Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hooter: The adventures of an orphan who steals too much

Teasing between fantasy and medieval Europe, Locke Lamora is based in a time when the less understood was scientifically accounted for as alchemy. An orphan who is too ambitious for small town pickpocketing and always causing a maelstorm behind his actions and ambitions, this book makes for a fun devil-may-care attitude as he jumps from one challenge to another dealing with secret societies and invisible power levers who play the city who he keeps on tripping onto through his con man facades having taken a bunch of underdogs under his wing to pull off from the rich and mighty (Robin Hood distributing wealth to himself). Conscience less or maybe a teeny weeny bit always cooking up plans as he goes along makes for a fun read. I totally can imagine this being converted into a movie probably with a PG-18 rating. There is treachery over treachery and no one is saintly right even the saints themselves.

There is intelligent writing, dark humour, dash of adventure and lack of morals along with a brotherhood that swears allegiance to themselves make for a fantastic read.

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Review: Risk Up Front: Managing Projects in a Complex World

Risk Up Front: Managing Projects in a Complex World by Adam Josephs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: Spinning project management across another axis - that of pushing risk up front.

Was introduced to the book part of a workshop by Adam and I'll skip colouring the book review from my experience with the workshop and the author but focus purely on the book. Using research and their own combined experiences across decades of consultancy, the risk up front framework does have some interesting and feasible approaches to project management through concepts like "the cost of being late" being articulated, creating a culture of raising risks and decoupling from solving for them or not having solved them part of the raising. In a way, the gamification (tangential term I know ) of raising risks creates a collaborative cross functional team culture that allows for teams to cover all their bases or be aware of it. I can imagine King Arthur's round table using this concept but we'll stick to modern age technology projects for this conversation. Love how humans are categorised as "optimistic procrastinators" and I thought I was unique. Whilst the book can get a bit dry for general reading, getting a sense of all the concepts shared across another axis of project management get you rethinking on the fundamentals and open up new avenues on how you work towards ensuring successful projects so suggest it as reading material in the arsenal of successful project managers kits.

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Review: Bulls, Bears and Other Beasts

Bulls, Bears and Other Beasts by Santosh Nair
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A fictionalised personal view of the history of Stock Markets in India

Whilst the author adds fictional characters to prevent any libel cases against him in narrating the ups and downs of the life of a stock market trader in India, he manages to sequence a lot of major headlines and the ground reality cause and effect of those scenarios from scams around Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh to political results like BJP coming to power in '98, '99 and 2014 to UPA winning in 2004 apart from Pokhran test and so on. He also helps provide a lot of color on some of the rules we have today and tracing back to the loopholes they plug. Whilst the book makes it look like the only way you can mint astronomical amounts of money in the stock market is by identifying loopholes and not getting caught , he also provides sound advice to investors - you aren't a good savvy investor or reader of the market unless you can survive atleast till the next bull run and the market does correct itself in the long run.

Overall makes for an interesting history of the stock markets in India from the eyes of someone who was on the ground trying to make sense of it all even though it is through the fictitious Lalaji.

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Review: Buddha, Vol. 3: Devadatta

Buddha, Vol. 3: Devadatta by Osamu Tezuka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A graphic novel representation of the journey of Buddha

Took a while to land my hand on the 3rd volume after having read the first two. Turns out a colleague has the entire collection of 8 volumes. Osamu is a genius in the graphic novel world of Japan and this retelling of a historical event is way out of his comfort zone. That said he makes it a fun read, like you are reading a comic book ( graphic novelists are seeing red with that term) as he tries to incorporate childish humour and pranks in a story that motivates and inspires people around the world.

Siddhartha continues to meet new people on his journey - another monk Dhepa and a little kid monk who can foretell the future thanks to a fortuitous event apart from brigands , jealous kings and lovers. The pace continues to be slow in terms of the storyline and am hoping the longer story arc brings this alive because stand alone, there are a few highs but the storyline seems to get a bit repetitive.

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