Saturday, March 30, 2013

Book Review for BlogAdda: Words to inspire the winner in YOU by Dr. Roopleen

Well.. first of all, my gratitude goes to BlogAdda for providing me this opportunity to review the book Words to Inspire the winner in Your by Dr. Roopleen


Background: 


About the book: 

We all aspire to achieve our goals and fulfil our dreams. But working towards goals is not easy. Enroute to success you will encounter hurdles, obstacles and rough patches. The down times can get really down and dishearten you

Setbacks and disappointments are an integral part of life- there is no escaping them. While you cannot change your circumstances or bypass the hurdles, you can brace yourself up against the difficult times by maintaining a positive frame of mind and being determined to keep going against all odds.

When the going gets tough and you are overwhelmed by the rough times, all you need is something to encourage you and keep you going. Words to inspire the winner in you will do exactly that. This collection of author’s original motivational quotes will lift up your spirits, inspire you and put you back on track.


Concept:

The book is written as a work of several motivational quotes encountered and lived upon by the author in her part-time career as a motivational counselor and speaker. The book goes on word by word basis, starting with word (alphabetically) and then uses that word as a power narrative to speak out various quotes on life and success. 

Since anybody and everybody falls to negative energy around him (in the form of obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments) at some time in his/her life, demoralizing one to distract from his chosen path of success and offering a loss of momentum to his efforts to lead a happy and successful life, this book offers a daily dose of numerous quotes to power up one's energy and belief that he CAN achieve whatever he wishes and dreams. That achieving our goals and fulfilling our dreams is a handy task but only when met by renewed optimism, and reading a random quote daily is worth a shot towards it.

Pepped up as motivational boosters to the dejected soul, these words offer the reader a way to rejuvenate his efforts towards leading a successful life.


Likes: 

So many powerful quotes in a single book

Quotes presented on Word-to-Word basis powerfully

Liked quite a few quotes; to share a few:

The decision to begin is half the task done; the determination to complete it, no matter what, is the other half.
Life is too short not to do things that your heart desires of and your soul yearns.
Concern is not enough, you must care. Compassion is not enough, you must share.
Celebrate every achievement - big or small. It will go a long way in boosting your self-confidence and enhance your self-esteem
If you look hard enough and long enough, you will find something positive in everything 
 
Dislikes:

Monotonicity of the book and overdose of quotes, quite literally

Some quotes are just plain words, with no deep meaning; or are just same idea wrapped around in different word combinations



Overall, I would say this book is for those who wish to bring about a positive change in their attitude towards life and success in their daily lives. On the other hand, it is just like a first aid box to every burnt out soul out there.

My rating: 3 stars out of 5 :)

Note: This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Book Review for BlogAdda: F?@K KNOWS by Shailendra Singh


Well.. first of all, my gratitude goes to BlogAdda for providing me this opportunity to review this peculiarly-named book, F?@k Knows by Shailendra Singh.

Background:

As the back cover of the novel proclaims -- 

What do you want from life? Are you on the right track? Are you truly happy? If your answer to these questions is ‘F?@k knows!’, then this book is for you. Find the answers to life’s most important questions with the help of uber-successful entrepreneur, Shailendra Singh, co-founder of Percept and inceptor of Sunburn. Told with sparkling, flavourful and in-your-face humour, this book will advise you on how to:

Find yourself (Because you’re probably lost. Admit it.)
Follow your heart (Because if you don’t then you’ll die unhappy, you stupid f?@ker.)
Achieve your goals (You know you want to.)
Live life like you give a f?@k (Because…why not?) 

Candid and thoughtful, F?@k Knows will show you how to really live life on your own terms, to do what you want to do and not what you have to do just because your father said so!


Concept: 

The book is, primarily, a self-help book written in the first person; part-autobiography and part-philosophy_of_life. As the book begins, it comes out that the author, who is a Bollywood writer/producer and MD of his popular entertainment company, Percept Pictures, used to take his life for granted before writing this book. His whole life he did what his father wanted him to do/be. It's not like that he dislikes his father due to that, rather the latter has been his mentor whole life. But the point being told is - He was led to live his father's life under his own skin. He never got the gist and need of living a life on his own terms.

But everything changes for him when he shockingly suffers a near-fatal cardiac arrest. He has a dream of meeting his father in the heavenly clouds and when he asks him certain questions regarding his life, the answer in reply always is F?@k knows. That's the origin of the title of the book.

Written in a very casual and easy-to-understand style for today's Gen-X and Gen-Y generations, it basically drools over the fact that we have got a single life to live and nothing else. Now how to live! Do we even care about our living from the inner perspectives of heart, body, mind, and spirit. How to be happy? Being happy is not just smiling over once in a while and get dipped in the loads of daily activities without being sad/depressive; if this state is not sad, then it's not being happy also. It's just neutral, like carrying our lives because we are breathing. No! that's not the way.... Be Happy, Follow your Heart and how to do that, this book teaches in quite a strange but understanding manner.


Likes:

I liked few of his ideas about healthy living, happy living. About giving priority to your life first but in an optimistic perspective.

Author's own life story merged with the teachings and other examples in, more or less, every chapter

Compilation of F?@k It list

Chi F?@k Po is a nice tutorial for filtering out negatives and only digest over what heart agrees.

The mentality to be developed of 'Just Done It' instead of 'Just Do It'

The book gets geometrically more interesting after 2/3rd of its reading is done. Life values take a higher place. I, individually, very very much liked the way he has handled the point of F?@*ing v/s love-making. Kudos to him for that!

Liked the way in which author has evolved himself in life after he realized life is very short. He resumed his cricketing, wrote a book, that's pretty much impressive.


Dislikes:

So much overuse of the word F?@k. I understand this word has got several different meanings other than the most usual one, but still I found it very much un-classy to use it in almost every second paragraph, every page.

Initial chapters drag too slow and not-very-interesting while reading

Free usage of direct slangs/cuss words sometimes

His irritating methods of Chi F?@k. 


Overall, I won't say this book is for everyone. Only those who are willing to take control of life in their own hands and propel it according to their gut feeling, and reading about that in a f?@king manner, should take it in hand. Or else, you may not like it at all. Author's own lessons of life become your lessons while reading, and this is the gravity of the book, it's most important essence. So, grab a copy and change your life in as-it-is-proclaimed Shailendra Singh's way.

My rating: 3 stars out of 5 :)

Note: This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!