Book Peek - March 14, 2013 - Preview

March 14, 2013 1 Book Peek

Quick look at a few books

BOOK PEEK

March 14, 2013 2 Book Peek

Contents of Book Peek dated March 14, 2013

Reviews

‘A Brief Hour of Beauty’ by Ammu Nair - Landmark

‘What If They Knew? Secrets of an impressive woman’ by Lisa L. Payne

‘Fix Your Problems: The Tenali Raman Way’ by Vishal Goyal

‘Damn Good Advice (for people with talent)’ by George Lois

‘9 Things Successful People Do Differently’ by Heidi Grant Halvorson

‘Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A journey to the heart of cricket’s

underworld’ by Ed Hawkins

New arrivals – From Harper, Sage

Short snatches

‘Tales of a Journalist, Bureaucrat, Spy: From Partition to Operation

Bluestar’ by Som Nath Dhar – Harper

‘Internal Communications: Insights, practices, and models’ by Aniisu

K. Verghese - Sage

‘You Can Change Your Life: Easy steps to getting what you want’ by

Rob Yeung - Macmillan

‘The Cripple and His Talismans’ by Anosh Irani – Fourth Estate

(Harper)

‘Infinite Verse’ by Amit Khanna – Harper

‘The Hunger Angel’ by Herta Müller - Landmark

(Subscriptions: http://bit.ly/ShriMagz)

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Remembering Clint

Ammu Nair’s ‘A Brief Hour of Beauty’ (Landmark) is a

poignant biography of Edmund Thomas Clint, who died

before he was seven years old. But before bidding the final

bye, Clint had drawn more than 25,000 pictures, ‘many of

which doyens of art hail as the work of a genius.’

As soon as he started crawling, Clint began to draw,

narrates Nair. “His parents’ eyes sparkle with delight and

tender love when they relate the story of Clint’s debut

drawing. He was about six months old and could crawl on

his belly…” Using pieces of brick lying on the floor, Clint drew perfect circles

on the floor, the parents reminisce. And soon, he would fill empty spaces

with an astounding variety of shapes and shades…

His parents, Chinnamma and Joseph, used to take Clint for evening walks,

at times all the way up to Venduruthi Palam, the bridge that stretches

between Willingdon Island and mainland Kochi, the author recounts. “Clint

loved to gaze at the backwaters and listen to the gentle sloshing of water on

the pillars below the pier. One day, Chinnamma and Clint hired a boat and

went all the way to the port at the mouth of the river. Clint saw ships

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anchored along the port… Clint came home and drew seagulls flying low

over fishing boats, numerous ships, ferries, and the port.”

Those were days before the television made its appearance in Kochi and, so,

Clint’s sources of knowledge were books, magazines such as World

Magazine published by National Geographic Society, and nature. “The

glossy pages of the magazine with its stunning photographs gave him rare

peeks into the wild. The untamed nature and its denizens aroused respect

and an insatiable inquisitiveness in his heart.” Life was beautiful and as

perfect as the images that sprang from Clint’s inexhaustible imagination,

notes Nair. “But in the unfathomable depths of cosmic design, a cataclysmic

change was taking place for this small, happy family.”

Two months short of his third birthday, Clint fell sick with diarrhoea, and

Chinnamma took him to a nearby hospital, where the doctor gave him

medicines. “On the way back home, they stopped at Balu’s place. A mother

of twelve children, Balu’s mother, commented, ‘Don’t rush him to the

hospital for a minor ailment like this! Warm buttermilk with a pinch of

crushed cumin and spluttered mustard seeds is the best remedy for

diarrhoea.’ But Clint was already feeling better. With the kind of clarity and

wisdom only hindsight grants, Chinnamma and Joseph regret ignoring her

home remedy…” Poignant read.

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Authentic selves

When we throw out the masks that have been hiding our

authentic selves, we also let go of the pain and misery they

have caused, writes Lisa L. Payne in ‘What If They Knew?

Secrets of an impressive woman.’ That is the way to

empowerment, she feels.

“Right now, I know who I am and what success means to

me. I fully acknowledge my core values and incorporate

them into my daily life as an expression of my authentic

self. I am crystal clear about what I want my life to look like

and I am committed to making the changes to how I am being and what I

am doing so I create a life that inspires me every day.”

The book of ‘confessions’ by different women, beginning with ‘I am a liar,’ by

Lucy, 32. The lying started at a very young age, just trying to be the best

little girl, says Lucy. “I figured out very early on that my parents would like

a good girl much more than a bad girl and so I fashioned my entire life

around pleasing them… even if it meant telling lies. The thing is: once you

start telling lies, it is much easier to keep going than to confess and speak

the truth.”

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And the habit continued at work, too, where Lucy would tell lies about her

abilities, take on projects for which she was not qualified, and put on the

face of the ultimate success story. In reality, she rues, she was fabricating a

life that had no meaning to her, winning the favour of her bosses, at the

expense of her own integrity and self-esteem. Sadly, she never felt worthy of

praise that she received, even when it was clear – in black and white – that

she had achieved particular goals; she did not feel worthy because a

lifetime of lying had left her feeling like ‘the real me’ could not possibly be

good enough! In a chapter titled ‘I am abused,’ you meet Abby, 29, who

recounts how her husband first hit her when she came home an hour late

after an evening hen party at one of her girlfriends’ houses. The straw that

broke the camel’s back was the vacation that never happened.

The first part of the book is about the negatives, ranging from the smoker to

the shopaholic, procrastinator to thief. But the second part is all the positive

side, starting with, ‘I have courage,’ of Cathy, 36. “After my marriage of 12

years ended, I look upon the clean slate that is my future and get very

excited. Well, I was scared to death… but only momentarily; the opportunity

to tap into the reserve of courage that had been growing for 36 years is now

upon me and I intend to follow through,” says Cathy.

Collection of sensitivities.

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‘Clifton Bridge: Stories of innocence and experience from Pakistan’ by Irshad

AbdulKadir – Harper

‘Legends of Halahala’ by Appupen – Harper

Address for sending review copies of new books

New arrivals

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‘Business & Community: The story of corporate social responsibility in India’

by Pushpa Sundar – Sage

New arrival: Business & Community

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Published by: Shrinikethan, Chennai http://bit.ly/ShriMap

Edited by: D. Murali http://bit.ly/dMurali http://bit.ly/TopTalk

March 14, 2013