Review: First Person Singular: Stories

First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A bunch of oddball short stories in first person by Murakami

Not sure how Murakami does it but he makes everyday scenes so philosophical and dream like whilst being grounded in reality - sort of like the camera work of Dev D. A melacholic aloofness, a rhythmic pattern to the chaos around us wonderfully defined around him - the protagonist in all the short stories that follow. A calming pace in each story set in the past as he goes down nostalgia lane and captures a lot of metaphorical statements through his stories. The poetry around his love for baseball probably might be a lot more lyrical in Japanese than the translated works but the rest of the stories are translated wonderfully.

If you haven't had the appetite to jump into Murakami long form, this might be your short cut to some of his distinct style in bite sized stories though I think his true form is in the long novel format and these are just trailers to his style that stop too soon. Though I would highlight his writing is primarily from the 80s and he is misogynistic more often than not and that always leaves a jarring note to his otherwise fluid metaphysical writing.

View all my reviews

Review: Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A senior leadership insight into the Amazonian way of success from a culture and best practices perspective

For two senior leaders of Amazon who saw it all happen up close next to Jeff provides for interesting insights into how Amazon tackled everyday challenges in their way right from growing problems that any start up would face - how do you keep culture consistent when you scale up and senior most leadership loses the direct touch into all day to day aspects. There is background to the things that worked and didnt work and how some of the gospels of Amazon's business practices were work in progress and transformed over the years and not overnight brainwaves that revolutionised their world. It goes back to the adage of success is to do ordinary things in an extraordinary way. The emphasis on client focus, working backwards, the PR-FAQ, the bar raiser , the narrative are all concepts under different names are becoming industry standards and the history of how they evolved make for an interesting insight.

Amazonians probably have this part of drinking their own kool-aid but this makes for good reading for people in leadership roles to understand the thought process behind some of the practices that they could leverage in their organisations beyond the frameworks that are now common place. Very practical a setup with some case studies about AWS, Kindle, Prime as some game changer innovations in their own right.

Single threaded leadership made for a good read - the best way to fail at inventing something is to make it someone's part time job. A rich mix of business insights with real life anecdotes making it for a smooth reading as a business book.

View all my reviews

Review: The Story of China: A Portrait of a Civilisation and Its People

The Story of China: A Portrait of a Civilisation and Its People by Michael Wood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: Four thousand years of Chinese history eloquently summarized in one volume.

The quote "History may not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme" doesn't ring any more true than reading this capsule of Chinese history oscillating between military strife and golden renaissance of unified empire through it's history as dynasties and kingdoms change but the struggles, the rise and the fall follow a similar pattern. Starting with Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing to the CCP ending with a footnote on Xi Jinping. I personally wasn't aware of these many kingdoms and their varying diversities.

The beauty of this historical rendition is how Michael Wood intersperses historical facts with stories of individuals from various economic strata of society sharing their perspectives of paramount changes in their society. This information had been gleaned from letters , edicts and other archaeological finds that were discovered. The idea that printing presses and the written word have existed for centuries in this part of the world make it for a lot more colorful a picture across the centuries.

I presume since the author needs the good offices of the current government, the last century of the Chinese party seems to get a very watered down treatment when you compare to the kaleidoscopic depth of the historical dynasties.

The other interesting aspect is how he brings out the women poets through the ages who were the exceptions in otherwise a pretty chauvinistic society and recounted their experiences and journeys in scope of the eras they lived in. Their commentary adds color to the life of the people.

Though surprisingly Great Wall gets a passing mention which I was keen to understand the dynamics around that phase. Yuan dynasty run by non Chinese i.e. Mongols make for an interesting phase of Chinese history and the author tends to explain how that put the seeds of the inward looking philosophies that form the basis of current templates. An interesting fact was the string of pearls strategy has been a philosophy followed for centuries and not a recent phenomenon.


View all my reviews