Manoj's Review on Books

  Carol is an American psychologist and has been a faculty in Columbia, Harvard, Illinois and Standford university. Her key contribution relates to implicit theories of intelligence which refers to an individual's fundamental belief whether his or her abilities or intelligence can be changed and developed over a period of time. Carol makes an in-depth statement in her book,” "The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life." Her introduction itself sets some level of context on what she has set herself to deliver through the book on mindset. The fundamental premise are two distinct mental construct which can be observed in different individuals, it’s the fixed versus growth mindset. The broad idea of a fixed mindset points to belief in individuals that abilities and intelligence are an inherent trait while the growth mindset nurtures the belief that just about any ability can be cultivated through consistent effort. The primary part of Ca...

  The forty rules of love refer to an approach in one's life when they encounter painful and emotionally perplexing situations. I sense that the title along with the front cover image can be misleading as these rules doesn't restrict itself just within the nuptial relationship but cover a wide range of relationship that a human is likely to face in his or her lifetime. There are two stories that runs in parallel, one of them narrates the relationship between Rumi, well known Persian poet of the 13 th  century and a dervish Shams-e Tabrizi while the second story narrates the unexpected love affair between Ella, a 40 year old married women with 3 children and Aziz, a modern day dervish of the 21 st  century. Elif Shafak tries to narrate the course of different events happening 7 centuries apart. While the social setup and personalities are an absolute contrast between the two stories happening seven centuries across, the crux of the storyline remains the...

Creativity is meant for every professional and can be applied even in domain that are hardbound on rules and regulations. The underlying belief that a person is born with creative talents is a myth that needs to be broken and latent creative expressions can be opened up even with advocates, doctors, accountants and range of professional who are hardwired in analytical traits. The crux of the book drives the above-mentioned point right till the end and I must admit there is a compelling nature to the creative potential that David and Kelly desires to crack open. Any successful business needs to strike a sweet spot with respect to three critical components and the same can be understood through the given Venn diagram.   While there are plenty of financially well off businesses meeting mostly the 2 components of business and technical viability, it’s the third angle of human factor that provides the necessary fillip to raise as an enterprise. A prime example can be invention of MR...

Tim Ferris is an American entrepreneur, investor, podcaster and author of the well known book series, 4 hour work week, 4 hour body and 4 hour chef, all of them are aimed at lifestyle optimizations. On top of all the books his podcasts boasts of incredible depth with a range of personalities giving their interviews. ( Do check out Tim Ferriss podcasts here ) At the outset, tools of titans is intense and voluminous to an extent wherein a reader will easily need multiple readings to get the full essence of it. The structure of the books isn’t formal and Tim has taken liberties on how he wanted to present the storyline. The idea is to land the concept in a straight-forward fashion rather than beating around the bush. As mentioned earlier, the author is known for his podcasts while he has picked up 102 high performance individuals for his book. Tim categorizes these individuals into healthy, wealthy and wise based on their domain experience, achievements and the kind of conversations that ...

Ravikant’s journey has been remarkable to say the least, from a humble background of having spent his childhood in a lower middle class family run by a single parent, he has transcended himself to a phenomenal venture capitalist. The fact that he has invested in over 200 early stage companies including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Postmates to name a few and amongst them, 10 have grown out to be unicorn companies, this highlights the quality of his foresight combined with enormous risk taking appetite. The Almanack of Ravikant focusses on his tenets that laid the foundation for his phenomenal success, I have highlighted the ones that resonated with me. *Love for reading books – This must be driven to a point wherein it becomes an obsession. Many super successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have known to spend 2 to 3 hours everyday on reading books. The number of books read within a year or month shouldn’t be a vanity metric but how much we derive value out of th...

It’s always interesting to learn about the city in which we grew up and hence there is no surprise in picking up a book that traces Chennai’s history especially when the same is authored by historian V. Sriram. Let’s first focus on tracing the roots of how Chennai got it’s name. Apparently, Chennai short form of Chennaipattinam points to Damarla Chennappa Naicker who ruled over Kalahasti and adjoining areas in the late 16 th century (a sketch of him is given below). Ayyappa Naicker who was the son of Chennappa Naicker gave permission to Francis Day for an English settlement back in August 1639, the rest as they say is history. But why did the British start calling it as Madras isn’t very clear. One legend points to a chief of fishermen community named Madarasa who was instrumental in parting areas of his community for George Fort and another points to a rich Portuguese women named Madeira who lived near San thome. However, there is no clear evidence for both these stories. The f...

Vaclav asks an interesting question, can humanity realize all it’s aspirations within the safe boundaries of our biosphere? He attempts to determine the answer covering a range of human actions, right from farming practices, mode of travel, economic strata of different regions and also touching upon discoveries along the way. The broad intent of the book is to give indications on how the world is progressing towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Though Vaclav states quite a few times that he doesn’t prefer being optimist or pessimist, his indications were clearly pointed towards a global arena not even getting close to the 2050 target. There are definitely abundant reasons to justify his indications and the following pointers throw some light. *Even till the fag end of 19 th century, 90% of all mechanical energy was extracted through animate power, in simple terms it refers to physical effort of animals and humans aligned towards the output required for existential needs. Ina...