Book Reviews of some priceless books..!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Matter Of Honour..!

Of late we have been keeping ourselves busy working on our Blog's aesthetics. With Thanksgiving around the corner & our desire for embracing change, here's our new post with review of one of the bestsellers packed in a brand new template by one of our very good friends - Amit.

Matter Of Honor Book is yet another mystery, thriller beautiful penned down by Jeffery Archer. The story, which revolves around 1966, starts with Russians discovering that Nicholas Czar II Icon hanging in the White House Palace is not an original one but rather a duplicate copy crafted by a painter and situation gets intensified on knowing that the original icon contains a very important document that will allow Russians to have an upper hand on Americans. But for that to happen they must find out Czar's Icon before a critical deadline. Comes into picture Russian KGB's office Alexsandr Romanov, an inspiring, intelligent and unreliable KGB officer, who is assigned this task of finding the original Czar icon within a month.

At the same time in London, a will is read to late British armyofficer Gerald Scott's family. Adam Scott, who is an unemployed ex British officer and son of late Gerald Scott, receives an enclosed envelope as a part of his inheritance. A Nazi Officer, Hermann Goring, had given this envelope to Gerald Scott, who was held responsible forthe Nazi officer's death. The envelope had not been opened since 20 yrs and details the events for Goring's death and details of a SwissBank vault left in the name of Emmanuel Rosenbaum to Scott thatcontains Czar's Icon in it.

As story builds up, Romanov too finds out about the existence of this vault and sets out to seize the Icon. Adam gets lucky when he gets tothe Czar's icon just before Romanov is able to put his hands on it.Then begins a chase, which leads from Greece to France and then back to London.

There are some intriguing questions in the plot - isn't it...! What document does that Czar's icon contains in it? What is it that will help Russians to get an upper hand on Americans and make them the most powerful country in the world? How Romanov finds out about the Icon? How does a German Nazi Officer come into possession of the Icon? Lastly and the most important, what happens at the end? Are Russiansable to seize Czar's Icon or is it the American's?

Want to know the answer for the above questions? What are you waiting for? Go grab your own copy. Secrets are not being told here ;-) Enjoy Reading

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization

"Wherever the poor are heard and respected," writes Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, "the face of God is illuminated." In this book,he writes an epistle on behalf of the poor of his poverty-stricken country, the leader, who is also a priest, notes that one percent of people control 45 percent of Haiti's wealth. Eighty-five percent of the population cannot read and write. And over 500,000 children, mostly young girls, live in Haitian households as unpaid domestic workers — carrying water, cleaning house, doing errands, receiving no salary and no schooling. I read the above few lines in a book review and couldnt think of anything better to start with ... Dont you think its actually a global thing that he has focussed upon ? We read a lot many books on improving coomunication skills, self control and many other contemporary things , but how many of us actually pour our heart and mind to understand the reality around us ~ the facet of the people around us ; Do we actually feel the pain rather we look for the news of the geeks like recent discoveries, stock updates etc... Wake up friends, start living for the people for you are one of them !

I finished reading the book "Eyes of the Heart" recently. It is a short, passionate and an inspiring book that will actually shake your nerves. Aristide movingly describes the terrible poverty of Haiti, and cites historical statistics to argue that this poverty is created by outside forces that also create poverty elsewhere. The cure is that terror of the libertarian marketplace, the mobilization of the poor. True political democracy and true economic democracy must go hand in hand.
I felt like penning down these few Quotes from the book: (Worth reading!!)
"At home we are hungry. But if we sit home we will surely die. If we go to the street we may also die, but there at least is a glimmer of hope." "There will never be money enough, but there are people enough... A wealth of experience, knowledge, skill, energy and the power to mobilize resides with the poor. From this creativity, this panorama of human endurance of the poor in Haiti, and the poor in Mexico, and in Brazil, and Southeast Asia and Africa, and more and more of the poor in North America and Europe, we can learn."

"Do not confuse democracy with the holding of elections. Elections are the exam, testing the health of our system. Voter participation is the grade. But school is in session every day. Only the day-to-day participation of the people at all levels of government can breathe life into democracy and create the possibility for people to play a significant role in shaping the state and the society that they want." "Democracy asks us to put the needs and rights of people at the center of our endeavors. This means investing in people. Investing in people means first of all food, clean water, education and healthcare. These are basic human rights. It is the challenge of any real democracy to guarantee them."
"Remember that history moves in waves. We cannot expect to always live on the crests. We have to keep floating even when the waters ebb
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The poor in Haiti are part of the more than 1.3 billion people in the world who live on less than one dollar a day. We read about the unprecedented economic growth in the United States and other countries but forget that 3 billion people — half the population of the world — live on less than two dollars a day. To make things worse, globalization is having dire effects on the poor's peasant economy. Aristide discusses the eradication of the Haitian Creole pig population in the 1980s as one example. Hearty local pigs were killed with the promise that better pigs would replace them; however, the peasants found they could not afford to raise the new stock from Iowa, which needed pure drinking water and imported feed. To really help the poor, Aristide calls for the creation of more local collectives, the establishment of literacy programs, and the participation of all people in the process of democracy.

Eyes of the Heart is a wake-up call for those who haven't got a clue about the victims of the forward-charging global economy.I am sure there are many people who read a lot of books but don't have the clue about this hard fact of the world ! The gap between the rich and the poor has led to a moral crisis of staggering proportion and one that must be addressed promptly: "Behind this crisis of dollars there is a human crisis: among the poor, immeasurable human suffering; among the others, the powerful, the policy makers, a poverty of spirit which has made a religion of the market and its invisible hand. A crisis of imagination so profound that the only measure of value is profit, the only measure of human progress is economic growth." With the fierce moral vision of the leader, Aristide challenges us to see with the eyes of our hearts.

So, don't you think that its high time that we open the eyes of our hearts and do something worth being a responsible human being and contribute with the purity of that essence that flows from our hearts! Let me know your candid feedback my dear avid readers!!Ciao......