Jack Reacher - An absolute phenomenon!

I’m absolutely smitten by Jack Reacher and by its creator Lee Child, and this is more of a tribute to them than a normal review!

I’m a voracious reader, and my average is a book each week at the least. If you’ve been to The Review Site before, you would already have realized that – with the series of reviews on Kindle and all. However, this is the first review of a book directly, and I have no doubt that a lot of them will follow.

Lee Child (the pen name of British writer Jim Grant) created Reacher in 1997, and since then, there have been 14 books in the series, and each one of them is a thumping good read! If you are an aficionado of mysteries and thrillers, you will absolutely love the ride each book in the series takes you on.

Jack Reacher is an ex-military policeman and he consciously wanders across the country with nothing but a foldable toothbrush in his pocket! That in itself would be the fantasy of many people

To date, I’ve read Die Trying, Echo Burning, Without Fail, The Persuader, The Enemy, Bad Luck and Trouble, and Nothing to Lose. Each of these books ranks with the absolute best mysteries I’ve ever read – probably just below ‘Shall we Tell the President’ (which is my all time favorite thriller), and each book has kept me awake late into the nights! Caused my boss to look more than once at my red eyes and wonder what I was doing nights

The beauty of the books is the taut way the author holds us and doesn’t let go right up to the end. What is even more amazing is that some of the books are in first person and some in third person narrative. It is quite difficult to manage to hook the readers using a single narrative, and Lee Child is a master at both these forms! Kudos.

The sad thing is that my local bookstore ran out of Lee Child titles – I’ve finished everything they’ve got. Hope they get in the rest real fast!

I’ve consciously not spoken about the plots in any of these books. You should pick up atleast one title from the series and read it. The rest will automatically follow! And i’m yet to meet a fiction fan who has not loved Lee Child and Jack Reacher!

Too much of a good thing!!

To say that India is a cricket crazy country is clichéd. That statement has been around ever since I was born (or even earlier) and people have always agreed with that. And the coverage cricket gets each time India plays – whether in Test matches, One Day Internationals, T20s or even the IPL, is unimaginable. All this coverage is sponsored by ads and there are several hundred advertisers in each series. Now, if you are an Indian, none of this would be news for you.

However, one thing I realized while watching today’s match – In fact, I’m writing this article from in front of the TV – is that we have too much of this good thing – of ads. Normally, we have ads coming in between overs and during drink breaks and ball changes. However, in the recent months, each time the ball goes over the boundary, there are ads, and even if there are little gaps like the bowler speaking to his captain before he bowls, there are ads!! In today’s match especially, I’ve hardly seen a replay! There is hardly any commentary of value that I’ve heard – all of that has gone prey to commercial breaks. The ball crosses the boundary and we see the same ads coming up again and again.

Now, there is another side to this – especially for the advertisers. In almost every break, there are ads that are left incomplete. The people manning the consoles have either gone crazy or their bosses have suddenly become greedier! But for advertisers, what fun is it to have their commercial begin and then stop midway because the bowler is on his run up?? It not only spoils the fun of the match, but it also effectively gives a negative perception of the company in the mind of the viewer, as it is eating into cricket time.

And I found one more thing – during the last test match – the one in which we were all praying that Hashim Amla gets out before the last 4 overs are up – we were watching cricket on the internet at the office, and the webcast was of Neo Cricket from the UAE. What was so strange is that there was hardly one or two ads during the over breaks and nothing in between. Of course, there were banners coming up asking new advertisers to contact a particular number to advertise, but as a viewer and a cricket fan, it was so refreshing to watch cricket instead of all these repetitive ads!!

Ok, since this is the first ODI, companies probably are advertising more aggressively today – there one more between the over break has just begun!! But if this also continues in the next One Days, I guess I’ll watch cricket on the internet – of UAE or some other country where there are not as many commercials – instead of on regular Indian TV!

Technorati Tags: Cricket,Neo Cricket,Too many ads on cricket,India South Africa series

Ford County Stories - My Review

Once we get used to Grisham's style of writing courtroom sagas, it is quite difficult to actually like other kind of books he writes! So this review is obviously prejudiced!!

But still, there were other books like 'The Innocent Man', and 'Skipping Christmas', that were real good! Especially the latter, which is totally away from his usual gripping courtroom dramas, but still managed to warm hearts.

Right on the blurb, Ford County Stories says that it is a book which puts together plots that Grisham never got to exploring deeper - and for good reason! The collection of stories actually is not much, except for the fact that the reader really appreciates Grisham's sense of judgement in not making these into regular novel sized books.

Now, that does not mean none of these stories are good. There are a couple which really have the potential, and could have made into decent bestsellers - like the story titled 'Quiet Haven' - the story of a truly delightful rascal, who has an entirely different style of making money. That one seriously could have become a wonderful addition to Grisham's list. Then there is the one titled 'Casino' that immediately reminds us of someone like a Jeffrey Archer. That one also is quite delightful. But most of the other stories are just mediocre. What probably has happened here is that the publishers wanted to bring something from the Grisham stable onto the shelves and over the last few years, Grisham has moved away from writing brilliant courtroom sagas. To get the readers back into the Southern Mississippi mould - and Ford County in particular, they just put together a few stories and since it has the name of the master on them, they'll anyway hit the bestseller list.

But then, I've never really enjoyed reading short stories - even books like Twelve Red Herrings; and that is probably another prejudice with which I started reading this one. You can get this from your local library if you'd like to read it!

The Rule of Four - My Review

After finishing The Lost Symbol, I read a couple of real duds and immediately started looking for a book which is a mystery and a puzzle solver to bring my interest in books back.

So while browsing our bookstore, I came across this Rule of Four and out of the 20 or so appreciations on the blurb, atleast 15 enlikened this to the Da Vinci Code. So I brought this home and here is what I found.

Firstly, this is not a complete puzzle thriller. While there is a major part of this book that will interest the intellectual community, it is not completely focused on decrypting what the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (the book within the book which is the puzzle). So that is one positive in favor of the book.

The second thing is that this does not have anything to do with demystifying or trashing Christian (or any other religious) ideals. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is an obscure book written in the 16th Century and has a mystery completely different from the genre we got so used to. So this is a big point in favor of the authors. And my understanding is that the book is not 'inspired' by the Da Vinci code. In fact, work on the book would have begun much before the 2004 publishing of the novel and comparing it with the blockbuster by Dan Brown is not really fair.

In fact, The Rule of Four is a book about friends, about life in the Princeton, about the generation we live in, and a lot about the 16th century also. The way the authors have put the whole thing together - without losing focus of the puzzle which is what the story revolves around, is truly amazing! We normally find that two-author novels lack the intensity of the single author ones, but this is sure an exception to the rule. Tom, Paul, Gil, and Charlie represent completely different ideals and every reader will find something of them in one of the characters - making the book even more relatable.

But since the primary reason the book is such a blockbuster (it has sold over 4 million copies and is the best selling debut novel of the decade) is because readers have expected it to have intricate puzzles and it does! Since the puzzle in question here is a book none of us have ever heard of, it is even more intriguing!

What the authors - Caldwell and Thomason - do so well is draw the line at a perfect place; so that the readers don't need to drink a cup of coffee to struggle through the complexities of the puzzle. It does not take us through unnecessary Latin or anything else which is so vital in solving the puzzle the book throws at us; and instead the authors just make us spectators to Tom and Paul figuring out the puzzle. That in itself deserves a lot of accolades!

Once again, the book is about friends and about everything they go through; about life's changing priorities as they rush through their college years, and about the ambitions that people harbor. What I love the best is the ending, which has nothing to do with the puzzle at all - it is solved well before the last 50 pages or so!

Absolutely worth a read.

Warner Bros is making this into a movie, but it is the book which one should read. The film is bound to focus on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili puzzle alone, and that steals the beauty away from the efforts of the author.

Best Quotes in under 10 words!

I was actually searching the internet for a quote to put up on my Skype page, and I found this gem!

With all credit to the site from which I am picking this up, here are the ten most awesome quotes of under ten words each.

Source - http://www.careerlab.com/comments.htm

Inspiration: "The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words."

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I've collected thousands of inspirational quotes. It seems that nearly everything that can be said, has been said, simply and eloquently, in a way that can seldom be improved. Winston Churchill wrote, "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." So, I collected "The world's best quotes in one to ten words." These are the quotes, and my comments:

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1. Love. —The Prophets
   Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha. All the world's religious saints and prophets hold love as a central value, the glue that anchors the universe.
   We hear, "Love makes the world go round," and "Love heals all wounds." These are familiar themes: love of friends, ideas, and self. Love of God and of country. Even love of life itself. If I could only have one word for all eternity, love would be my choice.

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2. Know thyself. —Socrates
   In college I studied philosophy under Professor Don Crosby, and met Socrates early. In career development, self-knowledge is everything. In a career, you can be two or three degrees off course and walk into a wall, instead of through a doorway. You don't have to be far off to have it fail.
   Career unhappiness often results from lack of focus, and lack of focus stems from limited self-knowledge. But self-knowledge takes time, introspection, and effort. So it's easy to avoid.

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3. Inches make champions. —Vince Lombardi
   Under Vincent Thomas Lombardi's direction, the Green Bay Packers collected six division titles, five NFL championships, two Super Bowls, and record of 98-30-4. Lombardi knew a lot about winning. If football is a game of inches, so is career success. In the competitive world, you seldom win by a landslide.
   Buzz Sullivan, my high school diving coach, told me, "A champion is someone who goes so far they can't go another inch—and then they go that inch." I wondered why that was important. Now I know. Winning in business or in personal life is all about inches: going small distances successfully, then going farther still.

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4. Nothing gold can stay. —Robert Frost
   We are swamped in change. And we had better get used to it, or at least figure out how to deal with it. In our parents' day, career change was uncommon. The norm was lifetime employment. Now CAREER = CHANGE. You'll have five careers in a lifetime, maybe six. Perhaps you'll do part-time, project, interim, or consulting work. And even if you're in your ideal dream job today, that might change tomorrow. Nothing gold can stay.
   Martin Bucco taught English literature at Colorado State University, and first brought my attention to what words could mean. Bucco spoke of what he called "the great dead minds," those who have come before us and written their thoughts. He also said, "Time in life is short. You can only read so many books, so choose wisely." We spent many classes unwrapping Robert Frost's genius, and this is one of the poems that hit home:
   NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY — by Robert Frost
   Nature's first green is gold,
   Her hardest hue to hold.
   Her early leaf's a flower;
   But only so an hour.
   Then leaf subsides to leaf.
   So Eden sank to grief,
   So dawn goes down to day.
   Nothing gold can stay.

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5. Work is love made visible. —Kahlil Gibran
   About 80% of people are unhappy at work, and 20% are happy. Our culture has separated work from passion, and taught us to prefer a higher paycheck to higher happiness. That mistake costs us our souls. The goal of career development is to uncover one's gifts and passions, and to link them to the practical needs of the world. We call that "being in the right place," "finding a good fit," or "making the best use of one's talents."
   In What Color Is Your Parachute? my mentor, Dick Bolles, quotes Fred Buechner, who writes, "There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work . . . (and) the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." [2001 Edition, page 57.]
   High compensation and high happiness are not incompatible. It's not that we shouldn't seek money, and lots of it; many of our clients do. But we should first seek to love, or at least to like, what we're doing. That's the realization of our highest calling.

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6. No great thing is created suddenly. —Epictetus (A.D.200)
   We live in a McDonald's culture. We want everything instantly and without effort. And we bristle when others around us appear to be getting more, sooner. Waiting for rewards or results is out of favor. It is so uncool.
   Many things are created suddenly: the two-day house makeovers on HOME & GARDEN TELEVISION, for example, but they aren't great. They are adequate, functional, or practical improvements. Greatness requires thought and time, effort and sacrifice. Especially sacrifice.
   Stellar careers aren't built overnight. Take the orthopedic surgeon, whose education extends 15 years past high school. Take the country western star on Grand Ole' Opry. Take the NFL quarterback or wide receiver, the CEOs, CFOs, and Vice Presidents of brand-name companies. Think about Edison, Einstein, or Galileo, or anyone else you might admire. None of them got there overnight.
   Great careers are built upon hundreds of thousands of small efforts, undertaken daily, that eventually grow into a series of satisfying wins. An ad for Paul Masson Vineyards picturing a bottle of wine said, "Nothing good happens fast." I framed it, and hung it in my office.

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7. Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
   This is a variation on "Actions speak louder than words" and on Shakespeare's superb quote, "Talkers are no good doers." An executive search consultant who recruited 500 bank presidents told me, "There are two kinds of candidates: tap dancers and superstars. Tap dancers go through the motions and superstars get the work done. I recruit the superstars."

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8. No wind favors he who has no destined port. —Montaigne
   The cliche, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there," is valid. And many careers are broken by lack of direction. Corporations define this concept as having a mission or vision, and organizations lacking vision usually flounder. "Career Planning" speaks to the idea of creating a blueprint for your future. That is, having a goal, a destined port—fulfilling your destiny. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advised us to "Begin with the end in mind."

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9. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Seneca
   I've been there. You've been there. Sometimes life is hard. You hit a career roadblock or dead end. Nothing seems to be working. You're fired or laid off. Or worse yet, you and your spouse are both unemployed. It happens. And it happens more frequently than you might imagine, to good people, qualified candidates, because of circumstances beyond their control. I like Churchill's words, "Never give in, never, never, never, never; in nothing, great or small—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." And I especially like the quote by Edmund Burke, who said: "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

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10. Do first things first, and second things not at all.
    —Peter Drucker.
    It's so easy to do what's familiar, comfortable, or fun. It's so difficult, sometimes, to tackle the highest priority. And sometimes it's difficult to even know your top priorities; hence, the phrase, "I can't see the forest for the trees."
    We suffer from over-choice: 67 varieties of toothpaste, 487 styles of shoes, 186 brands of cell phones with 137 telephone companies. We demand more variety than we could possibly need or want; and as a result, we get lost in options, opportunities, and choices. There are 87 varieties of lawyers, and 75 specialties inside medicine. The world of work can be a confusing landscape.
    When you're flooded with career possibilities, or "swimming up Niagara Falls," it's good to spend time answering questions like, "What is the best and highest use of my talents?" and, "How can I make a bigger impact?"
    If you can't establish clear career priorities by yourself, use friends and business acquaintances as a sounding board. They will want to help. Ask them to help you determine your "first things" and "second things." Or seek an outside coach or advisor to help you focus. Because if you don't know what your "first things" are, you simply can't do them FIRST.

Gone for Good – My Review

Actually, I’ve been quite lazy. After Blink, I’ve finished another 4 books, but have been too lazy to write a review here! But after reading Gone for Good, there is absolutely no chance that I escape writing one.

Among all the thriller books I’ve read, this one is quite at the top! And to think that I’ve not read any of Coben’s other books before!! While browsing through the bookstore, because I could find nothing else, I took a look at this one, and the reviews on the blurb caught attention.

Once I started reading, this one absolutely caught hold and made me finish it (took 2 days though).

Gone for Good is the story of two brothers – Ken and Will Klein. You can read an excerpt from Amazon here. I won’t divulge the plot, but here’s what made the book so irresistible.

Coben’s writing style – weaving between first person and third person is a real treat to read, and gets the reader truly absorbed into the story. As the book moves on, we suddenly realize that none our of normal ‘reader instincts’ are proving true! There are so many twists and turns all around, that it gets impossible to anticipate what’s coming next. After a while – once a few chapters are done – we actually give up guessing, and that makes the book even more interesting.

Another very interesting thing about the book is the way Coben takes us in and out of flashback. It is not like he finished the flashback and comes back to the future, but keeps weaving; and the effect is quite stunning. It is like the ‘need-to-know’ thing James Bond movies taught us! As the story moves on, we keep getting glimpses from the past of the characters which makes the story much more exciting.

If you are a fiction / thriller / action / crime genre aficionado, this is one book you should certainly not miss!

I’m hunting for Coben’s other books, but none seem available in our city! :(

It’s official – The Sun is out!!

All these days, I was still in a dilemma whether the Indian Recession has officially abated or not. That thought has been laid to a positive rest today, and yes, it is official that the Sun is out!!

Whatever people have written about in the business dailies, and whatever the finance minister has said in the budget, as citizens we all have our own calculations. We call them ‘inner voice’, but sometimes it takes something from the outside to trigger that voice. For me, it was a telephone call yesterday.

After all these months, I finally got a call from a financial company asking if I had need of a personal loan! For me, that is the end of recession!!

If you have a mobile phone (read as ‘if you are considered to be alive’), you would also have missed the fake politeness, the laughs that suddenly cut off when we picked up the call, the voices that tried to be confident, and the pressure evident on month-end calls (which by the way start from the 15th). Not one, but two calls came through yesterday from two different companies – both offering personal loans.

And then I saw a banner strung outside a major nationalized bank announcing that this is ‘Credit Card Utsav month’. Ah!

Finally, we got a call this morning at the office mentioning that a client wanted 5 executives to disburse small ticket loans in rural areas.

The Sun is out, and it is a-shining! How nice it is to look forward once again to bounced cheques, threatening calls, atrocious interest rates, rude customer service executives, streams of calls and messages, and so much more which I cannot recollect in this excitement! Actually, I am not being entirely cynical. If this is a solution to an awakening of spirits in the country (the human variety, I mean), and of a rekindling of the feel-good factor, the big comeback of retail credit is truly welcome!

Wear sunglasses (and get your do-not-disturbs activated) once more!