New Delhi, May 27 (IANS) Catch up on your reading with five interesting titles this weekend:
1. ‘Innovate: 90 Days to Transform Your Business’: Written by Rekha Shetty; priced at Rs.299; published by Penguin Portfolio.
A daily implementation schedule, ‘Innovate…’ is a step-by-step self-help workplace manual. Here is a typical 90-day pep-up pill to enhance productivity, profitability and set the ball rolling for innovations in the boardroom as the writer guarantees.
A do-it-yourself tool kit, the book is divided into seven chapters that probe ‘the idea of innovation as a catalyst of change and the implementation of the innovative processes in the final step’. If one is tired of hearing that one needs to innovate without being told how, this is an insight into the makeover.
2. ‘Vodka Shot & Beer Mug: One Night @ Corporate Reunion Party’: Written by Kashish Kalra and Amarjit Rajkumar; priced at Rs.95; published by Cedar Books.
Another generic crowd-puller for the masses modelled on Chetan Bhagat’s ‘One Night At the Call Centre’, the book is a mirror to the changing corporate circuit in India that lives on its eccentricities, insecurities, false egos and fears.
Anurag and Kanika, two old friends, meet at a corporate reunion party and revive their friendship. The duo battles old fears as it encounters familiar monsters. The friends’ run through the past ferries readers through situations, relationships, inferences and industry itches till the fears are addressed with the last shot of vodka and a mug of beer at the bar well past midnight. The book is rather like a sophomore romance, crammed with friends, familiarity and nostalgia.
3. ‘Not for $ Anymore’: written by Kalyan Vaidya; priced at Rs.150; published by Cedar Books
Indians are like Eskimos with an ability to withstand almost any twists in fortunes and circumstances. More than ever, Indians represent the essence of living in a globalised highly-interconnected environment. The writer uses candid vignettes of his experiences outside India to illustrate the complexities, joys and the hurdles in living a globalised life.
But more than the journey to becoming global citizens, the book is about the triumph of the ‘unassuming’ hardworking Indian abroad. The author captures a bewildering range of human experiences under seven heads across 15 countries in simplistic and lucid prose. Recommended for those who want to work abroad.
4. ‘Mahatma Gandhi: The Father of the Nation’: written by Subhadra Sen Gupta; priced at Rs.150; published by Penguin Puffin
On his passport, he was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Poet Rabindranath Tagore gave him the honorific title ‘The Mahatma’ – the great soul – but he was rather uncomfortable with it. Nelson Mandela called him a sacred warrior, others described him as ‘the saint of the spinning wheel’ and we now call him ‘our father of the nation’.
The writer recreates the life of Gandhi and his legacies to resurrect the man behind the persona and his handspun khadi clothes. She peppers the biography with riveting nuggets about Mohandas’ personal life and habits. He ate saltless vegetables and bitter neem chutney, walked 240 miles (384 km) even in old age to take on draconian salt laws and greeted kings and beggars alike. The man who shaped the country’s destiny springs forth to life in all his resolute and eccentric glory in this account for children.
5. ‘The Corruption Conundrum: And Other Paradoxes and Dilemmas’: written by V. Raghunathan; priced at Rs.450; published by Penguin Portfolio
Can two positives make a negative? Can polls yield a consistent majority opinion? In this book, V. Raghunathan, takes the readers through some of the most fascinating illustrations, classical and well-known as well as the less common in management, law, finance and work life.
For example, can every uncertain cash flow have a certainty equivalent? Why was the outcome of the Copenhagen summit so predictable? The best-selling author of ‘Games Indians Play’ weaves another intriguing inspiration book that fans curiosity about the surrounding world.
