Skip to main content

2020, what the reading list looks like

As the books bought list from various people grows -a typical end of the year malaise- I have to admit - any book list usually makes me lose money in a literal sense. In a metaphorical sense, luckily, I have been brought up to believe that books are a great investment and that remains my approach to buying books.

So, this year at this point, this is what my list looks like...Some of these books are in the started (it is tough to not start a book right away no?) mode...

Behind the Cloud - the story of Salesforce - by Marc Benioff. The story of how a new category was created promises to be a fascinating read. Yes, late to the party this one...
Forgotten Indian cities - the story of how the Indus civilization was discovered - by Navanjyot Lahiri. How were Mohenjodaro and Harappa discovered? Who were the people. A story that we dont know about since our history books covered Indus valley civilization in about a chapter while teaching about Aryan Invasion - a story which has now proven to be false...
Lectures on the Ramayana - by VS Srinivasa Sastri. I have read a few chapters and despite the old English, this is a superb read. Requiring a while of reflection on almost all paragraphs the author lovingly takes the reader through various aspects of the Ramayana - nuances which most of us dont know since at the story level these nuggest are skimmed over. This is the writing of a set of lectures; I can only imagine how the lectures might have been.
India, a Sacred Geography - Diane Eck. India, sacred in every place, a land where we worship every mountain, tree and lake and how geography is viewed as sacred.
The signal and the noise - Nate Silver.
Leadership on the Line - Ronald Heifetz. On Adaptive leadership - the plan was to read it slowly, the reading has not happened.

This is just the list of books purchased and unread or partially read. That list will keep on growing through the year...Happy reading


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...
Post a Comment
Read more

Playing to win

This bright green book with a yellow title has always caught my attention, but I had never read it.  Imagine my surprise that when I finally picked it up as part of a preparation for a workshop that it was such a fantastic book. Playing to win by Alan Lafley and Roger Martin is one of those books that is up there when it comes to learning about how strategy can be crafted and implemented in real business. There is much in the book - and unlike other books - this book is really a leaf out of P&G, but with frameworks and models that can be applied anywhere. Image from here . It is these 5 questions played in a loop (well, iteratively) that are the juiciest part of the book and as simple and obvious as they are, it is this place where the strategy play happens. So, yes, simply put a great book to be read by anyone who is anywhere close to strategy...
Post a Comment
Read more