Books, books, more books
20 Dec 2004I've gotten back to my reading habit and have read some books in the past months, mostly on weekends.
I recently finished The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer. An absolutely gripping read about the lives of two youngsters who go on to become newspaper barons and their struggle to own the highest-selling newspapers the world over and later, avert bankruptcy. Archer describes both the characters with fine detail, right from their childhood, the education they receive, the difficulties one goes through during World War II and the challenges of the other one, the son of a newspaper baron in Australia. Must-read.
The term "Fourth Estate" is used to describe the press.
Before this one, I read Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Of course, I need not go into how excellent the plot and the characters are written, many people have done this over the years. How did I not read this masterpiece earlier? Can't explain it myself.
Oh, and "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting read indeed, about how "little things can make a big difference" as the title of the book says. See the author's page on the Tipping Point for a short FAQ. Also a must-read.
And while I still have "The 10-day MBA", Ricardo Semler's "Maverick", "The Lord of the Rings" (yeah, I haven't read it yet, laugh at me) and 50 other books lined up to read, I bought a few more on Saturday: Two books from Harvard Business Review's series, one on Marketing and one on Leadership, "The Warren Buffett Way" and Jeffrey Archer's "Sons of Fortune". All this when I had gone to buy "The Da-Vinci code" and "Digital Fortress". They were not available, the store owner said he'll get me those in a couple of days; so this list is just not going to stop.
When am I ever going to read them all? Seems like I just keep buying books and never get around reading them... There are over 300 webpages I've either saved or bookmarked in my "To Read" list. I need a break!