Gaurav's Blog

This can usually be found on Twitter.

Just as a way of distracting myself for the next fifteen minutes or so, let me pitch some stuff (this is what blogs are supposed to be best at, by the way - to let people who google for something a chance to read unbiased opinions).

First of all, I'm reading The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell. Quite a nice book, with lots of interesting points (my favourite so far: the lives of the greatest people in history ... are boring! From Darwin, writing books in a country farm, to Newton, who never left England. It's something to think about, particularly since I'm the type who believes a boring life - or day - is the very worst thing possible). First time I tried to read it, I found it a bit boring and "patriarchal", as one website put it, but finding it much interesting on the second reading. If you like this book, you might like How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, which is full of good, workable advice. I'd be reading it, but my copy has been loaned out.

Secondly, the book I really want to pitch is What Should I Do With My Life? (Buy it now!) by Po Bronson. I loved the way Bronson writes. It's hard to describe. He writes in the simplest, most straightforward way he can, but with a charm and conversational style I haven't seen much before. Also, he doesn't try and "teach" you anything: to a large degree, he just puts the stories onto paper and lets the lesson speak for itself. And the stories are well researched - half-way through the book, I have already met Harward graduates and college dropouts, farm-dwellers and apartment-dwellers, successes and failures. But the stories which speak out loudest are the special ones: a woman who worked all her life to become a docter, only to discover she couldn't stand the job. A Buddhist who, at the age of seventeen, got a letter from the Dalai Lama telling him about his previous life and elevating him, then and there, to a reincarnated saint. If you're seriously thinking about what you want to "make of yourself", here's a career book with a twist.

Oh ... also reading Shame by Salman Rushdie. It's kind of cute, really - it has a completely different voice than Midnight's Children, a rather nastier-but-funnier kind of voice. Very awesome, as Rushdie goes. But what else is new?

Probably won't post anything now until I return from Bombay, so ... until then!

This post was posted by Unknown at 7:33 pm