The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari : Robin Sharma - Agnus Vincent 5026

                 I am writing a review of the book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari' by Robin Sharma,which was published almost 15 years ago.I came to know about this book only during this year.I read this book.It's amazing.I'm lucky to have a platform which helps me to share something useful with as many people as possible.
                 The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari  is a fable about fulfilling your dreams and reaching your destiny.The author is a leadership expert and he fills the book with a combination of mantras for success.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is about the story of  a popular lawyer,Julian Mantle,who had a crazy schedule and setting life around money,power and prestige.He represents the current scenario of our society.The story is in the form of a narrative style,told from Mantle to one of his associates,John.But when Mantle has a heart attack,he drops out of his current living and disappears.He sells all his possessions and went for India to have some spiritual existence.Under the guidance of Sages of Sivana, who lives in Himalayas,he become a changed man - physically,mentally and spiritually.He got a changed body,mind and soul.Really,it's as if he's a completely different person.
When you read,you can see that Sharma comes down to a fairly formulative format - a list of seven principles - to create a life of passion,purpose and peace.The author explains these seven principles through mind capturing stories.These seven timeless virtues for an enlightened life is briefly discussed here :
     1.Master your mind : Learn to focus your                mind and consciously eliminate                      negative thoughts from                                      mind.Accept mistakes as lessons                      and opportunities.
     2.Follow your purpose : Discover and                      then realize the priorities that                          bring lasting fulfillment to your                      life.
     3.Practice Kaizen : Focus on continuous                  self improvement and attain self                      mastery over mind.
     4.Live with discipline : Recognise  the                      relevance of willpower and self                        discipline and nurture it.
     5.Respect your time : Focus on your                          priorities and maintain                                      balance.Live each day like it's your                  last.
     6.Selflessly serve others : Cultivate the                      quality of contribution,sacredness                  and kindness and thus building                        strong relationships.
      7.Embrace the present : Live in the                          now.Never sacrifice happiness for                  the achievement,enjoy each                              moment.
                      These points are easy to absorb and can be applied in one's life.Action points at the end of each chapter summarize the important areas which you should be paying attention for.As the author recommends,if we incorporate these habits in our life,it's sure we can experience a great change.These habits can transform one's lives, helps to achieve his dreams,calm him and make him more happy.
                 In my view,the primary theme of this book is to guide us to live a full and flourishing life.Each of these virtues are discussed in detail in separate chapters.Most of them are inspiring and potentially very useful.
                 If you came to conclusion that happiness is the title in front of your name,then it's the time to reevaluate the definition you have given to life.The biggest lesson from the book is how the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts.
                   We live in a fast paced world where we all wear the busy badge.However,it's important to live like a child and observe and find happiness in every thing.Fill your world with an abundance of positive emotions and that's how will you fee daily.
                     The thought which touched my heart is that,"The only limits on your life are those  that you set yourself". When you dare to get out of your coccon and explore the unknown you start to liberate your true human potential.When you push beyond your limits,you unlock mental and physical reserves that you never thought you have.
                     Likewise,there are so many mind exploiting and thought provoking ideas in this book.It's a fun and easy to read,plus it transmits a strong message for spiritual success.It is  a guidebook to life.



                                       
                                             

Who Moved My Cheese? - Steny Antony 5028

   
                "Who Moved My Cheese ? " by Dr Spencer Johnson is a self-help book on how to adapt to changes in work and life. People are afraid of changes. The book, with its four main characters, tries to represent four typical reactions of people to change.
                The story revolves around Sniff and Scurry, two mice and Hem and Haw, two little men,who live in a maze. They search for cheese spending long hours on it. When they find cheese in a cheese station, they settle down and become arrogant. They establish their routine around the cheese supply. One day, both men and mice find out that their cheese has disappeared. Sniff and Scurry are the first to move on and they start searching around the maze. Soon, they reach cheese station N and find abundant supply of cheese.
               Meanwhile, Hem and Hew are disappointed and angry. Hem asks 'Who moved my cheese ? '. They thought the cheese supply would be constant and when they were suddenly faced with no cheese they could not adapt. But soon Haw suggests to start searching for new cheese but Hem dismisses his suggestion and stay on. They soon start blaming each other for the lack of cheese and Haw once more suggests moving on. The truth is that Hem is afraid of the unknown corners of the maze. They remain without cheese. One day, Haw simply decides to move on and goes into the maze.
               Still in fear Haw writes "What would you do if you weren't afraid? " and ponders over this. Even though he is afraid, he continues his track in search of cheese.  On the way, he gets tiny bits of cheese which nourishes him and helps him to move on. After finding another empty station, Haw returns with bits of cheese to Hem, who refuses them.
             One day, Haw finally reaches cheese station N, where he finds many kinds of cheese. Haw decides not to return to Hem, but let him find his own way.
               In this story, Sniff and Scurry are more practical and they adapt to changes without resistance. They move on and take decisions quickly. But Haw and Hem are lazy and less enthusiastic in searching the cheese when days move on. Later, Haw regains the will to go with the changes and find new cheese.
            "  Who Moved My Cheese?" is a must-read book. It gives us a message which can be applied to our own life. What we could conclude from the book is that we must not waste time on just analyzing and pondering over any changes in our life but to take lead and act. People should cope up with the changes rather than resisting them.

Fault In our Stars- Alphil Maria Joseph 5005

The Fault in Our Stars is the sixth novel  by author John Green, published in January 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, in which the  Cassius says to Brutus: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 

                              In the fault in our stars written by john green,he builds  a story out of darkness and despair.he takes the tragedy of cancer and immerses us in the lives of charecters that couold very well be real.He brings the story in the form aof a teen girl,hazel grace lancaster.

17 year old hazel grace is a victim of cancer.Although a new drug  has given her sufficient amount of time,it hasn’t put her disease into remission.meanwhile her mother  forces her to attend a cancer support group, hoping that she might make a friend. Hazel loathes what she sees as the false optimism of the group, but she attends to keep her mother happy. One afternoon, she meets Augustus. He has been in remission since the doctors amputated his leg, but is attending the meeting as support for his friend Isaac, who has been told that he will soon lose another eye to cancer.

Augustus and Hazel are drawn to each other almost immediately, and Hazel visits his house after  watching a movie. Hazel, an deep reader, tells Augustus about her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, a story about a teenage girl with cancer. Hazel relates herself  to the book's main character, Anna, in every way. Not only does Anna have cancer. The great draw of the book, however, is that it doesn't conclude. The story just ends.Hazel felt all empty with the end.

Hazel surmises that it's to show that Anna became too ill to write, or died. But the ending has always plagued her. She wants to know what happened to the other characters in the book. Augustus promises to read the book and gives her his favorite book in return. It's a novel based on his favorite video game. Augustus and Hazel soon become close friends. Together they help their friend Isaac get through the pain of his girlfriend leaving him and the loss of his sight. After reading An Imperial Affliction, Augustus becomes obsessed with finding the author, Peter Van Houten, so they can know what happened to the other characters.They started the search for the author.

Hazel tries to keep Augustus at a safe distance because she knows she is dying. She considers herself a time bomb and doesn't want to hurt anyone when she explodes. Augustus, however, is committed to Hazel, so much so that he tracks down Van Houten through his assistant's email address. The author responds, which prompts Hazel to write him so she can ask him her questions. Van Houten responds several days later. He regrets to inform Hazel that he won't answer her questions in a letter or such conversation for fear she might try to write a upshot  to his story. He  tells her that if she is ever in Amsterdam, where he now resides, she could visit him.

Several days later, Augustus tells Hazel that he has contacted the Wish Factory, an organization that helps grant the wishes of sick children. They agrees to send Augustus, Hazel and a responsible adult to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten.

Before they can leave on their trip, Hazel's lungs fill with fluid, and she is taken to the hospital. Unconscious for several days, she wakes up in the intensive care unit. But the good news is that Hazel's latest scans show no new tumor growth.. More good news arrives when her doctors give her the OK to fly to Amsterdam.

On the following day of their trip,they took a cab to Van houten’s appartment  but the author didn't know of their coming and doesn't welcome their visit. His assistant, Lidewij, had set the visit up, hoping to persuade her employer out of his self-imposed exile.

Van Houten is rude and aggressive  to the teenagers, refusing to answer their questions for the sheer reason that his characters aren't real. They don't continue to exist after the book is finished. Their story ended with the death of Anna. He has never imagined what happened to them later. He then trivialize them saying that they are only living because others pity them and pay for their treatments.

Augustus and Hazel leave the house angry and upset. Lidewij follows them out, after having resigned her position as Van Houten's assistant. She brings the children to Anne Frank's house and pays for their admission. The house has no elevators, so Hazel must lug her oxygen tank up a pile of stairs. The exhaustion she suffers is worth it as she and Augustus share their first kiss at the end of the exhibit. The other tourists around them cheered.

Hazel and Augustus return to their hotel .After breakfast the following morning,  they go out for a walk where he tells her that his cancer has returned and is attacking every part of his body. They return home where Augustus immediately begins the chemotherapy treatments. Isaac visits and tells them he hasn't heard from his former girlfriend since the operation that took his sight..

Days past and Augustus' health quickly declines. As his death draws closer, he asks Hazel to meet him one night at the church where the support group meets. It is after hours and no one is there but Augustus and Isaac. Augustus wants to hear the eulogies that they will give at his funeral. After hearing them, he dies eight days later.

Hazel is shocked when Peter Van Houten attends Augustus' funeral. She and her parents give him a ride from the grave. He tells Hazel that Augustus wrote to him after they'd left Amsterdam. Because Van Houten still acts odd, Hazel makes him get out of the car.

Several days later, Isaac asks her if Augustus ever gave her the paper he was working on. Hazel gets in her car to drive to Augustus' house and is shocked to find Peter Van Houten in the back seat. She tries to get him to leave, but he insists on riding with her to Augustus' house. Along the way, he tells Hazel about his daughter who died at age 8 of cancer.

Hazel realizes that his daughter's death was the reason he became a miserable alcoholic. She eventually leaves him on the side of the road. Hazel search Augustus' computer, room and house, but can't find anything that he wrote. She eventually figures out that he must have sent something to Van Houten. She writes Lidewij to ask if she saw anything. Lidewij responds the following afternoon after visiting the returned Van Houten and obtaining Augustus' letter.

It is a eulogy for Hazel. Augustus asked Van Houten to take his words and turn them into a worthy essay for Hazel. Van Houten told Lidewij that he could add nothing to Augustus' words. The story ends with Hazel reading Augustus' letter. In it, he speaks of his love for her and the way she lived her life........

  The book thus  inspire a millions through the life of hazel grace....

The Painter Of Signs- R K Narayan (Aseel 5019)

"The Painter Of Signs" is a beautiful book by R K Narayan. R K Narayanan is one of the  Indian writers who wrote beautiful short stories and novels potraying the Indian people. Most of  his stories are based in an imaginary town Malgudi which is situated in South India.  Narayan's short stories have been compared with those of Guy De Maupassant because of his ability to compress a narrative. Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters.

Raman,the painter of signs is a part of the Malgudi town, an imaginary place created by R K Narayan which portraits a typical South-Indian village. He lives with his conservative old aunt.

His life changes when Daisy set set afoot on the Malgudi for conducting birth control campagins in the villages. She enters into contract with Raman for creating  sign boards for her office . Together they travel across Malgudi. Raman travels with Daisy for a 3 day campaign Around The villages for population control messages.  Raman gets attracted by her beauty and eventually falls in love with her.

The story goes on to outline Daisy's complicated past and her eventual admission of a mutual attraction for Raman. The two start spending the nights together, and decide to get married in the "Gandharva" style, the simplest form of marital union. Daisy seems to be unaffected by the relationship though, and tells Raman that she will not change her last name, or house-keep for him

His aunt was not convinced by the fact that he decided to marry out of the cast  ask them and arrange a one way trip to Banaras so that she could spend the  rest of her  life in there. On the day when Daisy was expected to move into his house in Ellaman Street , she changed her mind  realising the that the marriage life would not suit her and it would  put an her independent life.  She decides to leave Malgudi for a three-year family planning initiative in villages all over India.

Like any other of the RK Narayan stories "the painter of signs" is also notable for its simple language. It is a bittersweet novel where at the endthe protagonist is left with nothing but solitude where his wife as well as his aunt leaves him. The story indirectly deals with the characters of women ,both traditional as well as modern and shows  in simple terms the complexity of human relationships and about love and affection.

The Blue Umbrella - Reshma C Raj 5030

The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond is a story about the joy of giving and sharing happiness even in sad moments. Through Binya, Ruskin introduces a sense of kindness among children to get to know.
                           The story is about a simple village girl ,Binya who exchanges her lucky pendant for a blue umbrella which she sees with picknickers. She is from a poor family living with her mother and elder brother ,Bijju in a small hilly village. One day while hearing their cows back home she saw few city people enjoying their picnic. She was fascinated by their way of dressing but soon a blue umbrella catches her attention. On the other hand the city people get attracted by her beauty and the pendant consisting of leopards claw in her neck. Due to her at most desire she exchanges her pendant with the blue umbrella.
                      The blue umbrella is so beautiful that it soon became a topic of conversation among the villagers. They always feel to touch or hold it. Ram Bharosa who runs a small shop was so much envied by the umbrella that he decides to own it at any cost so he extends an offer to Binya which she immediately refused. He was disappointed by her refusal which made him appoint a loyal boy to steal the umbrella from Binya but the boy was caught by Bijju. When the boy reveals Ram Bharosa's name the villagers exclude him and stop purchasing from his shop. As a result Ram suffer loss.Binya feels sad about his condition and donates her umbrella to Ram. In return Ram gifts her pendant with a bear's claw which is considered even luckier than of leopards.
                  The story ends with the message that not everything you can get from desire. If you are truthful and always keeps a smile on your face everything will happen good and all problems will solve automatically.

The witch of Portobello-Thara Charly 5011

I was in a total fix with task of posting a review in our class blog. I spent days contemplating and searching,rather recollecting the name of any one book I had read recently. Just the day before the deadline,the witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho popped up in my mind. So here it goes.

To begin with Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist,novelist and the author of the international bestseller The Alchemist. The book The Witch of Portobello is the story about Athena,a striking, energetic, fearless young woman who follows the voice of her heart.

The book is not a straight biography or the opinion of the writer on the main protagonist. Rather it is a compilation of various anecdotes that the writer  collected or came over about the protagonist from people who were acquaintaned or associated with her.

As the book begins,Athena ,the protagonist is dead. How she ended up that way,the intrigue to know that sustains the book. Sherine Khalil,better known as Athena,was born in Romania and was adopted by a family from Beirut. She was much loved and much wanted  daughter who grew on wisdom and beauty. From childhood itself she had a strong religious vocation and knew the gospel by heart. With the outbreak of war,her family moved from Beirut to London.

She received the best of education that she left before completing; got married and divorced with a son in twenty; left the Church, on which she had deep faith from her childhood, after it forbade her from receiving sacrament, due to her divorce; a good job in a bank what she left when she was being just more than successful; took the job of selling land in dessert and left that too when she was earning more than enough, a successful Journalist, whom she left, who was ready to leave everything to love her. Her aim was to find the meaning of life.

According to the author,there are four archetypes of women who search for meaning to their lives or for the path of knowledge

The Virgin (not the sexual virgin): One whose search springs from her complete independence and everything she learns is the fruit of her ability to face challenges alone.

The Martyr: The one who finds her way to self-knowledge through pain, surrender and suffering.

The Saint: The one who finds her true reason for living in unconditional love and in her ability to give without asking anything in return.

The Witch: The one who justifies her existence by going in search of complete and limitless pleasure.

Athena was all four at once but the witch dominated her the most.

Athena was not content. She felt that there were blank spaces in her life just like the spaces that exists between each word. Those blank spaces give meaning to everything. She tried to understand those blank spaces by pursuing music,dance and calligraphy. When she felt that they are not enough to make her content,she went in search of her birthmother.

She kept constantly destroying and rebuilding herself. Everything in her life had followed the same pattern: from lost to found; from divorce to new love; from working in a bank to selling real estate in the desert. There was only one thing which remained intact, that was her son. He was the only connecting thread.

Nothing could contend her restless soul; nothing could bring her peace of mind, neither even reaching Vertex through dancing or calligraphy. And finally she went to teach people something she didn’t know, that’s when she was bringing the soul to the surface, and speaking what the eternity, depicted as ‘the Mother’ in the book, wants to reveal through her.

Athena was bringing to the surface the immensely rich world we carry in our souls, without realizing that people aren’t yet ready to accept their own powers. That’s why the writer describes her as a woman of twenty-second century living in the twenty-first, and making no secret of the fact either. That was her biggest problem.

The book talks about free love, a river which overflows its banks, which is above all the concept we associate with love, like desire, possession or betray.

“Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is and end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant and rank”

That’s the path the Witch of Portobello was following throughout her life, until she was brutally murdered.

IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE – GOKUL GOPINATH (5057)

IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE – GOKUL GOPINATH (5057)

 This beautiful book of George Stephen SJ  brings you heart warming stories from the lives of simple, ordinary people. No one ever thought their lives could make much of a difference. And yet these stories show how they have touched other lives and made a great difference as they respond to people and situations with a caring and loving heart. Fr George Stephen ,once a dedicated professor of mathematics, he shifted to family ministry and retreat ministry. His extensive experience in the ministry led to the publication of his first book.

                                      Indeed these stories are a trove of simple  acts of human kindness and compassion which will certainly infect you as you read on and make of you a more humane person. The heroes in this book have themselves been transformed through their act of kindness to others. In fact, as the author puts it, “these people have become part of the whole transformative process.  By these simple acts of kindness, their belief in themselves, in their innate goodness ad in their own capacity has grown. In a  word, by giving life they have become more alive and more human; by becoming more human, they have partaken blissfully in the cup of the divine. The people in the narratives of this present book are simple people who others thought would not make a difference by their lives. They are people which the author came across during his ministry life . They are ordinary people who went about doing ordinary things. But the manner in which they perceived people and things, the way they responded with caring and gentle heart, has made all the difference.