ARDENT BIBLIOPHAGIST

By Don Miguel Ruiz What is this book? If I need to give this a genre, you got me, it is a self-help book. But it is quite different, from all the books you read, that gives you this instant motivation and makes you think, you are unique and are here to perform massive tasks that none can perform. (Which is true) The author states 'four agreements' as the title suggests. So what is Agreement? The talk you have with yourself or principles by which you live by. Principles can make concepts difficult to grasp, so I will deal with the first one. "You can't do that, you know" "Hey, how can I forgive him for that?" "Stop thinking too much" Yeah all these talks, and how you talk with yourself depends on what agreements you have with yourself. You can have an agreement that dictates, 'You can't dance' and also, 'You can do anything if you give it a lot of time'. These are the agreements, sort of things you have with yourself, you wil...

  By Stephen Hawking credits: http://www.cairowestmag.com/ Stephen Hawking, all I remember when I come across the name is, a geeky and humorous person with a machine voice. No wonder, even if you remember the same. I am not so much into science to know every scientist with path breaking innovations. I am just curious about science, so I read books who try to explain the world in simple terms to me. And Stephen Hawking does that work pretty neatly. This book answers to 10 questions. As the title suggests they are 10 big questions in terms of the concepts and the scientist had done a wonderful job, explaining it without bringing in complex mathematics and making it simple. If you had this nerdy friend, who has answers to every question you ask (like literally), you sometimes think, why can't I know them? What is so big about that? Maybe, you are bad at analytical things (there are books that can help you with that too). But this book gives you a clear-cut idea withou...

  By Michelle Obama It is quite difficult when you have a spouse whose dreams line with the welfare of the people and the world's prosperity. It is difficult to figure what the world expects from you; it is difficult to figure what your close circle expects from you; After all it is difficult to understand what the inner you craves for yourself. Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States, in her memoir 'Becoming', describes her story. So who is Michelle? Michelle is someone who was born in Chicago with dreams of gaining respectable positions, propelled by great zeal towards learning and shaping herself. It sounds such a normal dream for us in the 21 st century. But it is a crazy dream for people of color in the 1970s. A four year old girl playing piano to a person with love for jazz. Michelle showed herself as a simple yet sophisticated person. I never knew about Michelle before, apart from her being the former FLOTUS. This memo...

Richard Stengel Richard Stengel spent around 3 years with Mandela, while writing Mandela's autobiography. This book is a collection of humble notes by the author on Mandela, one of the greatest believers of the human society.  This book aims at bringing lessons to people on life, love and courage, as the title suggests. It comprises of 15 lessons or principles that are mostly Mandela's beliefs, as well as practices his life advocates. Let me give a quick outline of the lessons, in other words, the contents of the book. I don’t want to give a summary of the book; I wish to make this book appealing so you would pick it as your next read. So, I have explained briefly the first 5 lessons the book preaches followed by the 10 lessons and my favourite lines from them.   1.      Courage is not the absence of fear What if I tell you Mandela also had fear? From the serene face of his, and the colourful shirts we see him in, finding a place for fear seems like a...