Reflections

The  power of habit  book was a fairly enjoyable read and good start to the new year. The prologue of the book is fairly captivating, it starts with a story on how a 34 year old woman who was struggling with obesity, debt, alcohol and a host of other issues turned it around, became fairly successful at work and indeed managed to run a marathon. The author quotes a Duke university finding -- "40% of the actions performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits".  It is by forming the good habits and overwriting the old habits that we turn around our lives. The book has three parts. The first deals with how habits emerge in individual lives, the second in organisations and the third the habits of societies. All the three sections are well laden with anecdotes and stories the make up for a interesting reading. The first section starts with the story of Eugene Pauly, a man who was afflicted with a viral infection that affected a tissue in his brain that was ...

Predictably Irrational Even though I had created a tumblr account promptly after Yahoo acquired it in June 2011, I had done nothing much about it since. This is clearly nothing new, I have always basked in the glory of total laziness and procrastination. In fact, one could even argue that I had become completely predictable to be that, however irrational that is. And so, when I just finished this amazing book by Dan Ariely, I thought this was a wonderful option to open the account, as we say in Cricket parlance. Predictably Irrational is an extremely well written book in the same genre of Freakonomics and even some Gladwell books, but what provides authenticity and genuineness to this compilation is that these are based on experiments conducted by the author (and his collaborators) himself, not relying on some possibly dubitable study or observations. The basic premise of this book is that we, as humans, are not as rational as we would love to believe. And to make things more...

Don't sprint the marathon is not the 'run-of-the-mill' self-help book targeted for all and sundry, but is aimed at overzealous and ambitious parents who relentlessly push their children towards 'success'. The author, V Raghunathan, painstakingly explains that, for most part, all the small things in life do not matter in the long run and it is the attitude and the innate passion that made people like N.R. Narayanamurthy and GM Rao  stand out from the rest. As the blurb on the back cover says, the title of the book does sound very obvious and intuitive,  but then as one of my colleagues, Patrick Marion, mentioned to me once - Knowing does not mean doing.  To that end, I do believe that this book is worth a read for all parents of school doing children. While I did enjoy the small anecdotes and examples of the numerous 'achievers', I do have my complaints. It clearly appears to me that a lot of the messages intended for the audience get repeated over and ...

When I came across this book in my library , and noticed that the blob contains keywords "running" and "memoir",  I had no choice but to pick it up.  Having been running myself and jotting down memoirs of the same, I could not have resonated more. And the book did not let me down. There were several instances/episodes in the book which I felt could have been typed by myself instead. I will try to list a few of them. Before that, I would like to mention one point -- this review is unlike others in this blog,  I have added a lot of my personal take on the different episodes, unlike others where I have just tried to be more objective. The first is the author's observation towards the end of Chapter 3, where he says that even after 20 odd marathons, his feelings during the 26.2 mile race have been more or less the same - good feeling for the first 19 miles,  then the period of pain and frustration,  and finally (once the race is completed) forget the entire...

I just completed this book   and I should admit that I was pretty disappointed. The book titles Valkyrie, the plot to kill Hitler, but makes just a passing reference to this plot. No details have been provided on the plot and the book clearly fails to meet the expectations in that front. The book is in fact the memoirs of Philipp V.Boeselager and in itself a good read to understand the conditions from a German WW2 soldier. The bravery of the soldiers waging a losing war in inhuman conditions, fighting against a Red army who had no scruples sacrificing their civilians to exhaust opposition's ammunition, the bravery of captured soldiers not spilling the beans and revealing co-conspirators even in the face of severe Gestapo torture -- the book is replete with such touching episodes. On the plot to kill Hitler and the role played by the author and his friends, I tend to fully agree with the assessment  this article . In particular, I agree that one gets a felling that a lot o...

For any professional programmer,  knowledge of Design Patterns is necessary not only designing efficient solutions to problems, but also to add to his vocabulary while interacting with other technical architects as these terminology have found widespread usage in design discussions. Head First Design Patterns  is clearly not the book that a design pattern veteran would pick up, nor will it ever be the go-to book when you want your hands on a reference book on the subject. And the book clearly mentions that it is not written with this intent. Rather, this book is for somebody who wants to get an idea of what these design patterns are -- not just their definitions, but more practical explanations such that people do not forget these definitions once they close the book. And I should  say that this book meets this goal. The book covers 13 design patterns in detail and each and every one of them is explained based on a (though sometimes overly synthetic) problem with acc...

I have heard a lot about this book by Mitch Albom and so when I saw this book in my library, I thought I should give it a try. While there are numerous books with the same theme - life is more than just materialistic pursuits and happiness is beyond your salary and designation, I think what makes this book different from others is that this is a real life, true story.  As any reader of self-help book would readily agree, most of the tips in such books are easier said than done. That the author's teacher actually walked the talk and really believed in the different traits that he shared with the author is what makes this special.  Surely this book is not for someone who is looking for tips to change his life overnight, but is clearly a definite read for those who already have similar thoughts in life and are looking for real life examples of people who live the life the way they want, irrespective of numerous hurdles and distractions.