Disclosure

In this world where man dominates everywhere, its difficult to believe that a woman can victimize a man. It's even hard to imagine it being sexual harassment . However Michael shows us how harassment is not a quality of gender but of power.

The novel breaks quite a lot of our pre conceived notions about the world and about the psychology of human beings. This is a book that must be read for the sheer brutal truth.

Disclosure in Google Books
Disclosure in Flipkart
Disclosure in Amazon
Disclosure in Wikipedia
Disclosure in Justbooksclc

Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

Lisbeth Slander's past is revealed in the third and final book of the Millennium Series. The whole book seems like a mystery unfolding and saying anything about the book seems like a spoiler. It certainly is an apt ending to a marvelous story.

Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in Google Books
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in Flipkart
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in Amazon
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in Wikipedia
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in Justbooksclc

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson continues to amaze with the second part of the Millenium Series. While The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo brought Mikael and Lisbeth together , now they face dangers and mysteries that are much bigger than what they had to endure last time. And it gets really personal this time. Lisbeth takes the center stage here and rightly so , after all she is the The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Stieg Larsson continues to keep the focus on violence against women and also gives new insight into the Sweden Security Agencies.

And once this book is read there is only one thing that is more satisfying , reading the next and final book - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

The Girl Who Played With Fire in Google Books
The Girl Who Played With Fire in Flipkart
The Girl Who Played With Fire in Amazon
The Girl Who Played With Fire in Wikipedia
The Girl Who Played With Fire in Justbooksclc

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‎

This is part one of the Millennium Series of Books by Stieg Larsson. The book starts with parallel stories of the life of a journalist and a very unique girl(no prizes for guessing what tattoo she has). And continues into a murder mystery which gets both of them involved.

Stieg Larsson's personal views are very evident in the book. This is an excerpt form Wikipedia

When Larsson was 15 years old, he witnessed the gang rape of a girl, which led to his lifelong abhorrence of violence and abuse against women. His longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson, writes that this incident "marked him for life" in a chapter of her book that describes Larsson as a feminist. The author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, and this inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books.

The plot is based in Sweden and provides an insight into a hidden world within Sweden. As it is claimed that - Everything described in the book is a real life incident that has happened to someone in Sweden.

The violence depicted in the book gets extremely graphic at times, it would be prudent to stay away for those who are disturbed easily , especially by sexual violence.

The novel in itself is very thrilling and leaves the reader waiting to get their hands on the next part of the series - The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Google Books
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Flipkart
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Amazon
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Wikipedia
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Justbooksclc

The Host

I had almost given up reading this book after the first few pages. Nothing made sense as the story begins abruptly, and can be confusing initially. But after that the book turned out to be quite interesting.

The plot is extremely unique , love triangle involving two bodies. It certainly has a good mixture of romance, thrill and bizarre .

The story narration is from the alien's point of view which makes it quite interesting.

The Climax and Anti Climax both were interesting and surprising.

This is certainly a great book from Stephenie.

The Host in Google Books
The Host in Flipkart
The Host in Amazon
The Host in Wikipedia
The Host in Justbooksclc

Long hands of the law

It was just another routine and uneventful day . I was returning home in the preferred transport of the IT industry - office cab, enjoying the boredom with half sleepy eyes, when something happened. It took a few seconds to register in my sleepy brain.

The Cab Driver had jumped a signal right here -


View Larger Map

By now I am very used to cab drivers jumping signals. Naturally my brain was planning to hit snooze, but then I saw a traffic police waiting in the middle of the road and gesturing the cab to pull over in the left.

This gave me a chill, because it meant we'll be losing precious time in the monstrous sea that Bangalore's traffic is. However our law abiding cab driver very sincerely took the left lane and hit the gas pedal. I was left wondering what the traffic police would be doing. I was happy that we'll reach in time, but god had other plans.

We had just reached the next signal, which was considerably far, when I heard a loud shout - oooooyyyyyyy

Then I saw a man with the very popular male-hair-loss-pattern-baldness shouting. He was sitting in the back seat of a scooty, and the scooty was being driven by a thin guy who probably weighted less than half of the scooty. This guy who very comically was waving his hand and shouting was none other than the traffic police we thought we evaded.

As the cab driver realized it, he blurted the English language vowels in south Indian style - aaaaeeeeiiiiooooou

So the cab driver pulls over and gets down anticipating a negotiation. But the traffic police was in a mood to give us more surprises. He enters the cab and asks the cab driver to drive. We all , including the cab driver , were perplexed . Turns out he wanted a lift back to where he was standing. Certainly the scooty driver wasn't his favorite.

Then began our journey back to the scene of the crime. The cab driver paid 200.

Finally we found ourselves waiting in the same signal 20 minutes later that we had jumped to save 2 minutes.

Needless to say we reached home late than usual. However we all can learn a good lesson from this

Don't underestimate the Indian Traffic Police, they may not have SUV's to engage in pursuit, but they have the worlds best speed breakers - Bangalore Traffic.

Special thanks to Madhuraaai for proofreading. I know it was a herculean task.

The Lost World

The Lost World

This is a sequel to the book Jurassic Park. In spite of their best effort in trying to destroy all the dinosaurs from the Islands, Some Survive and thrive in a remote Island. And as always there is some rich crazy guy willing to take the risk.

Unlike the first book there is more of "running around" and "fighting dinos" and less of technical mumbo jumbo. That makes it a very interesting read. While it does have a lot similarities to the previous books in terms of the plot . But overall a great book.

The Lost World in Google Books
The Lost World in Flipkart
The Lost World in Amazon
The Lost World in Wikipedia
The Lost World in Justbooksclc

Young Readers Day

Young Readers Day

Young Readers Day is celebrated on every 2nd Tuesday of November. It was co-founded by Pizza Hut and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. While it is primarily celebrated in the United States of America, it certainly should be promoted in other countries as well.

For children there is no better gift than the gift of books. Books can take you all around the world in 80 pages, back in time, into the future and many more places. Books can be the best friends and a never ending source of inspiration. Someone who has the taste for books needs nothing else in life.  

In today's world of Television and Video Games the Attention Span of children has reduced alarmingly. And many probably wouldn't be able to read a book for long without getting distracted. This is a sad state of affairs and children all over the world must be given an opportunity to enter the world of books.

While its true that a picture tells worth a thousand words , only words can flare a thousand imaginations .

Jurassic park

Jurassic park by Michael Crichton

Most often movies that have been based on books, tend to be a watered down version and hardly seem to be of much interest. So while reading Jurassic park I was hoping to find something that would be better than the movie. 

However there was hardly any difference between the movie and the book. The book thus is as good as the movie. 

I wonder how much of difference it would make for those who read the book first. 

Jurassic Park in Google Books

Jurassic Park in Flipkart

Jurassic Park in Justbooksclc

Jurassic Park in Amazon
Jurassic Park in Wikipedia
Jurassic Park Movie in IMDB

Flipkart

Flipkart.com is the Amazon of India. My friends usually order a lot of things from Flipkart, ranging from headphones to phones. 

I had ordered for 3 books and they reached in 2 days. I had paid for them online.

My friend ordered a phone and he wanted to pay by cash on delivery. It reached him again in 2 days.

I once heard a friend say - I got free home delivery for a pen drive worth 150 bucks.

And flipkart ads are certainly unique like the service they offer.

In fact I frequently see the Flipkart delivery guys in our office with their big backpacks.

No doubt Flipkart has changed the way India shops. 

Google Books

Google Books

This a rather useful service by Google. Presently it offers a way of managing several public and private lists of books, called bookshelf. Google seems to have plans to add the ability to buy books. Currently Google offers some free e books and limited previews for most books.

However Since they have pretty much every book in the planet in their archives, its a great tool for just tracking the books I have read and want to read.

There is also a good number of Reviews, both User and Editorial.

Just Books clc

Someone once said libraries are the custodians of civilization. And we now have some high tech custodians in India.

Just Books clc is a new breed of modern libraries that offers a wide collection of books in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Mysore and Pune. 

While they have more than 20 stores in Bangalore alone, I have been to about 4 of them . There are few things about Just Books that impressed me and continue impressing me.

• The Pricing
• Availability of Books
• Technology

The Pricing

The membership plans are well suited for both voracious and occasional readers. They are actually very economical for the kind of Technology and service Just Books provides.

Availability of Books

There are a lot of books in every store I have been to . And they add new books very easily if a request is placed.

Technology

What makess Just Books different from traditional libraries is the amazing and rather impressive use of technology

The books have Rfid's and every store has a touch screen kiosk which can read the membership card and Rfid's on the books for a very easy issuing and returning of books. The kiosk also allows us to search for books. 

The website can be used for paying for the renewal of membership plans, searching for books etc.

There is another service that needs a special mention. If a book is not available in the store nearest to you but available in some other store, you can place an order to have the book transferred to your nearest store. And the book is reserved for you for a week!! And all this for no extra charge.

There are also membership plans where the books are delivered to your doorsteps.

Just Books simply makes reading a pleasure. 

Terra Nova

TV Series have always been my favourite and when Dinosaurs and Steven Spielberg are added to it, then that takes it to a new level.

Terra Nova is a TV Series revolving around the Shannon family. The Year is 2149 and the world is overpopulated and over polluted, and in the nick of time scientists discover a break in the space time continuum, that is a one way gate to the dinosaur age(with a twist) . And that marks the beginning of a second chance.

In my view the Idea is good but there haven't been enough dinosaurs yet. We need more action stevy. The Mushy romance of the family is not enough.

Lets hope this gets better.