Myths and Traditions in India - Prabhakar Patil

A Fusion of the Past and the Present
Far from being mere fairy tales or bed-time stories,myths found in every culture and civilization often have their roots in real-life characters and events,preserved through oral tradition over millennia. 
The cornucopia of Indian mythology and folklore, enshrined as it is in the four Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas, and the two greatest eternal epics of the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, is probably the richest in the world. 
In the process of retelling many of these timeless classics, the author brings out their contents skillfully, establishing the fusion of past and present.

 [Book Description Source: www.goodreads.com]

Goodreads Rating - 2 out of 5 (1 Rating, 0 Review)

My Rating:  2 out of 5. 

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The Enterprise and Scrum - Ken Schwaber

It’s time to extend the benefits of Scrum—greater agility, higher-quality products, and lower costs—from individual teams to your entire enterprise. However, with Scrum’s lack of prescribed rules, the friction of change can be challenging as people struggle to break from old project management habits. In this book, agile-process revolution leader Ken Schwaber takes you through change management—for your organizational and interpersonal processes—explaining how to successfully adopt Scrum across your entire organization.
A cofounder of Scrum, Ken draws from decades of experience, answering your questions through case studies of proven practices and processes. 
With them, you’ll learn how to adopt—and adapt—Scrum in the enterprise and gain profound levels of transparency into your development processes.
Discover how to:

• Evaluate the benefits of adopting Scrum in any size organization
• Initiate an enterprise transition project
• Implement a single, prioritized Product Backlog
• Organize effective Scrum teams using a top-down approach
• Adapt and apply solutions for integrating engineering practices across multiple teams
• Shorten release times by managing high-value increments
• Refine your Scrum practices and help reduce the length of Sprints

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.3 out of 5 (79 Ratings, 11 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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Getting to Plan B by by John W. Mullins & Randy Komisar

 Breaking Through to a Better Business Model
You have a new venture in mind. 
And you've crafted a business plan so detailed it's a work of art. 
Don't get too attached to it.
As John Mullins and Randy Komisar explain in Getting to Plan B, new businesses are fraught with uncertainty. 
To succeed, you must change the plan in real time as the inevitable challenges arise.
In fact, studies show that entrepreneurs who stick slavishly to their Plan A stand a greater chance of failing-and that many successful businesses barely resemble their founders' original idea.
The authors provide a rigorous process for stress testing your Plan A and determining how to alter it so your business makes money, solves customers' needs, and endures. 
You'll discover strategies for:
-Identifying the leap-of-faith assumptions hidden in your plan
-Testing those assumptions and unearthing why the plan might not work
-Reconfiguring the five components of your business model-revenue model, gross margin model, operating model, working capital model, and investment model-to create a sounder Plan B.
Filled with success stories and cautionary tales, this book offers real cases illustrating the authors' unique process. 
Whether your idea is for a start-up or a new business unit within your organization, Getting to Plan B contains the road map you need to reach success.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.84 out of 5 (179 Ratings, 21 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

Around India In 80 Trains begins in England. 
Monisha stays with her family in Sheffield, when in 1991 they decide to head over to Madras. 
In an effort to make India their home, they leave at once. 
The next two years don’t exactly go according to plan. 
Troubled by rats and the creepy colonel across the road, Monisha’s family decide to move out and return to England for the better.
Twenty years later, Monisha reads an article while at work, which describes India’s booming domestic airline industry and how it could connect 80 cities. She begins reminiscing on her childhood and the time she spent in India. 
As time passes, she decides to leave to India. 
With a thirst for exploring India once again, and to clear the bitterness that has existed since the last two decades, Monisha sets out on a train journey across India, inspired by Jules Verne’s classic Around the World in 80 Days. 
The journey clocks 40,000 km across India in 80 trains.Indian trains carry over twenty million passengers daily, plowing through cities, crawling past villages, climbing up mountains, and skimming along coasts.
Travelling in Indian trains gives Monisha the opportunity to meet a whole range of characters, each carrying a different story which adds color to her journey.
 Indian railways, being one of the largest civilian employers and containing various kinds of trains, including the crowded local trains of Mumbai and a hospital on wheels, provides a diverse and refreshing setting. 
How does she go around a country soaked in diverse religious colors, with a photographer who is a self-confessed militant atheist?
 Infused with wit and humor, Around India In 80 Trains is a tale of adventure and discovery.

 [Book Description Source: www.flipkart.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.37 out of 5 (637 Ratings, 129 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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Emotionomics - Dan Hill

Leveraging Emotions for Business Success

For far too long, emotions have been ignored in favor of rationality and efficiency.  

Breakthroughs in brain science have revealed that people are primarily emotional decision-makers.  

Many companies have not yet accepted that fact, ignoring emotion in favor of rationality and efficiency.  

Even fewer have acted on it.

 

Emotionomics looks at emotions in terms of business opportunities, both in the marketplace and in the workplace. 

In today's highly competitive marketplace where many products look alike, a product's emotional benefit can make the difference.  

Moreover, a company with an emotionally engaged workforce will undoubtedly achieve competitive advantage.

 

Dan Hill's book draws on insights gathered through facial coding, the single best viable means of measuring and managing the emotional response of customers and employees. 

It shows how to leverage emotions for business success in branding, product design, advertising, sales, customer satisfaction, leadership, and employee management.

 

Emotions matter, and this book will help readers not only step closer to customers and employees, but also to step ahead of competitors.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Table of Contents
 

Part One: Why emotions matter
The new mental model - Overview, Science: the meaning of a three-part brain,Psychology: balancing blind instinct with growth,Economics: plugging emotions into the equation  

The science of facial coding- Overview,The challenge: when words along fail us,Origins and scope: why and how facial coding works, Deliverables: facial coding in practice  

Emotions and motivations- Overview, Contextualizing emotions: how feelings fuel behaviour, Motivations: what spurs us on,The Emotionomics Matrix: introducing a strategic model  

 

Part Two: Marketplace applications Branding - Overview, Reflected beliefs: keep consumers’ values in view,Belonging: where status and security meet,Telling a story: selling familiarity and comfort, Conclusion  

Offer design, packaging and usability- Overview, Winning superiority: nurturing a ‘wow’, Sensory payoff: the way to the heart,Functional fulfilment: joy not frustration,Conclusion Advertising- Overview, Being absorbing: what stopping power entails,The invisible line: why knowing the target market matters,Reassurance: defusing skepticism,Conclusion  

Sales - Overview, Commitment: adopting a relationship model, Unity: staying in step with the prospect, Interwoven rewards: creating a ‘we’ mentality, Conclusion  

Retail and service- Overview, Respectfulness: enabling efficiency, Engagement: bringing back delight, Reassurance: proving oneself right, Conclusion  

 

Part Three: Workplace applications Leadership - Overview, The greater good: why character matters, Clear vision: forward thinking and feeling, Cohesive culture: bringing everyone along, Conclusion  

Employee management - Overview Compatibility: identifying what works Reciprocating trust: avoid disconnects Mission critical: inspiring a questing mentality Conclusion

Goodreads Rating - 3.48 out of 5 (40 Ratings, 3 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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Losing My Religion - Vishwas Mudagal

Racy, unpredictable, romantic, and inspiring, this is a novel that is bound to get you addicted and stay with you forever.
When gamer and entrepreneur Rishi Rai sets out to revolutionize the gaming industry, something somewhere goes terribly wrong and, like dominoes, the blocks of his life fall down one after the other.
An unexpected meeting with Alex, an unpredictable, crazy American hippie, changes his life forever, as he decides to quit everything and join him on an unplanned, uncharted journey across India.
From getting irrepressibly high in the mysterious Malana Valley in the Himalayas to starting a shack on the bewitching Om Beach on the West Coast, they do it all. 

But their adrenaline-charged adventure takes a turn when Rishi meets Kyra, a beautiful and enigmatic gamer. 

As passions surge and sparks fly, Rishi gets drawn to Kyra . . . unaware of who she is and where she comes from.
What follows next is something nobody could have ever dreamed of . . .
Who is Kyra and why are the paparazzi after her? 

Can Rishi connect the dots in his life to protect the love of his life? 

While the world becomes a spectator, can he mastermind the fall of a ruthless giant to become a global icon or will he become the biggest loser?

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.96 out of 5 (221 Ratings, 87 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

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Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible—from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks—revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future.

One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility.
In Physics of the Impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. 
From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today.
He ranks the impossible technologies by categories—Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never.

 In a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, he explains:

• How the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object, like a stream flowing around a boulder, making the object invisible to observers “downstream”
• How ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars
•  How telepathy and psychokinesis, once considered pseudoscience, may one day be possible using advances in MRI, computers, superconductivity, and nanotechnology.
• Why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics, although it would take an unbelievably advanced civilization to actually build one.

Kaku uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it. 

An extraordinary scientific adventure, Physics of the Impossible takes readers on an unforgettable, mesmerizing journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains.

 [Book Description Source: Goodreads]

Goodreads Rating - 4.05 out of 5 (16,711 Ratings, 789 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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