Wednesday, December 31, 2014

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell



"My Family and Other Animals" is the bewitching account of a rare and magical childhood on the island of Corfu by treasured British conservationist Gerald Durrell.
 Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. 
But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies.
Recounted with immense humor and charm


Goodreads Rating - 4.28 out of 5 (15010 Ratings; 1078 Reviews)

My Review:
I really enjoyed this book. 
The humor Durrell brings  while narrating the incidents (and accidents !!) involving the  animals and his family during their sojourn in Corfu has to be read to be enjoyed !
I don't count myself as an animal enthusiast. 
But the descriptions of the lifestyles and mannerisms of the animals featuring in this book were so vivid and captivating that I could not resist searching the web to see their pictures and know more about them.
A fabulous read !

 
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Monday, December 29, 2014

Manage It! - Johanna Rothman


Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
This book is a reality-based guide for modern projects. 
You'll learn how to recognize your project's potholes and ruts, and determine the best way to fix problems - without causing more problems.

Your project can’t fail. 
That’s a lot of pressure on you, and yet you don’t want to buy into any one specific process, methodology, or lifecycle.
Your project is different. It doesn’t fit into those neat descriptions.
Manage It! will show you how to beg, borrow, and steal from the best methodologies to fit your particular project.
 It will help you find what works best for you and not for some mythological project that doesn’t even exist.
Before you know it, your project will be on track and headed to a successful conclusion. 
You’ll:
  •  Learn all about different project lifecycles
  •  See how to organize a project
  •  Compare sample project dashboards
  •  See how to staff a project
  •  Know when you’re done—and what that means.
You won’t need expensive tools or fancy software. 
Manage It! shows you how to use low-tech techniques to directly address the most pressing problems of modern software project development.

 [Book Description Source:  The Pragmatic Book Shelf www.amazon.com ]

Goodreads Rating - 3.89 out of 5 (120 Ratings; 16 Reviews)

My Review:
A very useful guidebook for managing projects in a very pragmatic and sensible way.  
Will enable smooth transition from traditional project management to agile project management wherever needed.



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Saturday, December 20, 2014

The World of Malgudi - R.K. Narayan

In a writing career spanning over half a century, R.K. Narayan created the imagined landscape of a town called Malgudi, located somewhere in South India. 
Malgudi is a town just like any other, its inhabitants like old familiars one might meet round the corner of any ordinary street. 
With deft strokes of his pen, Narayan is able to flesh out characters and situations that entertain us on the first reading and linger in our memory for years afterwards.

The World of Malgudi brings together four of Narayan's most memorable novels set in Malgudi. 

In Mr Sampath, we are told of the collaborative efforts of Srinivas, the editor, and Mr Sampath, the printer, who work together on a local weekly .
We next meet Margayya, in The Financial Expert, who sits under a banyan tree and gives advice on methods of extracting loans from the local cooperative bank.
In The Painter of Signs, we encounter the unlikely love story of Raman, the local signboard painter, and Daisy, a birth-control propagandist who is on a visit to Malgudi. 
Finally, in A Tiger for Malgudi, a venerable tiger looks back over his life, from his early days roaming wild in the jungle to his unhappy years in captivity. 

Available for the first time in a collectors' edition, with an illuminating introduction by S.Krishnan, the novels in this volume will be a delight for Narayan's fans as well as for first-time readers.
  [Source: Book Cover ]


My Review:
I have been a great fan of R.K. Narayan ever since I first read his novel "The Dark Room" when I was a kid.
It was a real pleasure to read this anthology of four of his novels in this book.
The novel "A Tiger for Malgudi" in this compilation is  totally different from any other novel the author has written. It has a unique blend of philosophy, satire and humor. I liked this one the best in this book. [All Project Tiger enthusiasts will love it too !]

Trivia:
  • I remember reading somewhere that the name "Malgudi" was created by R.K. Narayan by combining the names of two well known localities in Bangalore - Malleswaram and Basavanagudi
  • R.K. Narayan's grandson was my colleague and we often used to discuss about Narayan's writings , during our 40 km commute back home from our factory.
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    Friday, December 12, 2014

    What Works for GE May Not Work For You - Lawrence Solow and Brenda Fake


    Using Human System Dynamics to Build a Culture of Process Improvement
    This book provides new tools for managing and sustaining process improvement in today’s complex non-linear environments and helps readers apply new, relevant theory to their own management practices. 
    With more than 50 combined years of change management and process improvement consulting experience, the authors offer valuable practical insights for creating dynamic organizational change. The first section of the book describes the key bodies of knowledge and process improvement processes (Lean, Six Sigma, and Human Systems Dynamics) used throughout the text. 
    The next two sections focus on the case story of TryinHard Marine. 
    The authors first highlight the dynamics of a typical linear process improvement implementation. 
    They then present ways to combat a range of complex, non-linear, and emergent organizational issues as they arise during the implementation of a Six Sigma initiative. 
    The last part explains how to assess readiness to begin a process improvement initiative, select consultants and internal "Belt" candidates, and choose the appropriate tools for projects. The authors also introduce additional tools and concepts to enable adaptive action at all levels of an organization.
    This book provides useful information for thinking and behaving in adaptive ways that can be applied to any organization. 
    By using the concepts, models, and tools presented, readers can improve their own business improvement processes.

     [Source: www.amazon.com ]

    Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

    My Review:
    Being a process improvement professional for so many years has taught me that you cannot ignore the human element in any process improvement initiative. 
    Nor can you take a cookie cutter approach of installing a methodology, model or framework without adapting it  to the needs of your own organization.
    This book is a very good introduction on how to take into account the complexity of human interactions in an organizational level process improvement effort. 
    Though the example given in this book is about Six Sigma the concepts are equally applicable for any process improvement initiative.  
    Be it Agile, CMMI, Lean or any other flavor of the day.
    A must read for all process improvement professionals !


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    Monday, November 24, 2014

    The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das


    On the Subtle Art of Dharma
    Why should we be good? 
    How should we be good? 
    And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings-splashed across today's headlines-that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well, bringing communities, nations, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse?
    In The Difficulty of Being Good, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source: the 2,000 year-old Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata

    A sprawling, witty, ironic, and delightful poem, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma-in essence, doing the right thing.
     When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he wastes little time on self-reflection; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. 
    Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety, courage, despair, remorse, envy, compassion, vengefulness, and duty. 
    Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics, business, and politics.
    In every case, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world.
    Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world-and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life-The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.

     [Source: www.amazon.com ]

    The Mahabharata is a sweeping epic that chronicles different facets of human life, emotional and ethical conflicts. 
    It has a huge number of characters and none of them are perfect. 
    The negative characters have positive attributes too, and the heroes also have flaws. 
     In fact, they're all essentially human.
    So it is not difficult for the author to study today’s moral questions in the context of the characters in the epic. 
    Dharma, the moral code of behavior, has generally remained unchanged since those ancient times. 
    In The Difficulty Of Being Good: On The Subtle Art Of Dharma, the author analyzes major characters like Duryodhana, Karna, Bhishma, Yudhishthira and Arjuna.
    He looks at the character and behavior of these people in difficult situations, and their individual reactions.
    He looks at Karna's status anxiety and Duryodhana's envy. 
    He critically examines the methods used by both sides to win the war.
    He also brings in current parallels to some of the situations and characters in the epic. 
    For instance, he sees Duryodhana’s envy reflected in the Ambani brothers feud. 
    He uses Karna’s anxiety over his status to debate the issue of reservation in modern India. 
    The book analyzes the very basic question of why should a person be good, the motivations for living life according to a moral or ethical code.
     It also examines the ambiguities in the choices made by characters when faced with a dilemma, the hazy line that divides the good and the bad.
    The Mahabharata focuses a lot on Dharma and whenever there is a transgression of an ethical code, the story pauses and the incident is thoroughly analyzed by various characters.
    [Source: www.flipkart.com]



    Goodreads Rating - 4.04 out of 5 (15522 Ratings; 150 Reviews)

    My Review:
    Liked the way the moral dilemmas faced by the Mahabharata characters are analyzed and their relevance in the modern context explained. 
    A very well researched book. 
    Guess it might have been the Ph.D dissertation of the author Gurcharan Das resulting from a sabbatical he took from the corporate world.
    Not a very light read but nor too heavy either for the readers interested in this genre.



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    Tuesday, November 18, 2014

    The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring - Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky and Leslie P. Willcocks




    The global outsourcing market for IT and business services exceeded $485 billion in 2011 and is set to grow at 8-10% per annum until 2015.
    Of this, $65 billion was offshore outsourcing where some estimates suggest an annual growth rate of 15-20% over the next five years.
    Furthermore, over 50 % of the Fortune Global 500 had offshored IT and business process activities through captive centers, representing $ 9 billion of business.
    The expansion of outsourcing and offshoring and the emergence of new sourcing models are challenging existing management practices.
     It has become increasingly important to understand the phenomena, not least as a basis for suggesting what directions it will take, its impacts, how it has been conducted, and how its management can be better facilitated.

    This book offers a broad perspective on various issues relating to the sourcing of IT and business processes and services in a company, national and global context. 

    The authors examine both the client's and the vendor's involvement in sourcing relationships by putting the emphasis on the capabilities that each side should develop prior to entering a relationship but also that they should develop as a result of their interactions with each other.
     [Source: Inside Front Cover of the book ]


    Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

    My Review:
    A pretty useful book for organizations that are looking for outsourcing IT and business processes. It will guide them in getting the fundamentals of outsourcing right. Has some good case studies. Sort of dry read though.


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    Thursday, November 13, 2014

    Today We are Rich by Tim Sanders

    Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence
    Are you just hanging in there? 
    Have life’s curveballs thrown you off balance? 
    Do you feel as if your life is going sideways?

    Best-selling author, leadership coach, and former Yahoo! executive Tim Sanders knows how you feel. 

    His father’s unexpected death put him in a downward spiral for fifteen years—what he calls his “sideways years.” 
    A photo of a dusty water tower in Texas finally woke him up in 1996. 
    That’s when he realized he needed to go home to his rock—his grandmother Billye, who had taken him in as a child to raise as her own.

    Rediscovering the lessons she taught him as a child turned his life around and, in less than four years, catapulted him to financial security and an officer-level role at an S&P 500 company at the center of the Internet revolution. 
    Today, his promise to himself is, “I will never forget those lessons. The price is too high.” 
    Join Tim as he rediscovers the classic principles of confident living that some of the most successful and joyful people you know live by:

    1 – Feed Your Mind Good Stuff
    2 – Move the Conversation Forward
    3 – Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle
    4 – Give to Be Rich
    5 – Prepare Yourself
    6 – Balance Your Confidence
    7 – Promise Made, Promise Kept

    In Today We Are Rich, Sanders updates Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale to tackle a new world, where social media and transparency present unique challenges to our sense of confidence, sanity, and faith.

    [Source: www.goodreads.com ]


    Goodreads Rating - 4.04 out of 5 (453 Ratings; 70 Reviews)

    My Comments:
    Principles of confident living described in this book are what we call as common sense (but which is actually not so commonly seen). 
    Book is rather autobiographical in nature mainly extolling author's grandma who lived by these principles. 
    Nice and quick read but you won't miss anything exceptional even if you don't read it.


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    Tuesday, October 28, 2014

    Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older - Douwe Draaisma

    How Memory Shapes Our Past
    Is it true, as the novelist Cees Nooteboom once wrote, that 'Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases'?
    Where do the long, lazy summers of our childhood go? 
    Why is it that as we grow older  time seem to condense, speed up, elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday?
     In this enchanting and thoughtful book, Douwe Draaisma, author of the internationally acclaimed Metaphors of Memory, explores the nature of autobiographical memory. 
    Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, he tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall. 
    Raising almost as many questions as it answers, this fascinating book will not fail to affect you at the same time as it educates and entertains.
    [The above book description is as per the one on the book cover]


    Goodreads Rating - 3.70 out of 5 (124 Ratings; 7 Reviews)

    My Comments:
    Certainly this book has essays on lots of interesting topics on memory. And that's the reason I picked up this book from the library after reading the above description on the book cover.
    While the content is good , the book did not meet my expectation probably because the translation from the original book in Dutch language was not up to the mark.
    There may be better books than this on this subject.Need to hunt around.


    Links:





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    Sunday, October 12, 2014

    From Complexity to Simplicity by Simon Collinson & Melvin Jay

    Unleash Your Organization's Potential
    Complexity is one of the biggest challenges facing modern business. 
    It is slowing companies down, costing them over 10% of their profits and harming employee morale.
    Yet very few people are offering practical advice on how to solve this problem.

    From Complexity to Simplicity will equip you and your business with the understanding, tools and inspiration you need to identify and eradicate harmful complexity from your company or organisation. 

    Based on cutting-edge research, it takes you through real business case-studies and offers a practical 'how to' approach to tackling this growing problem. 

    • What is complexity? What is simplicity? 
    • The true financial costs of complexity
    • The impact of complexity on managers,employees and different parts of the business
    • How to change the behaviors that create business complexity
    • How to identify where complexity is hurting you most
    • Clear guidance on how to remove harmful complexity from processes, organization design, strategy, product and service portfolios
    • How to reduce the everyday complexity of work life
    From Complexity to Simplicity will show you how to start your own simplicity revolution and achieve business success. 
    [Source: As per the description on the book cover]

    Goodreads Rating - 3.75 out of 5 ( 4 Ratings; 1 Review)

    My Comments:
    The first two chapters of this book explore the causes and consequences of complexity and provide guidelines to diagnose complexity and to develop a generic simplification strategy.
    The subsequent six chapters are dealing with how to simplify -
     i) People Complexity
    ii) Organization
    iii) Strategy
    iv) Processes
    v) Product and Services
    vi) Everyday work
    The appendix of the book has three case studies about complexity in the Pharmaceutical , Banking and Insurance sectors.

    A useful book to understand and deal with complexities in our working life.
     

    Links:
    Visit  http://www.simplicity-consulting.com/ for more details on simplifying the complexity.





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    Wednesday, September 24, 2014

    Tamarind City - Where Modern India Began by Bishwanath Ghosh


    Madras (now Chennai)-  the city where I used to spend my school holidays when I was a kid; the city where I spent almost 8 years (M.Tech, Ph.D) pursuing my higher education in the esteemed institution IIT-Madras; the city where my grandpa worked and had a house (sadly sold off 20 years ago); the city where my parents got married; the city where many of my uncles, aunts and cousins had lived or still live !
    I have  pleasant memories of this first city of modern India.
    It is always a pleasure to read anything about Madras/Chennai, especially if it has to do with its history and its culture.
    The author Bishwanath Ghosh has come up with a delightful narrative about his life in this city.
    A must read for  Chennaiites!

    Book Description [Source: Back Cover of the Book]
    ‘While in other big cities tradition stays mothballed in trunks, taken out only during festivals and weddings, tradition here is worn round the year.’

    This is just one of the author’s many keen observations of Chennai. With mordant wit, this biography of a city spares neither half of its split-personality: from moody, magical Madras to bursting-at-the-seams, tech-savvy Chennai. 

    And, a minute into the book, the reader knows they are inseparable-and Bishwanath Ghosh refuses to take sides.

    And yet, he tells us, while Chennai is usually known as conservative and orthodox, almost every modern institution in India-from the army to the judiciary, from medicine to engineering-traces its roots to Madras’s Fort St George, which was built when Delhi had only just become the capital of the Mughal Empire, and Calcutta and Bombay weren’t even born. 

    Today, the city once again figures prominently on the global map as ‘India’s Detroit’, a manufacturing giant, and a hub of medical tourism. 
    There have been sweeping changes since pre-Independent India, but even as Chennai embraces change, its people hold its age-old customs and traditions close to their heart.
    ‘This is what makes Chennai unique,’ says Ghosh, ‘the marriage of tradition and technology’.

    Bishwanath Ghosh wears a reporter’s cap and explores the city he has made his home, delving into its past, roaming its historic sites and neighbourhoods, and meeting a wide variety of people-from a top vocalist to a top sexologist, from a yoga teacher to a hip transsexual, from a yesteryear film star to his own eighty-five-year-old neighbour, from the ghosts of Clive, Wellesley, Hastings and Yale to those of Periyar and MGR, two people who redefined the political skyline of Tamil Nadu.

    What emerges is an evocative portrait of this unique city, drawn without reservation-sometimes with humour, sometimes with irony-but always with love.




    Goodreads Rating - 3.71 out of 5 ( 120 Ratings; 35 Reviews)


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