3 in 1 Book Reviews

This post consists reviews of 3 books I read in recent times. Since I didn't have enough contents to write detailed post on each of them, clubbing the review together

Book 1: Office Shocks
I bought this book only because it helped me cross Rs 500 mark on my order and thereby avoid a shipping fee of Rs 50. In this book, Sumit Aggarwal narrates the story of a fresh MBA graduate, on his first day at work at a consultancy firm.

Book was supposed to be funny, but I find it any overdose of imaginary text. Right on day 1, this guy gets to experience over a dozen things-meet a client and learn that he's being billed at 30k an hour, save a colleague from committing suicide, working late filing a report, office rumors, colleagues having 'fun' on rooftop, gossips, working out of a colleague's system using her login details and so on. 

The book is priced cheap (Rs 95) and can be read without losing interest, but I would have enjoyed it better if it had spanned across few weeks and give us much better insights, instead of stuffing everything back to back.

As his first book, it is great effort by the author and I wish him success for his future projects.

Book 2: Jack in Back -Corporate Carnival
If you'd liked PG Bhaskar's earlier book, "Jack Patel's Dubai dreams" you'll like the above book. It is by the same author, narrating Jack Patel's second innings in Dubai, this time for another large Banking Corporation.

This time the focus is on the infighting and politics happening in the new firm he's joined, besides extensive travel to South Africa and some personal life. Overall makes fine reading, doesn't bore the reader with too much detailing.

I liked the images of parachute in each page, which made for nice animation when pages are flipped at speed. (Refer image at the left to get an idea)

While Jack stays at the centrestage, other characters go get their due and adequate humor is included throughout the book

Priced at Rs 150 and published by Harper Collins, this will be a nice read if you're interested in Banking world. At the end of the book Jack and his team quits to set up a private equity fund interested in farming, hotel, movies and so on. Author has also set the stage for sequel very well. Next book I assume, will be about the adventure of running this PE firm.

Book 3: 5 P.M. to 9 A.M. Entrepreneur
This is a recently launched book on entrepreneurship and gives lots of insights for wannable business owners. 

Written by Kanth Miriyala and Reethika Sunder, it takes the readers through couple of examples of start ups- by the author themselves and their known buddies- the mistakes and success stories. Author has shared his/her experience as well- they have been involved in couple of startups which were later sold off to iGate and Skype for millions.

Some basic concepts- like doing multiple small experiments/tests (instead of one big experiment), gathering live feedback instead of speculating what is the best solution, identifying strengths etc. But I am not too convinced on  the book, as I feel it didn't elaborate much on how to do all these without quitting the job.

It was not clear which part of the book was written by which author. It runs in first person narration. 

Priced at Rs 195 and published by Rupa, this is a good read for those thinking of their own company.

Read this book, along with "How I braved Anu Aunty and co founded a million dollar company" and F?@k knows for better inspiration.

When I received this book from flipkart, it had 2 pages torn. This was my first experience with flipkart receiving a defective product.Same day I logged a complaint and flipkart has promised a replacement. Hopefully this week I'll get my replacement, though I've finished reading the book. Update: I've got my replacement