Tagline: A process of ongoing improvement.

The Goal was not on my reading list. However, it was lying around in the house and I decided to go ahead with it. The size of this book was very uninviting and from all the text on the covers and in the intro pages, I thought that I’d be better off reading this book during or after my MBA even though it seemed like a best-seller. However, once I started to read I realized that this whole “Theory of constraints” thing is actually presented in the form of a story which is very easy to grasp.

About the Author

Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt is an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems, and acts as an educator to many of the world’s corporations. He is the originator of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and his ideas have revolutionized the way companies work.

In addition to his pioneering work in manufacturing management, he holds patents in other areas, ranging from medical devices to temperature sensors. Other books from Goldratt, on this topic, are It’s Not Luck, Critical Chain and Necessary But Not Sufficient.

The Goal

Plainly speaking The Goal is a book on Theory of Constraints. However along with the message, another important side to this book is the method the author has adopted to deliver the message. The Goal is actually the story (probably fictitious) of a plant manager by name Alex Rogo who manages a plant that is unable to ship any of its orders on time and is also loosing money for its division. In addition, Alex has a messed-up personal life due to frequent fights with his wife.

Alex is given a deadline to make the plant profitable (failing which it will be closed). He desperately wants to save his plant and in the process he meets his university professor and acquaintance (from college days), Jonah (which I think is characterizing Goldratt because both have a degree in Physics from Israel). Alex’s interactions with Jonah show him the right path. Jonah is a kind of teacher who encourages his students to discover answers on their own and he does that same with Alex (regarding the problem with his plant). Through Alex’s process of discovery the author explains the theory of constraints is a very simple manner. I was particularly impressed by the use of simple yet powerful example of boys marching in a line. The author through Alex’s discussions with his co-workers also highlights the short comings of cost-accounting where inventory is viewed as an asset on the balance sheet and the blind emphasis of management to cut costs wherever possible (which many times leads to death of sick business units that could have been turned around).

Conclusion

Services have become the fad of today and it is amazing to think about the application of TOC to the Services scenario (though I need to grow-up a little more to think about it in detail). With the advent of Globalization 3.0 (in terms of Thomas Friedman) and the ability of a business to break up a process, digitize it and outsource it to various parts of the world where they can be done (for cheapest price and best quality) simultaneously and delivered back in one piece to the HQ control, the relevance of this theory is questionable. However, I am sure that it still has a lot of implications on supply chains where constraints or bottlenecks may exist (again I need to learn a lot more to think in detail).

In one of the management fests I had participated in during my college days, I had taken part in a production game where there was a production line with different work centers. The performance of the participants was measured in terms of their ability to meet customer demands and have least inventories and turn-around times at the end of the game. Had I read this book back then, before that event, I am sure I would have done much better than the third spot out of fifth that I had got in that event.

Tagline: How little things can make a big difference

I was looking forward to reading books by Malcolm Gladwell and finally got my hands on The Tipping Point. It is not a very big book and I managed to finish it in three days, reading only in my free time. Most of you might be aware that The Tipping Point is popular bestseller and a highly appreciated book. I am glad I was able to take time off to read this one.

About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell covered business, science and medicine for the Washington Post before becoming the New York City bureau chief. Currently he is a staff writer for the New Yorker. He has also authored another popular book by name Blink

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a book in which the author tries to explain why certain things happen the way they do. In the numerous examples that he explores, he shows that for a big-time change to occur, very minor change (involving the right set of numbers) tends to be the cause. For example, Fashion changes regularly and lots of trends become a craze with the masses which the author calls social epidemics. This book analyses such fashion trends and how they came out of nowhere to become a social epidemic. In addition, it gives a general basis for why and how such things occur and the key players in the process.

The author incorporates data from a number of research reports by various professionals to provide a solid basis for his analysis model and with seemingly flawless knack for generalization uses the same model over and over to analyze a wide variety of problems like the rise and fall of crime in the New York city, the problems of corporate management and governance, trends in suicides and effect of celebrity suicides, truth about addiction to smoking.

This book clearly provides a scientific basis for the kind of solutions that we might discover by trial and error and convert it to convention wisdom. The author shows how making seemingly unnecessary changes in the way information is presented can make it more useful and productive by leaps and bounds.

One thing particularly fascinating about this book is the huge number of sources from which the author draws out raw information, converts it into simple language and puts it in front of his readers. The number of examples, varying from individuals to corporations, is very good and well placed.

While reading the chapter on suicides, I was able to think of similar situations that had happened in India in the not so distant past. Once there was a case of a child committing suicide because he was frustrated with academics and felt overwhelmed by studies during his examinations. Once the news of the suicide and the reason for it came in, a number of similar cases from all over the country started to appear in the print media and television. People were suddenly worried about the increasing load of education on teenagers and I observed that they started dealing with them very cautiously. For example, in my Junior College (that’s last two years just before start of bachelor courses), lecturers stopped roughing up students for not completing their home-works or scoring low in weekly exams because the teachers’ committee was too scared to even imagine some guy from their college committing suicide for study-related reasons.

The Tipping Point vs. Freakonomics

The Tipping Point covers a few topics like crime rates and parenting that were also covered in a recent book called Freakonomics. While the Gladwell does not say much about parenting except for the well proven facts that parents do not have much control on what kind of person their kid turns out to be when he/she grows up.

However, in the chapter on crime, the authors lists many of the reasons like aging of population, stringent policing by cops etc as contributors to the fall in crime rate while Freakonomics dismisses them as “of lesser significance”. While abortions can have a good affect on the crime rates and fairly suddenly in demographic terms, I do think reasons like aging of population cannot be overlooked. I am not sure how Police has contributed to the whole thing. Gladwell mentions the Broken Window Theory of crime and also talks about how it was employed by NYPD and the underground railway department to a tipping point effect. However, one thing to be noted here is that this is only about the crime rates in New York (as Gladwell explicitly mentions) and not about the whole of America (which Freakonomics tries to explain). So it sounds like a case of New York in particular (America in General) vs America in particular (New York in General). I think, may be all these factor came together and acted at the same time thus resulting in a sharp dive in the crime curve which otherwise would have gone down gradually as each of these factors started to have their affects.

In all, The Tipping Point is a book that I recommend everyone should read at least once.

Tagline: The Globalized world in the Twenty-First century

Hanging around for almost a month with The World is Flat, I finally completed it despite all the time constraints I was under. I have never read such a thick book back-to-back in my life until this one and this book is very special not just in that sense. I could have completed it within a short span but the sheer density of information and ideas in this book forced me to read it slowly and in parts. So I used to read a couple of pages and then sit back and ponder about them in my free time in order to assimilate the information well.

After reading the first few pages of this book I understood how important and dense this book was and to beat the density which posed such a challenge, I actually used a pencil to underline important points as I read this book. Why? This isn’t just a book to be read and kept in the cupboard to gather dust; it can serve as a great reference book for a variety of purposes.

About the Author

Thomas L. Friedman works for The New York Times and is one of the world’s most respected journalists, renowned for his expertise on international affairs and economic issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times and is the author of international best sellers like “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” and “Longitudes and Attitudes”.

The World is Flat

In this book the author has charted the technologies that have affected our lives most profoundly and made the world a much smaller place (or Flat) by breaking the barriers to communication and cultural exchange. This book is a dense store house of information which covers stuff from 11/9 when the Berlin wall came down to 9/11 when the tragic WTC attacks took place and beyond. It tells us why the world shrunk and what technologies and players are responsible for this.

In the next set of chapters the author discusses the affects of the Flattening of the world on America with clear emphasis and the out-sourcing phenomenon and moving of jobs from America to Asia. The author is rightly concerned about the falling number of fresh American engineers and rising average age of the existing group of engineers. He emphasizes on the need for America to revamp their education system at the school level so that it continues to drive the world into new frontiers of innovation and technology. The author talks about the kind of jobs that can be outsourced or automated and the people (which he calls The Untouchables) that cannot be affected by this out-sourcing phenomenon as they always stay one step ahead of it.

Then there is a chapter about developing countries in the Flat World. The author highlights some of the short comings of various developing countries bring to forefront the lack-luster performance of the respective governments in certain cases.

The author also discusses about the people who have not been able to take advantage of the Flat world i.e. poverty stricken people in various developing and under-developed countries and people living in closed societies which have made themselves impervious to external influences. He has also written at length about certain obvious and not so obvious forces that hamper the flattening process of the world and also talked about how terrorists are using the Flat World platform to their advantage.

In the chapters pertaining to the affect of Flat world on America and the Developing Countries of the World, the author has mentioned many points which are very unique and innovative in my opinion. What he has mentioned seem to me like the characteristics or the directive principles to any country to become a superpower in this world. Another very good point in my opinion is the idea of America moving to alternative sources of energy and reducing its dependence on oil imports which will help cut down on pollution, Global Warming, exhaustion of non-renewable energy sources and also shut the income sources of certain dangerous state and non-state players which are a threat to World Peace. I think this is not just for America but can be extended to many countries like India and China which are contributing massively to Global Air Pollution levels.

I have spent almost a month with this book and analyzed the length, breadth and depth of ideas mentioned in here. The author has traveled to many countries, spoken to many people and learnt many new thing while writing this book. Tremendous efforts have gone into the development of this book and no wonder this book is so dense with ideas. I was glad to learn about the early nineties era of technology which I knew about only in fragments because I sprang up on the I.T scene only around mid 1998 after seeing a computer game called Shadow Warrior at a Friend’s house

Immediately after completing this book, I had felt that if some one in Year 3K will look back at the beginning of the Millennium and try to study the history of technology and its influence on the world, one of the books they might like to refer to will be this one. I have not read any book from this author before but after reading this one, I am convinced that I got to read his previous works as well.

P.S. If you have a flare for I.T. and Business quizzing, this can be a good book to lookup the names of major I.T. companies, their founders and CEOs.

I had finished reading Anne Frank: The Diary of a young girl a few days ago. This book is the most popular war documentary of the Second World War and perhaps of all times. It was published in 1947 and since then it has been translated into more than thirty languages and adapted for theatre film and television. In her introduction to the diary’s first American edition, Eleanor Roosevelt described it as “one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read”. The Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg had said: “one voice speaks for six million—the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl”.

About the author

This book is the diary of a girl by name Anne Frank who lived in Amsterdam during the Second World War. She, her family and her brethren were the victims of the draconian and ghastly policies adopted by the Nazi government (Third Reich) of Germany.

The book contains good details about Anne Frank’s early years. As per the information given, Anne Frank had learnt using short-hand and even developed secret codes of her own at the age of fourteen. I still cannot do that. Another aspect that struck me, was that Anne was very widely read and spent most of her time during their 25 months of stay in “secret Annexe” (their secret hiding place) reading and learning. The variety of subjects which she had covered was broad and over-whelming.

Anne’s biographer Melissa Müller said that she wrote “in a precise, confident, economical style stunning in its honesty”. Her writing is largely a study of characters, and she examines every person in her circle with a shrewd, uncompromising eye. She is occasionally cruel and often biased, particularly in her depictions of Fritz Pfeffer and of her own mother, and Müller explains that she channeled the “normal mood swings of adolescence” into her writing. Her examination of herself and her surroundings is sustained over a lengthy period of time in an introspective, analytical and highly self critical manner, and in moments of frustration she relates the battle being fought within herself between the “good Anne” she wants to be, and the “bad Anne” she believes herself to be.

The Diary

The first entry in the diary is dated 14th June, 1942 i.e. when Anne was 14 years old and the last entry is dated 1st August, 1944. Anne Frank had started using this diary just a few months before they moved into their secret hiding place to escape the Gestapo (German Police) who had called Anne’s sister Margot for deportation to one of their concentration camps.

As this diary covers the life of a common girl, it has some thing of interest for every one. The initial entries reflect the good mood of the writer and slowly (as they move into and stay in their secret hiding place) it gets serious. This does not mean that when Anne started writing this Diary all was well for Jews. Nazis were all over Holland and discrimination was in full swing. Jews were asked to wear yellow star badges when in public and Jewish children could only attend Jewish schools.

The Secret Annexe was a contingency plan devised by Anne’s father Otto Frank (the only surviving member of the family (died in 1980)) and some of his co-workers at their office, to escape arrests by the Gestapo. Along with the Franks, there was another family. The Van Daans (3) and one Mr. Albert Dussel (Otto Frank’s acquaintance and a dentist by profession, who joined in later) also took shelter in the Secret Annexe.

Anne’s diary contains a vivid description of the hiding place, the daily schedule of the people living in there and her own musings. The diary shows the straining relationships between Anne and her parents (particularly her mother) as well as between the other members living there. Readers must understand that Anne or other members of the Annexe could not come out in open, even to breathe fresh air. They lived in a constant fear of being discovered and deported to concentration camps. In addition, they faced limited rations, food supply shortages, sanitation problems and severe emotional challenges which most of us might (and should) never experience in our lives.

Towards the middle of the diary, Anne Frank falls in love with Peter (only son of the Van Daans) and both of them share a sweet and secret intimacy which she covers in good detail in her diary. This episode in her life, gives her respite and the feeling of being loved (which she missed from her family). There are certain entries where Anne expresses guilt and seems confused/ contradictory with reference to her relationship with her parents. Towards the end of the Diary Anne starts writing more about the politics and the Allied invasion of Nazi captured regions. With the invasion and news of progress coming in at regular intervals, the “Annexers” were sure that the Nazi rule would soon end and they would once again be free. The diary ends with the last entry on August 1, 1944.

On 3rd August, 1944, a Dutch informer thrashed their hopes and Gestapo penetrated into their secret hiding place, arresting all of them along with their helpers. After the arrest, grim fate awaited the Annexers and other Jews of the region. The Annexers were among the last lot of the Jews to be sent from Holland to the concentration camps. According to the available information, Anne’s mother died in a concentration camp, followed by her sister Margot and then Anne herself. Similarly, other annexers also died except for Otto Frank who survived and was liberated by the Russian army.

When I started reading the book, I knew that Anne Frank was a victim of Nazi oppression, with no specific feelings about it. But after I completed the book I felt sad and out-of-place as though a close relative of mine was involved. This is a powerful book and people of any age group can relate to it very easily. Also, readers should remember that Anne Frank was just one among millions who were butchered for nothing and take home, the lessons learnt regarding the horrors of war.

Tagline: An autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari

“Wings of fire” was perhaps the first book which I had read completely and which was not a part of my school or college syllabus . I had read this book in 2003 i.e. after Dr. Kalam was appointed the President of India. As I was not into the habit of reading then, I wondered if I would be able to finish this book but I did finish it and within a short time too. In this book, almost every third line which Dr. Kalam speaks appears to collectible quote. I had re-read the book in 2004 and still experienced the same feeling of awe in which I was left when I had read this book a year ago.

About the Author

As per the preface, Arun Tiwari had worked with Dr. Kalam for over a decade and was involved in the project on “Akash” missile airframe. Arun was so fascinated by Dr. Kalam’s range of ideas and thought process that he decided to pen down Dr. Kalam’s recollections before they get buried irretrievably under the sands of time.

Arun Tiwari has done a commendable job and I am glad that the life of this great scientist did not go undocumented.

Wings of Fire

“Wings of Fire” is the life story of Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, the 11th President of India. A notable scientist and an engineer, Dr. Kalam is often referred to as the Missile Man of India. He played a key role in developing India’s first and indigenously made: ballistic missiles, hovercraft, Nuclear-strike capable missiles and made immense contribution to the Guided Missiles Development programme and various ISRO projects.

Dr. Kalam was born at Rameswaram in Dhanushkodi, Tamil Nadu, to a working class Tamil Muslim family. He received his degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1958.

He joined India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) upon graduation to work on a hovercraft project. In 1962, Dr. Kalam moved to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), where his team successfully launched several satellites. He made a significant contribution as Project Director to develop India’s first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully placed the Rohini satellite into near earth orbit in July 1980.

In 1982, Kalam returned to the DRDO as Director, focusing on Indigenous guided missiles. He was responsible for the development and operational success of the Agni and Prithvi missiles. This earned him the sobriquet “India’s missile-man”. He also helped in the formulation of healthcare products using technology developed for missiles.

In July 1992, Kalam became a Scientific Advisor to India’s Defense Minister. As the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Indian government, he held the rank of a Cabinet Minister. His work led to the successful Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, which reiterated India’s position as a nuclear weapon state. Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C) and piloted the “India Millennium Mission 2020″. (Short summary picked from wikipedia)

Kalam has the unique distinction of having received honorary doctorates from at least thirty universities, as also India’s three highest civilian honors: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; the Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997.

In this book, Dr. Kalam has described the various projects he undertook and shows how a person can manage a large team of experts without any formal knowledge in project management and team dynamics. He never fails to acknowledge his co-workers, team members and others of importance, throughout the book. The book is dotted with snippets of poetry and hymns that Dr. Kalam is fond of and has collected over his life time.

Dr. Kalam is one of the few Indian scientists who had the opportunity to work with Indian space research stalwarts like Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and interact with pioneers of missile technology like Wernher Von Braun. His works have put India on the nuclear map of the world and made it a part of an elite club of nations. In the words of the man himself:

Another quote from the book:

I strongly suggest that this book be read to know/understand the man behind India’s burst into the international arena of the elites as far as its defense capabilities are concerned.

Tagline: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything.

I had completed reading Freakonomics over a month ago and was pretty much glued to it then. However, now that I have decided to pick up The world is flat and a few Malcolm Gladwell’s books, I thought that I should finish this book’s review so that I do not mix things up.

About the authors

I am not an avid reader, probably that’s why I may have not read any thing else from *any* of these authors, ever before. Freakonomics has been authored by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

Steven D. Levitt has done his PhD (I guess in economics) from MIT, teaches economics at the University of Chicago and is the winner of American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the best American economist under forty.

Stephen J. Dubner writes for The New York Times and the New Yorker, and is the best selling author of Turbulent Souls and Confessions of a Hero-Worshipper.

Unlike many other economists, who cover stuff like economic growth, GDP, inflation, demand and supply etc and bore you with a load of math, Levitt’s work is based on riddles of every day life. Riddles that atleast I have never even imagined. Levitt believes that economics is a science with excellent tools for gaining answers but a serious shortage of interesting questions.

Freakonomics

I found it a little difficult to write a review for this book and I don’t exactly know why. My problem was that I did not know how to start it. It has answered such varied, complex and seemingly irrelevant questions in such a simple manner that I was spell-bounded by it.

Why did the crime graph in U.S. nose-dive when everyone predicted that it’s going to rise and become horrific? Levitt has an answer that seems all encompassing and the most appropriate. I was so impressed by his startling answer that I could readily apply it to the situation in India as well but in a slightly different manner. It was so intriguing but simple that I could associate it with Malthus’s essays on population and realized how bad it can get for India.

In modern world, we have an expert for every thing and always prefer to employ their services to get our work done. For example, if you want to invest in stock market or get your money growing, you may seek advice from an investment expert. If you wish to buy a house or a land, you seek advice from a local real estate agent and perhaps even hire the agent or a broker to sell/ buy stuff. Levitt in this book shows that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication and deceit, is not impenetrable. The authors expose the game of deceit played by real estate agents to make quick money, in this book.

Using collected sets of data and analytical approach, Levitt exposes the dark side of school teachers and Sumo wrestlers. If you think how can Sumo Wrestlers and School teachers be related or analyzed by the same approach, you got to read this book. In the chapter on drug dealers, Levitt actually uses the financial data of a crack (tiny rocks of cheap smokeable cocaine) dealing gang to reveal startling facts about these gangs that a common man would have never been able to learn. He also writes about the affect the crack dealing business has had on the literacy levels and demographic parameters of the African-American population.

Other chapters cover topics like crime, parenting, names of people etc pose and answer a number of questions like Why the 1960s were a great time to be a criminal? Why capital punishment doesn’t deter criminals? What is the reason for extreme crime reduction in certain states when compared to others? Why parenting experts like to scare parent to death? Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool?

After I completed this book I was left craving for more. I want to read more of such stuff, more such questions and their answers. I would love to read a Freakonomics 2 with more intriguing riddles and their answers. This book is fun to read and I recommend you try it if you haven’t already.

Tagline: A Magical Fable about following your dream

This book review was long due. I had read this book over two years ago after a friend suggested it to me but never got a chance to pen down anything about it (I did not have a blog back then). After this book, I have read only one another book of Paulo Coelho, till date, i.e. Eleven Minutes and both the books were thoroughly immersive and fascinating.

About the author

Though I have written about Paulo Coelho in the book review of Eleven Minutes, I would still mention a few lines about this author (source: Wikipedia and Coelho’s official site).

Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he attended law school, but in 1970 abandoned his studies to travel throughout Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, as well as Europe and North Africa. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theatre director and actor, lyricist and journalist.

In 1982 Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make any kind of impact. In 1985 he contributed to the Practical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves, since he considered it “of bad quality”. In 1986, Paulo Coelho did the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, an experience later to be documented in his book The Pilgrimage.

In the following year, Coelho published The Alchemist. Slow initial sales convinced his first publisher to drop the novel, but it went on to become one of the best selling Brazilian books of all time.

The Alchemist

This is a simple book of 196 pages in all but is sure to keep you glued from cover to cover if you have a taste for fables with a mix of medieval mysticism, love, spirituality and thrills.

The Alchemist is the story of a boy by name Santiago (haven’t you heard that before ) and how he braved against all odds to follow his dream and reach his destiny. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd, who one night has a dream about a hidden treasure near the Pyramids of Egypt. After much thought debate and questioning, he decides to leave every thing and go out on the treasure hunt. His journey takes him through the ports, the adjacent seas, cities and the ravenous Sahara Desert (which according to the book) houses many warring clans and a constant danger of life. Santiago meets many mystical people, follows omens and listens to his heart to distinguish between the right and the wrong. All along the way the nature seems to be conspiring in his favor. He meets his love; he meets the alchemist, braves against odds and finally gets to his treasure.

Well I have summarized the book pretty quickly but it’s the journey, the encounters that the boy had and the aura of mysticism along with a twist in the tale that makes this story such an interesting read for people of all age groups.

Paulo Coelho has done a brilliant job and this master-piece of his is a must read.

Paulo Coelho is a popular author who shot to fame with his best-selling book The Alchemist. He has also written other books like the pilgrimage, the Valkyries, the fifth mountain, the Zahir (being his latest) and many others.

Eleven Minutes is very different from his other works for it is based on an adult theme and contains vividly described scenes of sexual intercourse and “eleven minutes” the name itself refers to the average duration of the act.

Eleven minutes is the story of a girl called Maria. She was born and brought up in a Brazilian village. Just as any innocent young girl would, she had also fallen in love but had to face disappointment at a young slender age. This left her heart-broken and she becomes convinced that she will never find true love in her life. Her experiences teach her that she is a beautiful and can use this characteristic of hers to her advantage.

She decides to earn money and support her family and in this pursuit she ends up in Geneva, Switzerland as a dancer in a nightclub. She realizes that the money she was promised back in Brazil was a farce and that she would have to find another way to make quick money. In pursuit of money and fortune she ends up working as a prostitute in a bar called ‘Copacabana’.

Her experiences as a prostitute have been described in vivid detail by the author and bring the reader close to the Maria, the central character of the story. During her work as a prostitute Maria meets many men and gets to have a very close look at their mental abilities and psyche. She learns the tricks of trade very quickly and soon becomes a subject of envy among her colleagues. Unlike many others, in spite of the profession she was involved in, she had an intellectual bent of mind and she used to read many books on topics varying from economics, politics to management and finance. This brought her respect and business.

Over a year had passed since she had arrived in Switzerland and she decided that she should go back home. A chance meeting in a coffee shop brings her close to a famous painter called Ralf Hart who is also one of the elite clients at the Copacabana. Soon she realizes that she has found the true love of her life in Ralf Hart. However, at the same time her experiences with an elite client at the Copacabana leave her in a difficult situation. She develops a strong fascination for sex and at the same time she knows that life has given her a reason to live – Ralf Hart. Maria ends up being at cross-roads where she has to choose between a path that leads to no where – a path of dark sexual pleasures and a path that that gives a meaning to her life – a path that gives her what she never got – true love.

Paulo Coelho is a master craftsman whose works are capable to impacting the day-to-day lives of his readers. His work Eleven minutes ensure that the reader remains glued to the book from the first page till the end. However, I found that climax of the story was pretty predictable and that lulls the feeling that this book creates throughout. This story, that is so gripping throughout, leave a rather ordinary feeling at the end, except for the fact that the author reveals at the end of the story that Eleven minutes is based on a true story. Nonetheless I would recommend this book for (a) the kind of feeling it gives throughout, (b) it happens to one of the first on adult themes by Paulo Coelho and well written too.

This book published by the Indian Research press, has been edited by P.R. Chari and Arpit Rajain. Before I move on to the book, I would like to mention a few words about the editors as given in the book. P.R. Chari is a former member of Indian Administrative Services and has also served in the Ministry of Defense. He has worked extensively on Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Arpit Rajain has been working as a Research Officer in the Institute of Peace and Conflict studies since 1997 on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) issues.

This book appears to be a collection of articles, research papers and essays which cover various aspects of Biological and Chemical Weapons. We all know that use of Biological and Chemical Weapons (BCW) is nothing new especially in India where it has found mention even in the ancient texts. But in today’s scenario there is common global enemy which is stateless and which does not fight war from the front (like in the battlefield). Yes, I am talking about terrorism. After the September 11 attacks, the London bombings, the recent Mumbai blasts and various other events, it is clear that the terrorists will stop at nothing and will make every possible effort to cause terror and pain. Every time they strike, they strike with all that they have got and cause massive damage by attacking innocent civilians. So if terrorists are able to acquire WMDs they can create havoc and bloodbath.

Set on a similar note the book tells that the BCWs are the most dangerous of the WMD club for fairly simple reasons: