Book Review: ‘The King’s Speech’

Review: 3 stars ‘The King’s Speech’ tells me that appearances matter, more so – when it is the question of British Monarchy. An inspirational figurehead, the king is supposed to rally the support of his subjects around important issues of the day – for that a skill of oratory is must. And the job of […]

Book Review: ‘Iacocca: An Autobiography’

Review: 5 stars This book is a gold mine. Labor relations, change management, marketing, Govt. relations, cost reduction, & the recent Trump rhetoric – I get to know all about it in this 370 page paperback, which was written way back in 1984. More than that it teaches you about persistence, about having a greed […]

Book Review: The Four Patriots

Sumit Agarwal is prescient. The recent events in the country – be it the ‘Surgical Strike’ against Pakistan or the ‘Demonetization Drive’ finds its way in the novel ‘The Four Patriots’, way before they actually happened. Even if you don’t take this book as a blueprint for the development of the nation, it is a […]

Book Review: ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’

‘The island of Doctor Moreau’ reminds me of the robots in the Isaac Asimov novels, and the three laws of robotics. The first one goes something like this, “A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.” There is a similar but a more selfish […]

Pulling off a ‘Watchmen’!

Like all great books that I have come to admire, it all started with a rejection. I rejected Harry Potter, because I believed him to be yet another wannabe magician who would pull out a rabbit from his hat. Rejection actually helps – it is a sifting mechanism, though improper, which allows me to focus […]

Discussing ‘Foundation’

“Of all human conditions, perhaps the most brilliant and at the same time the most anomalous, is that of the Governor General of British India. A private English gentleman, and the servant of a joint-stock company, during the brief period of his government, he is the deputed sovereign of the greatest empire in the world; […]

Book Review: ‘My Life and Work’ by Henry Ford

Review: 4 stars I have read books by writers with fanciful imagination. Finally, I got time enough to read one by the author who has always captured people’s fancy and imagination. His accomplishments have inspired many, and we can’t really do without his useful little contraption. A rigorous capitalist who wishes to do a service […]

Book Review : Dead in a Mumbai Minute

I expected it to be a good read, but not a cracker! Yet I was pleasantly surprised by Dead in a Mumbai Minute by Madhumita Bhattacharyya. What a reader really loves is a well-conceived story. Unfortunately, in India, anything goes in the name of the story. Normally the characters lack depth, storyline is weak and […]

Book Review: A Princess of Mars

John Carter is truly the Rajnikanth of Barsoom (Mars). Aided by a low gravity of Mars, he is seen skipping the surface, literally flying in the air to dispatch a throng of soldiers in order to save a damsel in distress. In The Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Carter has no compunction in […]

Book Review: Cosmos

Why aren’t we going to space anymore? Why the space program is facing increasing budget cuts while nations have burgeoning defense allocation? Why is feeding the needy brought up as an argument against sending probes up in space? These rhetorical questions do indeed have an answer. We no longer have a Carl Sagan, an Isaac […]