Some books you just have to review!

My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues by Pamela Paul

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I started reading My Life with Bob last week on my flight back to Bombay. I didn’t know what it was about. I thought it was about a library or a girl searching for books. I hadn’t heard of Pamela Paul earlier (yes, shoot me!) and I didn’t know what I was in for. In the Introduction when Pamela introduces BoB and tells us about him I was thrilled. I went back to the first scribbled page and read it again and I was like wow! wish I had kept a book like that. I would know the name of that RL Stine book I read so many years ago whose story I remember so clearly but not the book. There was a phase post Roald Dahl Summer where I read every RL Stine book not Goosebumps but Fear Street and every Sweet Valley High the neighbourhood library had – Funspot. It had a collection of Nancy Drew’s and Hardy Boys as well but I couldn’t get myself to read any of those but I devoured one Fear Street after another and one Sweet Valley High after another. I now realise it was ok to have grown up not reading Enid Blyton. It doesn’t make you less of a reader.

Somehow the book validated me as a reader. Was I looking for validation or was looking to know that I was not alone. Pamela here tells us the story of her life until now through the books she has read, so is it an autobiography, yes it is. It a book about books, yes it is. Do you want to read this book to just note down the books she mentions to keep it for a rainy day when you feel exactly that miserable or that adventurous, hell yes!

I never highlight books but in this one, I couldn’t stop noting paragraphs or just names of books! I guess I’m just having a lucky year. This is literally the fourth book in the year which makes me want to feel so good about having read it. I just feel miserable that I hadn’t read it as soon as it was released or knew about it before!

I’m currently in the phase where I would give up my flourishing enterprise easily if I knew there was someone out there who would pay me to read. Pamela tells me it’s possible to turn your passion into a reality. Yes, there is only one New York Times, and there is only one Pamela Paul, but she gave me hope and that’s why I would cling to this book for my life.

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Starting with why

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you have been motivated to pick this book after hearing Simon Sinek’s inspiring videos, by all means, go ahead, read it and re-read it at a later date and save it as a reference book or simply just download his videos!

After being hooked on to his videos for the last three months, I found the book terribly boring and repetitive. I was hoping for something new, something more all along till he came to his own story. His story is an everyday business guy story, someone you can relate to and learn from and perhaps that’s the only reason why I gave it three stars and not two.

However, if you just want to read about the concept and don’t know who this Simon Sinek guy is – then you have come to right place.

It tells us why we relate to some brands and why not the others, gives examples of business leaders and large corporations who have to stuck to their why to achieve what they have and what are the repercussions when we lose the why and concentrate on just how and what of running a business. It differentiates between being successful and making money and explains how the human brain reacts to different companies.

All in all, an interesting starting point if you feel that you just can’t move forward in your business. Further, a good read for marketers and advertising folks who need to understand why consumers respond to brands the way they do in a simplified way.

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