BOOK REVIEW- " THE MAGIC" - Athira prasad (5021)

"THE MAGIC" by Rhonda Byrne is truly a magical book.                                                  This book is inspired from the documentary movie "THE SECRET" .This book basically says about only one word that is "gratitude"                                      it is a light- hearted, fun, and enlightening book that will make you feel positive.I recommend this book to anyone who feel lost in life- whether its work, love, self image whatever. This book aims to help everyone, no matter how ' bad' life is, to see the good in things. Ideally the book suggests that for best results you need to follow the tasks in order(from 1 to 28)over consecutive days in order to make gratitude a habit.  The first task that you learn that is required every day is 'counting your blessings' where you write 10 things about your life that you are grateful for. They can be anything from the roof over your head, to the people around you who love and support you. As you go through the book, you'll find plenty of things to be grateful for and will notice the small details such as the beauty of nature around you and the little things that make you smile.The first twelve practices are designed to use the power of gratitude to be grateful for what you have now and what you've received in the past. The next ten practices are aimed at using the power of gratitude for what you desire, dream about and all the things you want. I found this book a pure delight to read and it really made me feel so good. It helped me to identify the good that came from each experience, and see how they had shaped my character and personality.

The Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwartz. Sreelakshmi S -5065

Before I give the review, let me first introduce the author of the book. David J Schwartz (March 23,1927- December 6,1987) was an American motivational writer and coach best known for authoring The Magic of Thinking Big in 1959. He was a professor at Georgia State University. Millions of people throughout the world have improved their lives by reading the books by David J Schwartz ,long regarded as one of the foremost experts on motivation, whose teachings will help you sell better, manage better, earn more money, and—most important of all—find greater happiness and peace of mind. Schwartz argues that the major thing holding people back is the relative smallness of their thoughts, and explains the importance of thinking positively towards oneself. He begins the book by relating the story of a salesman who sells significantly more product and makes more money than his co-workers. He points out that the man was not smarter, more educated or better connected than his colleagues. According to Schwartz, the man expected to sell more so he did. Another important idea that Schwartz reminds us through his book is to see what can be, not just what is. He explains that visualization adds value to everything and thinking big means training oneself to see not just what is , but what can be. The next message he gives in his book is necessity of broadcasting good news. He says transmitting good news is win win , and we feel better and so do the people we are talking to. In this book, David J Schwartz , the author , talks about making an attitude. This book is indeed a classic motivational and self help book. As one reads each chapter, the reader gains an understanding of each chapter topic along with a brief excerpt of from the author’s personal life. He also describes three failure diseases: excuse-it is, detail-it is, and procrastination. This book builds an individual’s confidence, mentality, vision of life and ultimately the ability to think big introspectively and extrospectively. In short, making better decisions and avoiding negative thoughts are benefits of reading this book.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto:

A tale which transcends you to the real in the unreal, or is it the other way?Ramshankar.M.V
                                              5009

“Everyone joins a band. We may not think we do, but we do. Somebody plays the lead. Somebody is the rhythm. Somebody holds down the beat. Somebody gets to solo and go all over the place, while the other person gets stuck playing the chords. That’s pretty much how it’s in a family. That’s how it’s in the army. That’s how it is in a workplace. Everybody has a role that they play.”

The theory of life, entwined with music, fantasy, history and adorned with a blend of inspiration – The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto written by Mitchell David Albom a.k.a Mitch Albom cannot be better described. Another bestseller from the author of ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ and ‘Five people you meet in heaven’ and many others, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto did not fail to lift the souls with the soothing notes of music and live up to the expectations of the millions of readers.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, is the story of Frankie Presto the greatest guitarist the world has ever seen. The narration reminds the readers of Book Thief by Markus Zusak. While the story of the book thief is told by the death, the protagonist in The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is a less scary and more lovable character, the music. The voice of music takes us through the birth, life, disappearance, and the final appearance of Frankie Presto.

The life of Frankie Presto is laden with mystery. Born in a burning church during the Spanish Civil War, Frankie was devoid, even of the right to cry out loud. He kept his silence and listened to Lagrima, the song by Francisco Tarrega, his namesake, hummed to him by his mother. His birth, though in the midst of chaos and cruelty, was shielded in the beautiful melody sung by his mother. And with his birth, he also grabbed a huge chunk of music and that’s how Frankie became the most gifted musician on Earth.

From thence, his life was a string of mysterious and miraculous events all the same. Abandoned as an infant, and raised by a music teacher, Frankie’s life was anything but a walk on a bed of roses. As music his life had its highs and lows.
But the greatest mystery of all was his power to affect lives. Frankie did not possess this gift from birth. It was in one of the miraculous events in his life that this gift was passed on to Frankie who was then a young boy.

During the civil war, as the musicians and artists were targeted, tormented and murdered by the military, Frankie was forced to depart from his homeland and bid adieu to El Maestro who took care of him and walked him through the world of music. As a parting gift, El Maestro gave him an acoustic guitar, with six precious strings. And it was these strings, which gave Frankie the power to affect the lives of people. Neither the master, nor the little boy knew its power then.

The journey he started took him to several places and everywhere he joined a band. The voice of music reminds us that he had joined over three hundred bands in his life time. It was just a matter of time until he rose to fame. And gradually he realized the power of his magic strings. And with these strings he changed the lives of five people including Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Carole King, Wynton Marsalis and even KISS until he mysteriously disappears.
He reappears after decades for one last performance, to affect one last life and then leaves this world while on stage leaving the world yet again in mystery.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is a blend of history, fiction and fantasy. The life of Frankie Presto is intertwined with the 20th century music world and the author has very well linked the character with the greatest musicians and bands of the time. It weaves him through the world of Jazz, Country and Rock and roll music and sure immerses the reader in these worlds. It leaves the reader in awe and wonder and transcend him to an unreal world in the real. It sometimes makes him question his sense of reality.

The character of Frankie Presto is so well written that his tale and turmoil will never feel questionable to the readers. This name, though not found in any pages of history, will sure be etched in the hearts of every one who reads this book as the greatest guitarist of all time.

But The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto can never be regarded as a mere account of the music world of 20th century. It is a tale of life and it imbibes in the reader a desire to live his life to spread happiness and be of service in every moment of his life. The sufferings that Frankie had to undergo during his years on Earth and the pain he endured will never fail to create a welling in the hearts and eyes of anyone who reads it.

It has been reviewed as a Forrest Gump-like tale and it sure is. The book constantly reminds the readers that there is always an oasis waiting to be discovered even in the most arid deserts, that there is always a bit of happiness even in the saddest of moments and that there is always hope even in the deepest pit of despair.

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is one of Mitch Albom’s most well- written novel. With lots of plot twists and surprising turn of events and breath-taking revelations, Mitch Albom was successful in keeping the readers at the edge. The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, with history, fiction, fantasy and motivation is one of the well written novels of the decade and a celebration to all who loves reading.

Book review Q & A (Slumdog Millionaire)

FEBIN JOY (5031)

 Q & A (Slumdog Millionaire) 

 In Q & A , Ram Mohammad Thomas tells the story of his life and all its ups and downs. He's just eighteen, and yet he has experienced one hell of a roller-coaster ride of a life, its fast and abrupt falls and rises leaving the reader dizzy and whiplashed. Swarup is relentless, too: he never eases up on the pace or the back and forth between good and bad fortune. In many ways the book is like one long retch, with those brief deceptive periods of comforting calm between otherwise unstoppable flows.
       Framing the story is Ram's greatest triumph: he participated in an Indian TV quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion ? (also known as W3B) -- and, despite being an uneducated waiter, became the first contestant to answer all twelve questions correctly and take the prize. At the beginning of the book he is arrested for this grand feat, the television producers charging that he must have cheated and that they shouldn't have to pay up. Tortured by the police, he gets a reprieve when a lawyer is willing to at least listen to his side of the story, demanding to hear the full story of how Ram could have answered all these questions. By telling episodes from his life Ram slowly reveals what he has experienced -- and, incidentally, how he came to know the answers to these particular questions.
       It's not a bad framing device, and for the most part it works surprisingly well. Some of the larger ideas in the novel -- all the way down to a dramatic final showdown over the last question -- also work quite well (and should make for a decent film version). What works less well is Ram's teeming life story: all of Dickens' books put together don't seem to contain this much misery, evil, heartbreak, retribution, and reversals (and re-reversals) of fortune. Ram isn't merely orphaned once, but several times. He has to fend for himself from a relatively early age, and every time he seems to have found a place where he is safe catastrophe strikes. From the spectacular murder-suicide of the priest who had raised him as a young child to his going to work for someone he discovers is a contract killer, there's blood and gore and danger everywhere.
       This is a book full of murders, with a couple of suicides thrown in for good measure too -- as well as additional horrific demises (death by rabies !) -- not to mention sexual violations galore, the intentional maiming of children, theft, corruption, international espionage, all -- except the last -- in numerous (it sometimes seems: countless) variations. There's also one very lucky coin ..... Ram makes some good friends and (inevitably) falls in love with a prostitute and he tries to do good and sometimes winds up doing bad (there's quite a bit of blood dripping from his hands too, by the end).
       There are many scenes from the life of the poor and their particular hard lives (the lives of the rich he encounters are hard too, just differently) and Swarup introduces all sorts of characters suffering all sorts of Indian fates. Unfortunately, the book is almost all a blur, as he only quickly recounts the stories (or rather: miseries), before hurrying off to the next episode. This book skims the surface (adroitly -- it stays afloat) and doesn't ponder any depths, murky or clear. There's some fun in all this, but it wears a bit thin after a while too. Swarup is creative in his invention, but the book is more a cartoon than anything resembling a novel.
       Swarup gamely plows ahead -- and ahead and ahead, all the way to ... well, we won't give it away, but you can guess how most things turn out. His narrator is only eighteen years old, and Swarup doesn't offer a fully convincing voice, but it's adequate for his purposes. Q & A is readable, and on some level quite entertaining -- but it's too eager and too simple and ultimately only a throwaway read.

BOOK REVIEW- Alice In Wonderland

ANANTHU RAJAN(5033)

 

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most famous children’s books ever written. It became a success from the moment it was published, in 1865. Since then, it has been translated in 80 languages, adapted for theatre, television, and today it is one of the most quoted works in English literature.

This book was written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under his pen name: Lewis Carroll. He was a man of many interests including mathematics, logic, astronomy, and philosophy.

Born in 1832, he went to college in Oxford and contributed to various papers by writing and drawing. He then taught mathematics at college while pursuing his work at The Comic Times. Author of several mathematics treaties, he also wrote novels

The text doesn’t really have a thread but is more a series of strange encounters like in a dream.

It is the story of a young girl named Alice. As she is sitting on the riverbank of the Thames, she sees a white rabbit with a waistcoat that is talking to itself, pass by. Alice follows it out of curiosity until she enters a rabbit-hole and starts falling down slowly. When the little girl eventually lands, she is in a room with a table and a key on it. A little door leads into a wonderful garden. But it is so small she can’t go through.

She then notices a small bottle labeled “Drink me” on the table. Alice drinks it and becomes very small. But she forgot to open the door and cannot reach the key. She now eats a cake labeled “eat me” and become very big. As she is confused she cries and then tries to cool herself with the white rabbit’s fan. She soon shrinks so much she is forced to swim in her own tears. She then meets other animals and gets out of the water. The Mouse wants to tell a dry story in order to dry but the Dodo suggests a caucus-race.

When she is dry, Alice enters the garden. She goes to a house and drinks from a bottle, making her grow again. She is so big she cannot get out and all the animals gather to make her leave. They throw pebbles at her, which are in fact pieces of cake. She eats one and shrinks again.

She runs from the house into the wood and meets a huge puppy and later the Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom and smoking a hookah. The caterpillar tells her that eating one side or the mushroom will make her either shrink or grow.

Then she finds a cottage where a Fish-Footman delivers an invitation from the Queen to play croquet to a Frog-Footman. She enters and meets the Duchess in the kitchen with her baby. A cook is making a soup and is putting a lot of pepper making the air unbearable. The baby is crying so Alice takes it outside where it changes into a piglet. She leaves him and runs into the woods until she comes upon the Cheshire cat, a grinning, but mysterious animal. He doesn’t appear all at once, and his grin is the first thing Alice sees.

Alice goes on until she meets the mad Hatter and the March Hare, who are having a tea party with a sleeping Dormouse. Alice finds them confusing because they ask riddles to which there is no answer and pretend that there is no room for her whereas there is.

Suddenly, she finds herself in the room where she landed. She uses a piece of mushroom to grow there right size and enters the garden where the Queen is having a croquet game with flamingoes for sticks and hedgehogs for holes. Alice is invited to play. The Queen orders anyone who disagrees with her to be beheaded. Alice finishes the game and is the only one not to be sentenced.

The Queens then asks a Gryphon to take Alice to the Mock Turtle in order to hear its story. The Turtle tells Alice about the time when she was at school and learned subjects like ‘reeling, ‘writhing’ or ‘fainting’. Then Alice, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle dance a Lobster Quadrille.

Next they attend a trial, where the King, assisted by the White Rabbit, tries to find who has stolen some tarts. Alice starts growing and tips over the jury box. The Queen asks to sentence the accused now and to hear the verdict later. Alice protests and is sentenced. She replies to her that nobody cares and that they are just a pack of cards. The cards start jumping at her face and that is the moment when she wakes up from her dream.

Alice in Wonderland was written for children. It is a humorous fantasy novel about a child’s dream world with strange people and animals. The language used is simple and the book contains drawings to make it fun to read. The reader sees Wonderland through Alice’s perspective and listens to her inner-monologues. In addition, the book is divided into episodes and stories.

Finally, Alice in Wonderland was written in a very unusual way. The author used “nonsense verses”, a process of treating logic in an ironic way. It was done by playing strange word games with apparently no signification, presenting absurd rhymes, and asking riddles that had no answer. For instance, many of the names of characters are word games (the Cheshire cat, the March Hare…). Moreover Carroll likes to invent neologisms such as ‘uglification’ or ‘muchness’. They create a singular atmosphere in the book.

BOOK REVIEW-The Alchemist (novel)

RENSON TOMY(5015)

 

This is the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy who dreams of traveling the world and discovering treasures, and is courageous enough to walk in the direction of his desires. In order to realize the best that his destiny has to offer, he travels from his home in Spain, through the markets of Tangiers, and into the great Egyptian desert. He gets duped, experiences love, loses and makes money, learns a different language, meets different people, finds himself in pleasant and not-so- pleasant situations. His journey is full of adventure and lessons, while he also finds the privilege of meeting a king, a desert woman and an alchemist, each adding to his life new turns and perceptions.


   The book emphasizes the values of spirituality, faith, hope and love through symbolic narration of a fascinating story of an ordinary boy with extra-ordinary beliefs. It teaches its readers, in a very subtle and effective way, the power of positivity. Also, the desert locations that the book encompasses lend a greater mystique to the plot.


    One thing, according to me, that the World definitely needs the most now is positivity. I’m glad this book is a bestseller because it instills positivity into its readers. The book says that “to realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation”. It not just ‘says’, it makes you believe! I have never been to a desert, but the narrative is so strong that I actually experienced being in the midst of a vast desert. The author not only gives a factual description of the scene, but describes also the feelings and emotions vividly. 

I felt the same rush of emotions through me. The narrative is fast paced in the beginning, but slows down towards the middle with sudden twists leading to thrilling portions towards the end. Honestly, I didn’t know how to react at the conclusion of the book. At first it seemed as if the conclusion had disappointed me, but then, after a few moments of thoughts, I realized that the book managed to solve its purpose to make the reader understand that having faith in your destiny can actually lead you to realizing it. Now I think twice before cursing my destiny. There is always a bigger plan that we fail to comprehend.

BOOK REVIEW OF PRACTICAL WISDOM BY KOCHOUSEPH THOMAS CHITTILAPPILLY

                                                                

              POORNASREE HARIDAS(5016)

Practical Wisdom is a book written by the leading industrialist and the educated businessman in Kerala, Shri. Kochouseph Thomas Chittilappilly. He is also entitled as a writer, a philanthropist and a humanist because of his extraordinary services towards the people in the society. He founded V-Guard Industries having only two employees in the beginning stages of his venture. The unit manufactures electronic voltage stabilizers. Presently there are around 500 distributors, 3000 dealers and 20,000 detailers with a network of service centers across India. They produce electric pumps, electric motors, electric water heaters, solar water heaters, wire cables, ceiling fans and UPS. Currently he is the Chairman of V-Guard Industries Ltd and a chain of amusement parks called Wonder runs K. Chittilappilly foundation, a non profit organization founded by him.The book Practical Wisdom is a great inspiration and a career guide with enough motivation for the new budding entrepreneurs, aspiring managers, upcoming businessmen and students. The book is educative with a number of real life stories and examples. Well prepared, organized and presented contents for the readers. The chapters imply that an average human can make big achievements with consistent hard work, being wise and learning through one's experiences. The book is simple to read and understand. The genuine qualities necessary to succeed is revealed through the example of Kochuouseph Chittilappilly. Currently, India is traversing an age of entrepreneurs. So, the book covers a great deal to get the direction necessary for being successful and happy in our lives. The book gives the importance for practical wisdom in real life and management. 

                                 The different chapters of the book include positive thinking, self-confidence, delegation, thoughts, character, happiness, emotional intelligence, attitude, trust, survival of the fittest, discipline, etiquette, liberalization, brand name, brand building, self-esteem, duties, perseverance etc. He has received many awards. Among them, is the Rashtriya Samman for highest tax payer, awarded by the Government of India. He was also rated best taxpayer in Kerala thrice, and was voted Millennium Businessman of Kerala by Business Deepika. In the book it is written, 'l would like to be remembered by the coming generations in this manner, "There once lived a man who always thought differently " '