Losing My Virginity: Richard Branson

Losing My Virginity is a 1998 autobiography by Richard Branson. A paperback version (ISBN 0-7535-1020-0) was released in 2002. The book features Richard Branson's story from rags to riches. Richard Branson is a guy about whom almost everyone had heard about. Everyone knows that he is a Rags to Riches guy, flamboyant, owns an island blah....blah...blah
Guts is what Richard Branson is all about and he holds nothing back in his biography. He admits mistakes, taunts the people who said he couldn’t do it. In a nutshell he makes you FEEL that the people who went up against him were nothing less than GODS hell bent on taking the FIRE back from Man. With this guy (Branson) nothing is business, everything is personal ! Thats what makes you love him. The sincerity, honesty and hard-work that goes into creating a business group the size of VIRGIN is clearly potrayed through the book.
If that was not all, Branson also happens to have a great support writer/editor in Edward Whitley. The combined effort, Branson’s life and Whitley’s plot, is simply outstanding !
There are chapters in the book that would make you clutch your stomach and roll on the floor (scene: Branson making love, girlfriend has an asthma attack, Branson thinks she is making sounds of pleasure).
In short the book has everything that should be in a honest biography with the added plus of being the biography of perhaps one of the MOST COLORFUL people of our times.
Branson believes in living life to the fullest and perhaps thats why the book is nothing less than a roller coaster. A later version was released in 2005 in hardback and paperback expressing Branson's views on 9/11 and how it has affected his business, especially his airline Virgin Atlantic.

Source: Mouthshut.com, Wikipedia

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish: Rashmi Bansal

In a country where 10,000 copies is considered a ‘bestseller’, 100,000 copies sold in just 9 months is astounding. So this book has been well marketed:-). The book is about 25 IIM A alumnus who chose as the book describes it rough road to entrepreneurship. Stay Hungry Stay foolish is the benediction Steve Jobs gave to the graduating class of 2005 at Stanford. The book is literally an interview of 25 IIM Ahmedabad grads (23 men and 2 women) who took the untrodden path of entrepreneurship and left the easy option of cosy and comfortable high paying jobs. The book is written in interviow style monologue, and in most of the parts very interesting if you are an MBA. The characters are very ill researched and the stories of all the 25 grads are almost like photocopies of each other “Parents were bureaucrats. I drifted in to IIM-A. Hated the prospect of a cosy life as an MNC exec; stumbled on great idea (it was some form of market research for almost everybody), and here I am as an owner of multi million dollar business". So basically if you have read one you have read all. But despite all this negatives its a must read for all the budding entreprenuers as it inspires you to do things that you want to do and live your dream. At the end of each chapter there is a piece of advice from each of the 25 grads which is really enriching. Buy the book and read it not for the literary acumen of the writer or her research skils but for the inspiration and insights in each of the story. Also the book is very affordably priced at 125 Rs so even if you dont like it you can still be happy you wasted no big fortune on this one. The idea of writing on premier institutions is not an original one. There is Teresa Esser’s book Venture Café that was published sometime in 2000. Esser, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate herself, tells the story high-tech entrepreneurs whose journey started at the Muddy Charles pub located inside the MIT campus. Its easy narrative, rigourous reporting and research not only made Venture Café an engrossing read, it was a primer for aspiring entrepreneurs. Closer home, there was Sandipan Deb’s excellent book "The IITians" a few years back that tried to explain what made IITians such outstanding achievers across the globe. But all said and done I didnt read the other two books and I have ready only Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish and I really found it worht the effort.

The Winner Stands Alone: Paulo Coelho

Having been impressed by Paulo's work in "The Alchemist" and "Eleven Minutes" I decided to give this a try although I'm not an action/thriller die hard. "The Winner Stands Alone" takes place at the Cannes Film Festival among the world of film and fashion. Igor, a misguided yet very successful businessman, is pursuing his ex-wife Ewa in the hope of rekindling their romance. Igor believes that he must "destroy whole worlds" to win back her affection and he is willing to do anything for her. The scripit is full of action but there is hardly any character bulit up. It is riveting at few places and barely real at other. Kind of a mixed bag. The story shows us what would happen if everybody gives in to their temptation and seek out hedonism at all costs. The story lacks purpose, and is real plot of the struggle between morality and immorality is lost by large descripitions of Fashion, producers, actors, designers and supermodels. I had high expectations from this book but it hardly draws any conclusions towards the end and I quite didnt understand how and Igor justifies killing people for the sake of getting his wife back. Not the best Paulo book in any aspect. Can be avoied!!!

"Brain" By Dr Robin Cook

On a recent sunday while dusting my closet(often on sundays I do it..now thats a revelation) I found an old book of mine "Brain" by Robin Cook. Interestingly I did'nt read this book as a serious reader but it was to just kill time while travelling in local trains in Mumbai. My dad being a doctor I was quite familiar to medical terms and Brain itself sounded so intriguing for a topic to read on. Brain has been quite a fascination with scientists since ages and till date we have not been able to decode it. Robin Cook is famous for his medical thrillers which have futuristic element to it and this book is no different. Completely engrossing and cant-be-put-down-for-a-moment kind of book.

The story is mostly about Katherine Collins who goes to a hospital called GYN where she undergoes treament for some gynac problems. Simaltaneously she starts having seizeures where in she smells a repulsive and oddly familiar smell and then loses consciousness. The story revolves around the protagonist Dr. Martin Philips from then on, who is a doctor in neurophysiology at the NYC medical center. Dr. Martin Philips, a 41 year old is involved in creating a self-diagonstic x-ray machine, along with Michael, who is a researcher at MIT and also head of the department of artificial intelligence. His girlfriend and colleague Dr.Denise Sanger (28 years old) is also involved in the same hospital.

The story proceeds with the hospital working being shown where Dr. Mannerheim is to operate on a girl named Lisa Marino who is a seizure patient. She is set to undergo a brain operation to get rid of a part of her brain cells which her doctors say is causing her seizures. The symptoms are described same as like Kathereine Collins only stronger.

However, when Dr. Philips starts to discover a conspiracy involving usage of human test subjects, he is drawn into a world that is deceiving and dangerous.

It still amazes me that such an extraordinary masterpiece was written in 1981 when people would have hardly known anything about artificial intelligence. Also Dr Cook with his varied imagination peeps into the future to find out how Super Computers of tomorrow would work, his hypothesis is that they would be a computer wired to a human brain (Phew!!!). Very interesting and rivetting novel with great intensity and thrill at every moment, especially the description of Katherine being unconcious on return home in the elevators and when she gains consciousness finds herself being visited by her parents and police as she has been missing since some days gives you goose bumps.

The book is available for free download on Google books, so that means you dont have to clean the dirty closets on sundays to grab your copy of the book as I did. Nevertheless the effort was worth it!!!

Eleven Minutes By Paulo Coelho

I was deeply impressed by "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho and hence I picked up this book from the stands (needless to say a paperback edition). The book eleven minutes is a translation of a book written by Paulo Coelho in Portuguese named "Onze Minutos".
Maria, from the interior of Brazil, goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland, only to find that reality is harsher than she expected and she ends up working in a brothel on Rue de Berne, the heart of Geneva's red-light district.

The book deals with the quest for real love of the central character Maria. She enters a life that leads her down the path of sexual awakenings and almost leads to her self-destruction when she is introduced to all sides of sexual experience. When she has given up hope to find true love she meets a painter with whom she falls in love. And she must now choose where she is to take her life. Either to let it lead her or finally take control of her life and end this subtle self-destructive life she is leading. Just like many of Coelho's books, this book is also about a journey of self-discovery that leads the reader into understanding the issues of sex (in prostitution), sacred sex, and sex in the context of love.

The book is pretty graphic in its descriptions and can be termed as erotic meant for matured audiences. The only thing I liked about is the no nonsense way of putting intricacies of sex for a purpose of self-discovery. Just imagine any Indian author doing it!!! But on the other hand, there is hardly any story telling in the book and makes you feel like you are watching a much chewed script of an old hindi movie. Girl comes out of a small town, falls into prostitution racket and the finally finds a perfect match.

All in all, this book is not in the ranks of other books by Paulo "The Alchemist" or "Winner Stands Alone" because of its dull story telling, which has been a strong point for all Paulo books. But we all know what a wonderful writer he is and he has put such a difficult subject on paper with such ease.

The White Tiger: Aravind Adiga

The success story of this book is no lesser than that of the movie "SlumDog Millionare" by Danny Boyle which is an adaption of a book by Indian Author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. The book won the Man Booker Prize in 2008, notably the debut novel by the author. The story is necessarily about the sharp contrast between India's rise as a global power and economy and the main character of the novel Balram Halvai, son of a autorickshaw puller crushing under poverty. Balram Halwai is the White Tiger of the book's title - a title he earns by virtue of being deemed the smartest boy in his village, a community deep in the "Darkness" of rural India.

Balram is the son of a rickshaw-puller; his family is too poor for him to be able to finish school, and instead he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. Through these experiences, Balram learns much about the world and later states that the streets of India provided him with all the education he needed. Later, Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. As he drives his master to shopping malls and call centers, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, while knowing that he will never be able to gain access to that world. As Balram broods over his situation, he realizes that there is only one way he can become part of this glamorous new India.
The novel takes the form of a series of letters written late at night by Balram to Wen Jiabao, the Premierr of the State Council of the People's Republic of Chinaa. In the letters, Balram describes his rise from lowly origins to his current position as an entrepreneurr in Bangalore, as well as his views on India's caste system and its political corruption.
The story is spun into a no nonsense, humour and wit all togather so intricately that the author needs to be commended for the piece of art. Sad enough to know that the true picture of India and the plight of the people in this struggle of classes is to be found in the books which have made their way out of India in the shelves of bookstores of North America.
The story is quite nicely put across and there is not a single dull moment in the novel, a must read for anybody.