Tag: Books

  • So I recently read: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

    So I recently read: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

    Recommended by @anahgem, I recently finished reading: Ready Player One by  Ernest Cline.

    For anyone who has even the tiniest and slightest bit of experience of 80s and 90s movies and video games (see, I call it video games!), would find this book severely interesting and a sure-page-turner!

    Before telling you my opinion about this, I would give a short spoiler-free-summary:

    This book is about near-future, where real life would seriously suck and everyone would spend their times online (I meant present) in a Virtual Reality World called as Oasis. So, the creator of the Oasis creates a challenge for the users to play a game, like a Treasure Hunt. Whoever wins it wins a huge fortune of huge wealth and even the control of Oasis. Trick here is that the challenge involves being 2 words which are thrown around randomly so much nowadays that they have lost their real meaning: Nerds and Geeks. One has to be a thorough 80s and 90s days lover, pop-art follower, heavily addicted to games and movies of that era and above all, no social life. The challenge would involve playing games which range from Galaga to Pacman to what not, acting as the protagonist of movies, remembering Dungeons and Dragons from the top of your mind every 5 minutes, and so on. So the protagonist and some other people (and corporations) try to overtake each other and keep going Level by Level. Dying on Oasis and Dying in real world would be almost intertwined, if you know what I mean.

    So, despite not being born in the US (or Japan) where most of the things were being developed in 80s and 90s, technology wise, I surely liked this book a lot. There are so many instances of movies and games of that era which are referred to and made very important parts of the movie, that you will find yourself referring to Wikipedia and doing ‘Aha! I had seen/heard/knew about this’ or ‘Ohh! How sad that I missed this!’. There are parts which you might not be able to relate to if you haven’t seen the game or the movies mentioned, but hey, this is also a recco to go through that stuff if you haven’t. Plus, there are some of the ramblings from the Oasis’s creator’s Almanac which can be made as a book in itself (like JK Rowling did with Fantastic Beasts). That book in the book gives a lot about mindsets and nostalgia related stuff, we all can refer too. And, the book has enough thrill already thanks to its ‘Gamification’ obviously embedded in it.

    All in all, this was a fairly entertaining read and refers to a very plausible future. Moreover, *drumroll*, this book is being adapted to a movie soon. By none other than, Steven Spielberg.

    How can you miss that now?

    You can buy this book here:

    Header pic via http://movieweb.com/ready-player-one-movie-set-video-photos-spielberg/

  • So I recently read: The Art of Public Speaking, by Dale Carnegie

    So I recently read: The Art of Public Speaking, by Dale Carnegie

    So, I just finished reading, The Art of Public Speaking.

    Have taken interest in learning to speak better in public, I had heard of this book a lot from many people who kept on quoting from it. So I bought it from Amazon one day and delved into it. Here are some of the things I felt after reading this book.

    This book is indeed a classic, published in 1915, it has all the information, tips and tricks to be a better speaker. Of course, being written over a 100 years ago, some parts are a bit drag in terms of millennial-attention-span. Also, at some places, some shortcomings people might have with being able to communicate more effectively can be called as slightly obsolete with the advent of visual aids like PowerPoint.

    However, the core message still holds. All the basics mentioned in the book about how to make your content better, and the ways to articulate more effectively, the methods to enhance voice and tone, the importance of rhetorics, etc are all explained in great detail. The book was written for the time when there was no or nominal usage of microphones and speakers, so, in a way this is really good for a novice speaker to follow. Using mic, one can cheat a bit with vocal variety but unless one use the inflections and volume in the ideal way, the difference can be easily noticed.

    For new people who want to enhance their craft, this book will help as it gives ample explanation and importance to all the skills needs. I guess, once you start speaking in a group, you may start referring from this book and then you can measure yourself as to how are you doing. It also has some case studies sort of examples which are from good speakers from that era to learn from.

    All in all, I found a majority of this book useful. So could you!

    Some of my Favorite Quotes from this book:

    Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters.

    The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great.

    If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.

    The worst punishment that human ingenuity has ever been able to invent is extreme monotony, solitary confinement.

    Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice.

    Charles Dana, the famous editor of The New York Sun, told one of his reporters that if he went up the street and saw a dog bite a man, to pay no attention to it. The Sun could not afford to waste the time and attention of its readers on such unimportant happenings. “But,” said Mr. Dana, “if you see a man bite a dog, hurry back to the office and write the story.” Of course that is news; that is unusual.

    It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery but the friction.

    Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; Speech is human, Silence is divine.

    Wilkie Collins’ formula for fiction writing well applies to public speech: “Make ’em laugh; make ’em weep; make ’em wait.

    Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision; but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. – Kalidas

    Also, why stop at this and why not watch this too?http://www.theonion.com/video/how-conquer-fear-public-speaking-55392

    You may get this book from below link: