Snapshot Review: Domain by Steve Alten

When I came across this book, I glanced at the blurb and wanted to read it immediately. The story looked very interesting at first with ancient history, technology, extraterrestrial life, and politics. But when the story started to unravel, it seemed to be more fantasy and magical rather than science fiction. It felt like Steve Alten poorly merged ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Independence Day’ with a Mayan prophesy.

Some parts of the story were well researched, especially the ancient history which I absolutely loved, and some parts were absolute dire. I keenly appreciate Alten’s effort to encapsulate history, science, mythology, philosophy, technology, and politics into a single plot. But unfortunately, he destroyed everything he built by venturing into an almost magical/fantasy genre.

One last note, Bad romance!

Death is the great equalizer. All our power and wants, all our hopes and desires eventually die with us – buried in the grave. Oblivious, we journey selfishly toward the big sleep, placing importance on things that have no importance, only to be reminded at the most inopportune times how frail our lives truly are.

Fear and religion. Religion and fear. The two are historically entwined, the catalysts for most of the atrocities committed by man. Fear of evil fuels religion, religion fuels hatred, hatred fuels evil, and evil fuels fear among the masses. It is a diabolical cycle.

Snapshot Review: The Inhuman Race by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

After reading the first chapter I closed the book because dystopian children are a very disturbing theme for me. But thought of giving it another try and finished the story this weekend. What made this story unique is, the story set in Sri Lanka and Yudhanjaya’s cultural and political references which made it very familiar, yet dissimilar to the present period. The concept was not new to me, also, I didn’t like the part of child form of robots using for entertainment. Despite those few concerns and some typos, The Inhuman Race was indeed a page turner. Highly recommend this for dystopian sci-fi fans.

“She found herself thinking that the humans she worked with were not all that different from the machine societies they built. Something would topple, something would change, but eventually the whole thing would reset, and it would be as if none of this ever happened.”

“There were four main things that the ancients considered essential to a human being. Beauty, goodness, truth and justice…If you believe buggers who died a few thousand years ago, we’ve got the four main attributes of a human right here. You do realize, if these things are alive, then we’re torturing living things for entertainment?”

“We’re government employees, we do what government employees do,’ he said. ‘ Eat the lunch, drink the tea, pass the ball.”

Number Caste by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

I was eagerly waiting to grab a hard copy of this book since the day I heard about it. I had to wait quite a long time to read this since I’m not very fond of digital copies. This is not a proper review of Yudhanjaya’s work, just a rambling of my thoughts about the book.

This book felt more real than dystopian because we already live in an era of social media where everyone measures their happiness and life worth by social media fame. Number Caste captures this basic concept and turns it to a social system that rewards and downgrades people according to the data and behavior. The plot is very exciting and scary at the same time. I would not need another tech god to dictate humans on how to live their life which would become worse than the religions and current social cultures.

Number Caste makes you think about the impact of this technology for society and humans rather than the technology itself, unlike other sci-fi books. I was very curious to know more about the technology, but I ended up analyzing the social impact and how close we are, of this concept of ruling our lives by a mere number, to become a reality. Sometimes I agree with Patrick and Julius when I think about the current political and social systems. We need something fairer and a balanced system without any corruptions. But then, when we depend too much on any system it eventually becomes the death row for humanity.

“Real people”, I got struck by Corky’s words when I was reading through the last part of the book. This is not something that only relates to future or Number Caste. It has already come to an age that we cannot separate the real and the fake people in our virtual life, sometimes in real life as well. We all, always judge and score everyone on our network, based on what they share with us. When I think more and more about this concept, it seems to me that we have already begun laying the first brick for the numberCorp, and it’s just a matter of time for someone to rise as the founder of that organization.

I wish there were further editing to the writing before it was published, but the story managed to keep my focus and wash away other disturbances. This book is not just for Sci-fi fans, I believe that anyone can enjoy reading this book. Especially, if you are interested in tech, futurism, or society, you will definitely enjoy this.

So, what would be your number?

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

If someone asked me about my favorite fantasy books, I would give a couple of names without any hesitation. But if someone asked what would be the best book that I have read about business, I might have to think a bit, since I have read so many biographies and business related books and liked most of them in different ways. From all those books I have read so far Delivering Happiness is one of the best business books that I have really enjoyed reading.

One thing I really liked about this book is Tony’s writing style. Tony has mentioned that he wanted to write this book by himself without having a ghost writer because he wanted the writing to reflect how he normally speaks. Tony’s writing style makes us closer to his life, his thinking process and it makes us easy to understand the theoretical aspect of the business as well. Rather than throwing out jargons and big words, he explains everything in a simple way of writing that anyone can understand.

I am a firm believer of cultural values of a company. I always think that becoming a good paymaster would not be sufficient to expect a loyal and diligent service from employees. If all employees only expects a monetary value for their service it would feel like working with robots, hence it would be much easy to make them happy and pursue organizational goals. Unfortunately, we work with humans and their motivational factors for their lives vary for one another.

In this book, Tony explains two factors for the success of his company; make Zappos’ employees happy and make Zappos’ customers happy. Giving the best customer service for your customers is essential for survival and retain customers in the long run. Also building a good culture within the company is a necessity to provide a better customer service. When the employees are happy they will eventually make sure that their customers will also be happy. Many organizations don’t invest on customer care, thinking it won’t have a direct impact on the ROI in their business. But they are the employees who represent the company to the customers and they have the power to retain a customer or make them discontinue the product or service within seconds.

Even though these good practices sound obvious, living up to it seems really hard and most companies are not willing to sacrifice their big budgets to invest on their employees and customer care due to various reasons. Hence struggle on customer satisfaction and KBIs such as employee retention, creativity, innovation, communication and internal politics.

There are valuable insights inside this book on how to build a better culture in your company and how to apply the core values of happiness into business and run the company with profits, passion, and purpose. This is a good read for everyone who is passionate about business startups and cultural values of a companies.

Some takeaways from Tony’s story:

“Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.”

“I’d realized that whether in poker, in business, or in life, it was easy to get caught up and engrossed in what I was currently doing, and that made it easy to forget that I always had the option to change tables. Psychologically, it’s hard because of all the inertia to overcome. Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins. I’d started to force myself to think again about what I was trying to get out of life. I asked myself what I was trying to accomplish, what I wanted to do, and whether I should be sitting at a different table.”

“Our core values should always be the framework from which we make all of our decisions…Make at least one improvement every week that makes Zappos better to reflect our core values. The improvements don’t have to be dramatic — it can be as simple as adding in an extra sentence or two to a form to make it more fun, for example. But if every employee made just one small improvement every week to better reflect our core values, then by the end of this year we will have over 50,000 small changes that collectively will be a very dramatic improvement compared to where we are today.”

“Think about what it means to improve just 1% per day and build upon that every single day. Doing so has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better, at the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally. In the end we, as Zappos, can’t grow unless we, as individuals, grow too.”

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

This is the best book I have read recently. The style is unique, the tone is witty, the characters are really entertaining and the plot kept me on the edge of my seat. I can’t think of any other book that so cleverly tells the story as Stroud has done with this series. It’s written from the third person perspective for the young boy Nathaniel and the first person perspective for the superior Djinni, Bartimaeus. The footnotes that can be found in Bartimaeus chapters greatly enhance the story with humorous remarks. It may sound tedious to read a bit, jump to the bottom for the footnotes and then carry on back up top. But Stroud has done it masterfully and these footnotes add magic to the book. They actually bring out a whole new aspect to Bartimaeus’ character.

I’m not enamored with the protagonist, Nathaniel, but I actually really like that he isn’t a self-sacrificing noble boy. Instead he is a selfish, arrogant, and ambitious apprentice. It’s good to have somewhat flawed and ignoble heroic protagonist in your story every once in a while. Bartimaeus, on the other hand, is the magic of this story. I absolutely love him. This ancient, powerful Djinni is a delightfully sarcastic, self-centered and a very entertaining character. To be honest, Bartimaeus chapters alone are worth the read.

Stroud has created a magical world consisting the elements of friendship, loyalty, survival, moral values, determination, greediness, and corruption. This is not a more easily read novel and it is quite long read compared to other YA books. It does require a fair amount of attention to enjoy every aspect of the story and the uniqueness of the writing. But trust me, Bartimaeus will be worth your time.

Seraphina & The Fifth Wave

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman Dragons! I never get tired of reading about dragons. That love over dragon stories caused me to find most stories somewhat predictable. But Seraphina’s world is really intriguing and captivating. Rachel Hartman has marvelously crafted this dragon world; the transformation of dragons to humans, consequences of human emotions, consequences of love between humans and dragons, the half humans and their abilities, and the co-existence of both species. I like almost all the characters, especially Seraphina and Lucian; they both are very clever, brave, and altruistic. The side characters that add colors to the story are also really fascinating. I’m really grateful that there were no confusing thoughts and dramas as we see in most YA novels. Even though there was a smell of a love triangle in the corner, I hope Hartman would be able to craft it without an irksome drama. What glued me into the book apart from the captivating story was Hartman’s writing. Her writing’s one of the unique aspects of this novel. Seraphina is indeed a page turner and I’m eagerly waiting for the next book to get lost in this beautiful and refreshing dragon world.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey The 5th Wave certainly is not a disappointment, but it is not at all surprising or refreshing either. The plot is highly predictable and the justification for using children as soldiers to kill humans does not give the satisfaction to believe the story when the aliens have the power to kill all humans at once or by themselves with their resources. Child soldiers, typical forbidden love story, and highly predictable dystopian plot is just not my cup of coffee. But dystopian YA lovers will definitely love this book.

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Have you ever read a book which you absolutely like and your mind is all over the universe after reading it? And still think about some characters and hard to review because can’t think what to say and how to articulate those thoughts? And the Mountains Echoed is indeed a “thousand tragedies per square mile” as Hussain mentioned in the book. It has been few months since I read this story (or short stories) of human characters and I still can’t put my thoughts into words.

The central theme of the story is about two siblings, Abdhullah and Pari that separated because of the younger sister, Pari, was adopted by a wealthy family where her step uncle is working as a chauffeur. But this is not just their story, this is the story of Abdhulla, Pari, Parwana, Masooma, Nabi, Suleiman, Idris, Timur, Roshi, Nila, Adel, Gholam, Iqbal, Markos, Ordelia, Thalia, and Pari. This is the story of all of them, the story that changes the lives of all of them because of Abdulla’s father, Saboor made a decision to give up one of his children. The story encompasses many years, more than 50 years, till the two siblings find their way to each other.

The structure of the novel is different compared to Hussain’s early work. And the Mountains Echoed is halfway between a novel and a short story collection. Each chapter introduces a different character, focuses on how the character has developed so far and the purpose of their lives, and how they connect to the story. Behind each character’s shadow Hussain tells the tale of family, love and loss. At the end of each chapter I find myself staring into the space and still thinking about the people that I just read. It was hard for me to move into a voice of another character so soon though I was eager to find out where all these stories will end. It would have been a messy read if someone less talented had constructed this complicated layout, yet Hussain’s simple and captivating writing has remarkably managed to shove us into the lives of these thorny people.

Hussain has a knack for crafting characters and emotional connections that stick in our hearts long after the pages are turned. Sometimes those characters are very familiar and you see yourself in them, or you see someone else that you know, a friend, a family member, or a colleague. They all have good and bad, both within them, they are just imperfect human creatures. Ashamedly I realized that as Idris we all, even myself, encapsulated in our own colorful lives and even though we want to give a little color to those monochrome lives, we are not yet ready to give up even a tiny little shade of color from our lives. But there are people like Nibu and Parwana who look after their loved ones tenderly in their worst situations without expecting anything. It’s heartbreaking to live through the pages of Abdullah and Pari’s separation, Parwana and Massoma’s separation, Sulaiman’s last breath, little Roshi’s tragedy, Iqbal’s timeworn life, and Pari’s reunion with the old senile Abdhullah.

Nila is one of the leading and most appealing, complicated characters in this tale. She is a stereotype of female artists, who is emotionally unstable, attractive, a smoker, and who has a bad taste in men. The journey of Nila’s life seems somewhat very exciting, sometimes it’s heartbreaking, and sometimes it’s so depressing. The idea of mother and daughter dating the same guy was so disturbing though they were not blood related. Because of that Pari became my least favorite character until she got married and had kids. None of these relationships are simple, but Hussain masterly brings out the happiness, frustrations, and the pain of each one of those relationships beautifully.

As always with Hussain, the writing and the characters are rich. At the end of each chapter I find myself wishing to spend little more time with those characters. Even though I love all the chapters and adored every page, I could have done without the stories of Idris, Markos, and Adel, plus I wish there were more pages narrated by Abdhullah. Yet every chapter adds more color and vital links to the story.

This is one of the most beautiful, powerful and emotional book that I have read recently. And the Mountains Echoed is a highly recommended book for all bookworms around the world.

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

“Shades of Milk and Honey is precisely the sort of tale we would expect from Jane Austen, if she lived in a world where magic worked.” This is how the Shades of Milk and Honey is described on the back cover of the book. So I picked this book hoping to dive into a romantic historical fantasy world with deep characters.

The story is about Jane Ellsworth, 28 years old plain woman who is a skilled glamourist with no hope for a marriage due to her plain features. Her younger sister, Melody is gifted with beauty and charm. The two sisters became jealous at each other when they began their hunt for eligible men, especially for Mr. Dunkirk. With the arrival of Mr. Vincent, Jane and her skills of glamour gets more attention which makes Melody unsecured of herself leading to a tragic mistake of love and judgment. Throughout this drama, there is beauty woven into each scene with the touch of magic to enhance the art.

What’s most refreshing about Shades of Milk and Honey is how easily Kowal manages to weave the magic into the familiar setting of Regency England without witches, wizards or black magic. Magic is a craft, a skill to be learned and practice, and it is a normal skill as cooking or sewing, which must be mastered by women to accomplish themselves. There is nothing so special about glamour or magic. It is simply something that use to enhance the art and decorate the upper class lifestyle. It can be used to give a little life to a painting by making the hair move in the wind, or to decorate a dining room, or to produce a beautiful music, or to change someone’s appearance. The magic in this book is simply mystical and beautiful. Apart the fact that magic burns the energy in human body, it is not dangerous at all.

Though the glamour is so charming, the story lacks deep characters, romance, memorable heroes and heroines. Jane is a wonderful, interesting, intelligent character though her self-doubt and the comparison to her sister’s beauty is slightly irritating. I would’ve preferred more words developing the relationship between Jane and Mr. Vincent, and more romance bubbles around them. It would have given more romantic atmosphere to the story. However, Melody reminds me of those girls who has so much beauty and do everything to get in the middle of everyone’s attention using silly dramas despite improving their skills and patience. Mr. Dunkirk is a decent gentlemen, an overprotective brother, and he can be easily manipulated. His sister, Beth, is a dreamy girl who always believes in true love. And Captain Livingston is a villainous gentleman after a handsome dowry. The relationships with these characters are quite predictable and dull. I knew from the start that Captain Livingston cannot be trusted, and the mysterious Mt. Vincent is definitely going to be the better half of Jane.

The comparison between Kowal’s work and Jane Austen’s work is inevitable since Kowal tribute this debut to Jane Austen. The world of Shadow of Milk and Honey is a combination of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma; Nervous mother, worried father, a sense governed elder sister, beautiful and passionate younger sister, secret engagements, rakish villainous gentlemen, sprained ankles, and misunderstandings. But Shades of Milk and Honey lacks the depth characters which we deeply dived in Jane Austen novels as well as heart wrenching, dreamy romance that we still fantasize in Jane Austen Novels. However, attempt to imitate Jane Austen’s style is no easy task and Kowal manages to skillfully duplicate Jane Austen’s style with the dash of magic.

Even though the story lacks a depth plot as well as the characters, it is a charming story that can be enjoyed in the summer light with a “… and they lived happily ever after” ending. Despite the silly attempt to deeply dive into the characters and the plot, I enjoyed the writing, the setting and the simple story. This is a perfect magical, historical fiction to relax in a sunny day with a good cup of coffee.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

“Perfume should tell a story – the story of who you are, who you might be, perhaps even of who you fear becoming… all of these things are possible. It’s a very intimate element of a woman, just like her signature or the sound of her voice. And it conveys feelings and states of being that have no name, no language. Its very ambiguity makes it truer than words because, unlike words, it can’t be manipulated or misunderstood.”

The Perfume Collector is not all about perfumes or the history of perfumes. It’s about two women and their life journey, about their dreams and hopes. With fascinating details about perfumes, the story reveals the beginning, the middle and the end of the life story of Eva D’Orcey. Being married to a loathsome man, Grace Munroe attempts to find her true self. Without her knowledge she takes a huge part in the story of Eva D’Orcey.

Eva is a beautiful, charming and intelligent woman. She has a good sense of finance and business. She is always wonderful and very talented. Grace is more believable character to me with her own flaws. I enjoyed little conversations and scenes between Grace and Monsieur Tissot.

I felt the natural scent of Eva when I was turning the pages towards the end of the book. The descriptions of three perfumes as well as the other perfumes are simply awesome; I could almost smell all those scents. Being a huge admirer of perfumes and scent, the idea of having a special perfume just for myself fascinated me.

The story switches between two timeframes of Eva and Grace. Even though I am not a fan of the dual narrative style, Tessaro managed to articulate this ordinary story evocatively. The plot line is very ordinary and not surprising at all. However, The Perfume Collector is more about the journey than the destination. I knew from the beginning where the story would end up though I enjoyed that journey very much to the end.

Some Quotes from The Perfume Collector;

“We try and fail, like archers who aim for the target but fall short of the mark…When you are older and have swum out into the stream of life, you’ll see — there are no “good” people, little girl. We’re all trying and failing, trying too hard and failing too often. Remember that. We shouldn’t judge too harshly, in the end, the sins of others.”

“Scent memory is incredibly personal, very private experience.”

“Fragrance is an aspiration. A goal. Not just a tool of seduction but of power and status.”

My Rating: 3 out of 5

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

I’m guilty of only buying this book because it revealed the real author behind the pen name, Robert Galbraith, is JK Rowling. Before that I have not heard about this book. As soon as I heard JK Rowling’s new secret book is a detective novel, I paid a visit to a local bookstore and purchased it.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is a murder mystery. Lula Landry, a supermodel, fell to death from her apartment a few months earlier. The police closed the case as suicide because of Lula’s history of drug problems and her fragile mental state. But her brother, John Bristow, doesn’t believe it was a suicide. He hires Cormoran Strike, an ex-military man who is currently a private detective, to investigate the case.

Somehow this book reminds me of a few old mystery novels. Cormoran’s military background and the physical damage from the war remind me of Dr. Watson from Sherlock Holmes. Also Cormoran’s investigation style and the final revelation brought back old memories of Sherlock Holmes stories. Cormoran’s relationship with his temporary solution secretary, Robin Ellacott, hints of a romantic side plot, though she is engaged to another man. Can we expect za za zu between the two in the upcoming sequel?

The mystery itself is ordinary. There wasn’t a “whoa” factor for me at the end of the story. From the beginning of the story I had my suspicions and Cormoran helped me to perceive the mind behind the crime, though I didn’t think much of the precise motive of the crime. There were lots of interviews throughout the story and it marvelously revealed the differences and complexity of characters; their different and conflicting views of the other characters. I really enjoyed those conversations while trying to understand their inner thoughts.

JK Rowling has created realistic, believable characters in this story. They are not perfect; even the hero himself is not a perfect, Hollywood hero type man. Everyone has good and bad faces inside them; pretty, average, and ugly people on the inside as well as on the outside. It is truly impressive how JK Rowling creates these characters with such credibility.

This is a good read with lots of new words and I had to peek into my dictionary more than I used to. I haven’t got any chance to read mysteries recently, but I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes I think the name behind the book might have influenced my opinion of the book. However I tried my best to put my thoughts about this book into words without favoritism.

My Rating: 4 out of 5