Review: Fall of Giants

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hooter: A look into life in the midst of World War One from aristocratic homes, mining towns, battlefields and factories from all the countries directly involved.

Ken Follett writes humongous epics (this one is sub 1000 pages) but they make for quick reads as they are fast paced and capture so many perspectives. He manages to get you invested in all the characters who have a 1% probability of crossing paths and yet they do time and again in very fortuitous yet believable circumstances. He instills life into fictional characters against the backdrop of history often quoting real life incidents as a close up spectator and throwing in a few real individuals for good measure. This is the baseline of good historical fiction.

Fall of Giants traces its origin from a covert get together in a tiny Welsh town of highly placed diplomats who soon find their countries at odds with the beginning of World War I. Our history textbooks make WWI seem like a blink of an eye event, here I realize how the years passed by. Key protagonists involves families that are American, English, Welsh, Russian and German across various classes and backgrounds capturing elements of women suffragette, Russian revolution, World War I, Parliamentary drama, Americans entering and of course a lot of battlefield sequences from Russian , German, English and American vantage points. Interspersed with all of these historical events are the growth journeys of Grigori who is selfless, his brother Lev who is selfish, Maud who is a rebel amongst aristocrats who bonds with Ethel a rebel amongst the common folk yet the class divide finally does separate them. The tension is high amongst families along varying issues of morality and ethics , new versus old and all of this makes for a fine epic.

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Review: My Gita

My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: The author's interpretation of the Gita

Divided into 18 chapters to correlate with the 18 chapters of Gita though not following the order to create a non-linear narrative, I felt this book was built for folks dealing with ADHD. A series of short excerpts that go thematically as per the author but feels all over or probably him stretching thin across all themes. I guess when you are taking a relatively nuanced and heavy topic and trying to create a series of 1 mark answers on them, you can't really get too far and that shows in this context. I probably say this makes for a trailer to a trilogy or beyond.

It is filled with conversations between Arjuna and Krishna taking a concept and then explaining dharma, adharma and numerous other concepts like moving towards a higher being and human being the closest to that level with a lot of examples from Ramayana too.

So if you want a tiktok video representation of the Gita, this book does it's best to capture the same in that context. For those serious about interpreting the original Gita, move on for this book only scratches the surface.

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Review: Extraordinary Leadership

Extraordinary Leadership by Robin S. Sharma
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: Some positive reiteration of leadership principles by Robin Sharma

An extremely short book, rather a podcast I would call it where Robin shares / reiterates a couple of pointers on leadership with a positive outlook. Comes free with audible and its good to hear these self help gurus speak themselves considering most have made careers of motivational speaking.

Great pointers for anyone new to the world of understanding the difference between leadership and management.

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