordinary stories.

In nine essays, Following Fish conducts rich journalistic investigations: among others, of the famed fish treatment for asthmatics in Hyderabad; of the preparation and the process of eating West Bengal’s prized hilsa; of the ancient art of building fishing boats in Gujarat; of the fiery cuisine and the singular spirit of Kerala’s toddy shops; of the food and the lives of Mumbai’s first peoples; of the history of an old Catholic fishing community in Tamil Nadu; of the hunt for the world’s fastest fish near Goa.

Throughout his travels, Subramanian observes the cosmopolitanism and diverse influences absorbed by India’s coastal cities, the wthdrawing of traditional fishermen from their craft, the corresponding growth of fishing as pure and voluminous commerce, and the degradation of waters and beaches from over-fishing.

Pulsating with pleasure, adventure and discovery, and tempered by nostalgia and loss, Following Fish speaks as eloquently to the armchair traveller as to lovers of the sea and its lore.

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Stay Hungry Stay Foolish – Rashmi Bansal

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish – Rashmi Bansal

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal is a classic and a very inspirational book. Book contains success story of 25 IIMA graduates written wonderfully. The book is well written in short, simple and crisp English. It doesn’t require one to be a Management guru to understand the context.

It includes some big names like Sanjeev Bikhchandani (PGP ‘89), naukri.com In 2006, his big idea, naukri.com became the first dotcom to IPO on an Indian stock exchange. Shantanu Prakash (PGP ‘88), Educomp. His company Educomp is today the leading provider of digital content for schools across India.Vinayak Chatterjee (PGP ‘81), Feedback Ventures Vinayak quit his job at Pond’s to start Feedback Ventures which morphed into India’s leading infrastructure advisory and engineering firm.

Ashank Desai (PGP ‘79), Mastek ,R Subramanian (PGP ‘89), Subhiksha He quit his job at Citibank 15 days after joining, to start India’s largest grocery chain – Subhiksha. Subramanian famously rebuffed offers from Reliance Retail as he believes the best is ‘yet to come’.Narendra Murkumbi (PGP ‘94), Shree Renuka Sugars. He shut down the first company he started after graduating because a Rs 5 crore turnover was not ‘large enough’. His second venture Shree Renuka Sugars is today a Rs 1000 crore company, and has changed the lives of hundreds of sugarcane farmers.Chender Baljee (PGP ‘72), Royal Orchid Hotels His family owns Baljee’s, Simla’s most famous hotel. Yet as a young management graduate, Chender decided to carve out his own niche………………

buy it to find out more!!

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The Homecoming – Shashi Warrier

The Homecoming – Shashi Warrier

‘I wonder how the fabric of my life came apart so quickly. It was a rich fabric, something I’d taken great pains and over three decades to weave. We might each recover individually, but the richness of the fabric is gone.’

Javed Sharif returns home to Srinagar for his father’s eighty-fourth birthday. He returns with a sense of well-being, despite troubles, the violence and the bitterly cold weather. Unexpectedly, his dreams of retiring and settling in Kashmir again are shattered by a knock on the door on the day of the birthday party and, as he watches his life unravel, his world will never be the same again.

The Homecoming is the story of one family, but also of the many families in Kashmir whose lives have been destroyed by decades of violence and uncertainty. Deeply moving and disturbingly honest, this is a haunting tale that is political yet profoundly personal, and tells of the pain and suffering that is a result of the cruelty—and ultimately the indifference—of the state.

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The Orphan Diaries – Shashi Warrier

The Orphan Diaries – Shashi Warrier

‘Among the thousands of orphaned children adopted after ’47 there are a few¬—less than twenty—who were planted here by Jinnah’s men . . .’

At thirty-eight, feeling ancient and used up, Colonel Rajan Menon—Raja—knows his best years as a commando are behind him. But he is soon tested as never before. The Prime Minister’s granddaughter has been abducted, and the kidnappers want some sensitive diaries in the possession of the CBI, the contents of which, if made public, can throw the country into turmoil. Raja works out a meticulous rescue plan, but the raid ends in a disaster—the girl is killed, not a single kidnapper is captured and the diaries disappear. And all the evidence points to Raja’s complicity.

Hounded by the police and, inexplicably, a ruthless psychopath, Raja is on the run, determined to clear his name. As he makes his harrowing journey towards the truth, a sinister plot unfolds an astounding account that began in 1947 . . .

In The Orphan Diaries—first published as The Orphan in 1998—Shashi Warrier, India’s most exciting thriller writer, has produced an astonishing sequel to Night of the Krait.

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Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra

Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra

This truly is an epic. At first sight, I thought Vikram Chandra was just trying to match his namesake (the more famous Vikram Seth, author of other ‘epics’ like A Suitable Boy) by writing a long novel (it is long at 900 pages!). But as I started reading it, I realised that this was not just long, but wide and deep.

The author’s breadth is dizzying – the story goes from the murky world of the Mumbai mafia-style underworld, to international terrorism, to the workings of the Indian bureaucracy, to the intelligence services investigating Islamic fundamentalism, to the traumas of the Partition of the Indian sub-continent 60 years ago, to the sidelines of the inside workings of Bollywood….

But, it is not just the breadth of the canvas that is breath-taking. This is not a superficial skimming of several sub-plots. It is the depth with which Vikram has researched each of these sub-plots and gone into not just describing the superficial external happenings there, but the intricate workings inside the minds of the people involved. He has gone right into the depths of the mind of a Mumbai don, a Mumbai policeman, an intelligence officer, a family uprooted at Partition….

It is hard to imagine that a 900-page book could be unputdownable – but this one was for me. I lost touch with the outside world for a week while I read this for several hours everyday.

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The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian – Nirad C. Chaudhuri

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhuri

This is one of the most extraordinary and important books to come out of India this century: as Doris Lessing says: “Reading this book is to be immersed in India, you feel you are living that life, such is the power of this acute stubbornly honest, capaciously minded writer to recreate his times.

He is a product of the period when Indians were nourished by English literature, law, thought. The contrast between the vivid details of village and family life and the slow growth towardsthe grandeur of his moral and literary vision provides the tension of these vivid pages.

It Evokes the first 24 years of the author’s life in Calcutta and in his ancestral village in East Bengal. The book combines memoirs with a sweeping survey of Indian history and culture in the last years of the Raj.

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The Circle of Reason – Amitav Ghosh

The Circle of Reason – Amitav Ghosh

Set in both India and Africa, this is the story of three characters – an orphan, a police inspector and a madman – who try to find order in an increasingly chaotic world.

The plot is centred on a young Indian, Alu, with a large and bumpy head, but the majority of things that happen in the book happen to the people around him, now and in the past. Alu is orphaned and adopted by his uncle with a passion for determining people’s personalities by examining the shape of their heads.

The uncle gets caught up in a personal war with another man in the village, ultimately leading to chaos and death, when the police storms the village.
Alu flees across India and to Africa, where he has an Epiphany that money is the cause of all disease and creating a community revolting against the use of money. Once again the authorities comes to clash with the people around him, and the final part of the book takes place elsewhere, but I won’t reveal too much.

It’s definitely an original book, and the language is quite good, evoking a sense of reality.

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The Elephant, The Tiger, And the Cell Phone – Shashi Tharoor

The Elephant, The Tiger, And the Cell Phone: Reflections on India – the Emerging 21st-Century Power – Shashi Tharoor

This book is a must read for Non Resident Indians. Mr. Tharoor has perfectly portrayed India in a way NRIs would manifest their experiences of their home country. Though the book is not targeted only for Indians, it has few historical & personal references that only a true Indian can understand.

The book starts with little bit of Indian history talking about “People who made my India” that includes noted Indians from all sects including politics, cricket & bollywood. The author also provides a glimpse of India’s culture (spirituality, traditional family values) & tourism (experiences at Ajanta & Ellora caves, Ayurvedic resort in Kerala) followed by India’s progress in this 21st century (call centers, cellphone surge). Since Mr. Tharoor has been associated with the United Nations, the facts about India’s growth, outlined in the book, truly suggest that India is the 21st century’s emerging power.

I really enjoyed the chapter on India’s cricket legend, Sunil Gavaskar, who was my hero too when growing up. It is nostalgic the way Mr. Tharoor has written about the “little master”.

This is a must read for all Indians living outside their own home country.

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Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram is the fictionalized account of the real life adventures of author Gregory David Roberts.

The narrator is a man called Lin, escaped from an Australian jail and arriving in Bombay, India with a fake New Zealand passport. He immediately meets a taxi driver named Prabaker who gives him tours of the city and a hut in the local slum. Lin starts a free clinic for the people in the slum, and to provide for his own income, he sells drugs to tourists. This gets him the attention of the local gangsters, and he’s increasingly pulled into their world of crime, from counterfeiting to gun running to passport schemes.

Lin falls in love, nearly dies in an Indian prison, and survives a continuing series of adventures. More than just an account of drugs and crime, Shantaram is the story of a man who, even in a life of violence, genuinely loves those in his life and the city that became his home, Bombay.

“Shantaram is an exuberant, swashbuckling story of derring-do, told with reckless gusto and obvious affection, and if Roberts is no sort of stylist (and he isn’t), you’d have to be a snob not to admit to enjoying yourself.”

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Monica Ali’s “Brick Lane” is an excellent debut novel that captures the struggles, the cultural clash, and the frustrations of a family caught between two worlds.

From the day of her birth, Nazneen is reminded how she is a puppet of fate. She dutifully leaves her small Bangladeshi village and goes to live in Brick Lane, the Bengali enclave of London, after her arranged marriage to Chanu, an educated but pompous and ineffectual man twice her age.

She acts as a traditional, dutiful, and useful wife. After accepting whatever cards fate deals her, however, she casts a critical eye at the actions of her friends, her sister and her mother. She questions whether she can actually control her life. She starts to break free, first with small subtle acts of rebellion and then an affair.

Finally, with the interests of her children in mind, she takes a giant step toward becoming her own woman. Interspersed throughout the story line are letters to Nazneen from her sister Hasina, who strikes out on her own in Bangladesh and, through good times and bad, forges a life of her own.

The writing style is colorful and descriptive, this book is a seamless blend of the Old Country and the New, and it brings new insights to the immigrant experience.