Over All ranking- Exceptional
(2) Saving Faith-(By David Baldacci)- A Novel-
It is the novel about a Wanshington D.C. lobbyist called Danny Buchanan and his rivalry with CIA chief Robert Thornhill. CIA chief wants to expand his agency's network and power at the cost of FBI. He wants to destroy Buchanan and it is the cynosure of the novel. He tries to kill Danny's assistant Faith Lockhart but is always unsuccessful.
It gives a lot of fun by its interesting characters.
Overall Ranking- Good
(3) Marketing Warfare( By Al Ries and Jack Trout)- A marketing book
This book relates marketing to warfare. Its very first heading tells that the greatest book about marketing was written by a retired Prussian General Karl Van Clausewitz. The book tells how many types f marketing wars are fought. This book analyses the history of some well known marketing wars like Cola War, Burger War, Computer War and Beer war. It defines there are four types of marketing wars
(A) Defensive Warfare- It should be waged by the market leader, i.e. General Motors, Mac Donald etc. Principles of this war are-
- Only market leader should consider playing defensive.
- The best defensive strategy is the courage to attack yourself.
- Strong competitive moves should be blocked.
- The main consideration is the strength of the leader's position.
- Find a weakness in the leader's strength and attack at the point.
- Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible.
- A good flanking war move should be made in an uncontested area.
- Tactical surprise ought to be an important element of the plan.
- The pursuit is just as critical as the attack itself.
- Find a segment of the market small enough to defend.
- No matter how successful you become never act as a leader.
- Be prepared to bug out at a moment's notice.
- He must have mental courage
- He must be flexible.
- He must know the facts.
- He needs to be lucky
- He must know rules.
(4) Airport( By Arthur Hailey)- A Novel
This novel is truly Hailey way. This man goes inside the functioning of great organisations of modern world and presents their inside stories so beautifully and in spell bounded way that reader find it very difficult to put the novel and sleep.
In Airport Hailey has beautifully described the working of the Lincoln International Airport,Illinois in a snow storm hitted night. The whole story has been woven around the management and functioning of the airport. Main character of the novel is Mel Bakersfield who is airport general manager.
Novel has reflected the relationship,working culture and strength of the mind of the people who work their beautifully.
What I have liked most in the novel is that the novel became more and more interesting and engrossing with the passing pages.
Overall Ranking- Very Good.
(5) Future Shock( By Alwin Toffler)- A Social Book
Most stricking Sentence- Future shock is the disease of change. Its symptoms are already here.
This book was written in 1960's for the future of that time which is out present. While reading this book one will be dazed by the accurate assessment of Mr. Toffler about our present. He is really an oracle.
The most distinguished feature of the book is that it encourages one to think about his future, and the book has never tried to lock you in some kind of dogmas. It let you free to assess your own future by your own mind.
Some of the most appealing disclosure of the book are as follows.
- Change has accelerated from the very first day of the human being, but now the society is changing at unprecedented rate. Society is riding on a vehicle called 'technology' which is fueled by knowledge which is generated by the means of a chain reaction, that is 'Discovery-Application-Impact-Discovery'.
- Society has accepted transience, i.e., new 'temporariness' in every body's life is ' it results in a mood or a feeling of impermanence. Our society has become a throwaway society. We make relationships,friends and even home which lasts for short time.
- Bureaucracy is in its last days and adhocracy is replacing it. We create daily a new hero and hero of yesterday is forgotten. In the words of the writer 'in a society in which instant food, instant education and instant cities are every days phenomenon, no product is more ruthlessly destroyed than the instant celebrity.
- Science is inventing daily a novel thing in such a situation no one can predict what will be our food pattern,our lifestyle, our social and custom life in future.
- Family is on the verge of fracture. It is in crying need to be reformed and match pace with the change in society. One can not answer the question that what will be the need of the family in the future, if basic need to form a family i.e. children, sex, loneliness all will be satisfied by some other means?
- Critics who Saw that industrialization has made our life monotonous and has reduced diversity in our society should pay heed to the changes in our society. We are in the phase of super-industrialisation where diversity will be so much that it will become vertually impossible to count them, and it will be the root cause of future shock.
- Future Shock will have two dimensions one will be physical and other psychological.
- It is a proven fact that if a person 's life has seen more change he is more vulnerable to new kind of physical disturbances, that is because there is a limit up to which our body can sustain change,above it,it becomes impossible for a body's metabolism or neural system to sustain the change. There is limit of our orientation response(OR).
- On psychological side as described by D. E. Berlyne " the central nervous system of a higher animal is designed to cope with the environment that produce a certain rate of simulation. It will naturally not perform at its best in an environment that over stresses or overloads it." Since there will be overload in the form of over choice it will certainly affect our life. There will be bombardment of senses information overload and decision stress which when combined will produce future shock.
- So the society is in crying need to think about where our present inventions and accelerated pace of life is cruising us. It will become very hard to tackle such situation in which society no longer knows its future. One way to tackle it is to leave some unimportant or less important things unchanged and concentrate on more important things in our daily life. On the other hand we should change our present education system that teaches past to a new education system that teaches future.
- We should also tame our technological advancements to bring it in harmony with society.
- Above all there must be the strategy of social futurists. We must clearly define our goals. In deciding this whole society should participate. Our policies must be changed from being mere technocratic to humanization.
- Our political system must change from being part democracy i.e. bureaucracy to anticipatory democracy.
Overall Ranking- Very Good
(6) The day of the Jackal ( By Frederick Forsyth)- A Novel
It is a suspense novel about the planning to assassinate the president of France. The assassin is an astute contract killer and is very methodical in performing his job. The contract is given by OAS terrorist group. Whole novel is full of suspense and one does not know the end till the last page.
Overall Ranking- Good
(7) The monk who sold his Ferrari( By Robin S. Sharma)- Self help Book
A book full of knowledge. The most distinguished feature of the book is that it gives lessons from our Vedas in very fluent way that is captivating.
Overall Ranking- Good
(8) Last Reveille ( By David Morell)- A novel
It is an entertaining action thriller. This novel is about American hunt for a Mexican rebel, during the first World War. The most quotable Quote of this book is " war is cruelty and you can not refine it".
Overall Ranking- Good
