The Book List

"I vow to review all books that I read this year."
-New Year Resolution 2001.

Well I'm finally working on my New Year's resolution :).

May 22nd 2007
The No Asshole Rule, Robert I Sutton, 186 pages, 2007

An interesting book about people at work, in lie who are rude and overbearing towards other folks.
Mostly deals with workplace bullies. Quick read, big print.
Would recommend .. for a light read. Nothing deep here. But relevant yes.

May 20th 2007
The Long Tail, Chris Anderson 226 pages, 2006

This book has been talked about for sometime now. Anderson's article in 'Wired', with the same name, was one of the most read articles on the net. He also has a blog by that name.
This book essentially talks about how retailers like amazon, itunes, rhapsody and also companies like netflix have changed the game. Customers now have a greater choice and do not have to see,buy,consume what everyone else does ... but things that cater to their tastes.
Sites like netflix have 90% of their 55000 titles rented at least once per quarter, which is really high. the 80:20 rule (80% of the demand is fulfilled by 20% of the product range) is now more like 60:20. The demand for obscure, lesser known songs, DVD's etc .. is high enough to ensure a high revenue even for such niches. This makes the tail longer.

(His last chapter mentions this product http://www.solid-scape.com/t612.html, that converts designs into actual 3-d models. It's really cool :) )



May 9th 2007
Wikinomics - Don Tapscott 2006

A book that discusses Web 2.0 technologies and their impact on the world. Not only the world of business but also how technology helps spread news quickly (London bombings), help people (Hurricane Katrina). Collaboration is the buzz word. Many many people collaborating over the net has resulted in huge benefits for companies .. specially in the areas of medicine, research, pharmaceuticals, even mining.
Discusses how companies like Boeing stay ahead by using technology to communicate with vendors and making them partners and stakeholders in the process and not subordinates.

An interesting book. Could have included a lot more case studies. (difficult to hold interest inbetween and then the book picks up)

March 22 2007
Naked Conversation-How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers.
Robert Scoble/Shel Israel
Published 2006, 232 pages. (credits pages not included)

An interesting book on how companies can use blogs to leverage their image and also help sell. It's more image that selling for companies. For small businesses it's more selling that image.
Microsoft and Sun are positively using blogs. Whereas Google and Apple(surprisingly) are not very open in this area. The book has a rambling, non heavy style.
This book mentiones quite a few companies and how the blogging stratosphere has helped or kicked them. How blogging has created problems and how blogging has helped them resolve issues.
This is good reading, a lot of useful information, good case studies. Would be extremely beneficial if CEO's actually read it, understood the concepts and leveraged employees to blog for the greater common good.

March 27th 2007
In spite of the Gods- The strange rise of modern India
Edward Luce
2007 356 pages

I wasn't sure of what to expect from this book. A lot of books on India are huge exaggerations of what the country is.
This book turned out to be extremely well rounded. The author has travelled the length and breadth of the country and interacted with academicians, civil servants, politicians, government employees, judges, entrepreneurs, policemen, social activists and more folks and presents an interesting picture of a very diverse India. The author has seriously covered a lot of ground here.
Did he actually figure india out?
Not really. India is an extremely complicated country and there's no way that it can be explained in a 356 page book. Readers should keep this is mind while reading the book. ( I was extremely curious to see how the foreign audience would react and so checked the few reviews on Amazon .. but did not get much. My feel(being an Indian) is that there is a lot in the book that is true, but that is not really representative of the India a normal person would encounter on a daily basis. )

Luce has done a good job getting information across, regarding all his encounters. He is bang on when discussing the political machinery, the way parliament works, corruption in political parties, the fact that none of the parties really offer the best option for the voter etc.
He is a little harsh on the RSS. The RSS is essentially an organization that has on its books everyday people who can fight with a wooden staff. Compared to the kind of training that cross border insurgents get, the RSS is an extremely extremely tame organization.

India's infrastructure, better law implementation, HIV/AIDS and the environment are definitely the issues that the country needs to address.

The only topic not covered is CRICKET. There's no way a writer can cover India without discussing cricket and the obsession for the sport.
All in all a nice narrative, makes interesting reading. And like I mentioned before .. India is too complex to be captured in a book :).
The book ends on a very nice note. His last tryst with the little kid is pretty amusing.

Good quotes:
Amar Singh about the press: "They eat my food and then speak ill of me."
Mahatma Gandhi : "The Hindu by nature is a coward and the Muslim a bully."