Train to Istanbul By Ayse Kulin

Train to Istanbul is a study in character of the life and times of the people, Jews in particular, and the socio-political fabric of Turkey and France, as the world tread dangerously on the brink of the World War II. As with any book on the World Wars, the theme revolves around the tenuous notions of right and wrong, and the choices we make when it comes to love and survival.

Ayse Kulin has done a fabulous job of carving out the characters and their life stories in way that you almost end up believing that the characters were indeed real people and the incidents did happen. Of course it helps that the story and the characters do carry influences from similar incidents that did actually happen during that time.

Overall a very well written and easy read. It manages to draw the reader into the story and connect with the characters while creating the tense rescue and survival plot on the sides. While reading, a lot of times one would feel as if they are a part of the story or at best watching a movie, which to me was the beauty of this book. I will not be surprised if soon, this is adapted into a movie.

Even with all the positives, for me, it felt just a bit short on delivering that last punch. The gradual build up of the tension and climax kind of got fizzled out with a fairly straightforward ending and left me wanting for more.

I would give it a thumbs up for being an easy travel read and 3/5 rating.

Netaji - Living Dangerously by Kingshuk Nag

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose is beyond doubt, one of the most enigmatic figures of India History. More than his life time and contributions to the Indian Freedom movement, his death (or disappearance) has been the subject of much interest, public debate and speculations.

Naturally when I picked up this book, I hoped to get some answers to the mystery surrounding Netaji's sudden disappearance and claimed death. Especially at a time when the debate has been re-opened by the declassification of certain files on him and the most recent re-acknowledgement of his death in a plane crash by the government.

Its funny to think that he might have the distinction of having been pronounced dead most number of times in the world, among all the leaders of the world, past or present, and having died different kinds of death as well. But believe me, its not at all funny when you are subjected to this juvenile drama playing out on TV, senseless arguments and baseless speculations every now and then by the so called self proclaimed intellectuals on this subject.

So like everyone else, I wanted to seek the truth about Netaji and hoped to find it in the pages of this book. Unfortunately, I was disappointed right at the start as I finished the preface of the book because one thing stood out immediately to me, that is,  if one side is trying to obscure the true facts about Netaji's death, the other side is no better. All one could read through the pages, is the personal impressions and interpretations of the facts (or fiction) about Netaji's death from the author. It all comes down to the most fundamental thing - that is, to separate out the facts from the fiction. Sadly for me, the author fails miserably at that. Instead, he seems extremely biased and hell bent on dismissing everything that doesn't conform to the end he has in mind. I have not spent hours and hours researching and digging through the evidences but sifting through the pages, gave me an impression that right from the first page the end has already been decided.

The book is as fragmented in presenting the evidence and arguments as any other report. It also goes back and forth in time, preventing the reader from being able to form any semblance of a timeline or to chronicle of the series of events with reasonable accuracy. As a result, one ends up reading a lot of theories, facts and speculations but with no real possibility of connecting them into an overall narrative. This in my view is again due to the impatient urge to skip to the conclusion, than trying to put the research and arguments together in an intelligent fashion, and take the readers along on a journey of discovery and investigation.

A disappointing first book on this subject for me. But, this is not the end of my inquiry into Netaji's life and times as I shall continue to read more material.

Note to all - if you want a book that basically compiles all the theories into one collection so that you don't have to hunt through years of news articles, then this possibly could be a good book to have with you.

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service

The part of the world that Israel, Palestine and Syria belong to, has been the subject of much bloodshed, political turmoils and debates for the better part of the last decade or so. The affairs pertaining to these countries and their perennial conflict is nothing short of a spy fiction. Sadly though, for the people living in these countries, the fiction is but only real.

Mossad - The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service, makes an attempt to give an inside view of some the of the most secretive and dangerous ops that the much dreaded Israeli Secret Service has undertaken over the years. We have known a few of these cases only as headlines in our news but this books dares to unravel some of the gruesome and horrifying details behind these headlines.

Let this be made clear that neither do I support or endorse the violence that has been committed by Mossad nor do I acknowledge the righteousness claim to Mossad for taking an eye - for -an - eye kind of stand, as my understanding of these conflicts is quite shallow and incomplete to make a fair judgement. The book, however, definitely takes a self righteous position on the violence and killings and justifies the actions all the time.

Keeping the above baggage apart, this book is nothing short of  an absolute bone-chilling-page-turner spy thriller. What makes you shudder even more is the thought that all of the things mentioned in the book actually happened with real people involved. Very well compiled and written in a fast paced style, this book is hard to put down if you have even the slightest of interest in the affairs of these countries or spy genre. Like it or not, want it or not, you can not escape the gradual appreciation for Mossad, as an agency, sometimes unbelievable but sheer brilliance of their ops and most of all the fearless attitude of its agents brimming up to the point of being on a perpetual suicide mission, as you end the book.

If you can distance yourself away from the right-wrong or the truth-fiction debate and remain objective, then this book is an extremely engaging read that does give some understanding into the intrigue surrounding this part of the world, albeit a one sided view at best.

Shoe Dog - Phil Knight

I am a Sportshead and Nike is one of my favorite sports brand! That's as far as I am going to let in my bias towards Nike get into my review of this book.

Shoe Dog is nothing short of a thriller and I wouldn't be surprised if we see a movie coming out soon. Extremely well paced and easy to read, Shoe Dog takes you on a journey of one man's dreams, grit, determination and passion that ends up creating a billion dollar industry out of running as a sport and running as a product almost single-handedly.

Shoe Dog is one book that is meant for all - startups, established businesses, young people looking to get into sports or experienced sportsmen looking to continue to improve - as it gives out many hard learnt priceless lessons on business, sports and life at large from the life and times of Knight and Nike. It shares great life lessons in the form of interesting anecdotes on risks, importance of being passionate about what you do, perseverance, tenacity, dogged determination, innovation, business ethics, trust, faith and you name it.

Rest assured, if you like sports, then reading Shoe Dog will transport you to a locker room talk being given by a coach before a big game moment. It will get you pumped up enough to charge ahead and conquer whatever it is that you are chasing out there!

Empire of the Moghul : Brothers at War

As with the first book, Brothers at war, gives an engrossing account of Humayun's struggle to keep Hindustan under his reign and his quest to build a legacy for his future generations as his father Babur did. 

More than the challenge from external forces, he has to deal with his ever revolting and scheming half brothers - Kamaran, Askari and Hindal. Unlike his father Babur, Humayun, as a king and leader was more prone to vices and lapses of judgement; weaknesses that were well exploited by his enemies and half brothers throughout his reign. Initially starting as an under-confident and impulsive ruler, Humayun slowly regains his focus to quickly realize that his family's honor and legacy is at stake. What comes out clearly, is his extreme awareness of his goal in life and what he needs to do to get there. He is also very much aware of what his faults have been or mistakes that he has committed and quick to correct them. This extreme commitment to self correct also comes out as a strong personality trait.

Rich with historical anecdotes and cultural insights of the Indian subcontinent of 1530s; Brothers At War makes up for a good read. Although I found it to be a tad too stretched in the middle and boring at times, but overall, lives up to the expectations.Looking forward to start the next one soon.

Dan Brown's Inferno screws up with your head

Reading a Dan Brown book is like watching a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. You know for sure that it will deliver on the thriller / action punch you expect out of it.

Inferno is another taut thriller from the master of history-meets-cult-meets-conspiracy theory genre. This time Prof. Langdon sets out on a race against time to save the world from another catastrophe set in motion by an obsessive but brilliant man of science who is also a Dante fanatic. His twisted interpretation of the message of Dante's Inferno makes him turn the power of science against the human race setting in motion a series of events that pose a threatening question to the very existence of human race.

The book is a pacy read, full of rich scientific, cultural and historical references - typical of a Dan Brown book. Inferno, takes the readers into the dark world of Dante's masterpiece Inferno and a whole underbelly culture of art, architecture and paintings based on Dante's works. The plot has some really hard hitting twists that will make you keep on turning the pages.

Well you might ask what's new this time as that's always the case with any Dan Brown work but I would urge the readers to read between the lines and relate it to your current world scenario. The message that Inferno seems to convey there screws up a bit with your head. Simply because the threat posed this time is deeply entrenched in reality. It brings to the fore the dangers of the mindless expansion of the human race and our blatant disregard for nature's constraints, taking us ever so closer to our extinction with every passing second.

While some of Dan Brown's earlier works may not have registered beyond being the work of pure fiction, Inferno, however will make you sit and realize that seemingly fictional horrors could very well become real life scenarios if we do not adopt a more sustainable way of life. The solution to the problem, that forms the key element of the plot, is even more horrifying and seems dangerously real. I could not help but think that if someone with a really twisted but super brilliant mind reads this book, it wouldn't come as a surprise to me if this piece of fiction turns very real soon. Except, and sadly so, that there may not be any Prof. Langdon around to save the human race.

Bet I got you thinking there and may be feeling a bit uncomfortable but that's what makes Inferno different - you can feel the imminent danger all the time.

The Pixar Touch - story of men with stars in their eyes and grit in the minds

Cartoons, fairy tales and superhero dreams is what most of our childhood was made of. Bringing these stories to life and transforming them into something that we can watch, hear and sing along with, was a challenge that a few men decided to take on. The result was this whole phenomenon called Disney and a handful of other smaller studios that worked under the shadow of Disney. 

The Pixar Touch is the story of a few mavericks who stuck it out in the era where Disney ruled the animation space and dedicated their prime to the cause of developing 3D animation. In a time where 2D animation ruled the roost, of which Disney was the King, and 3D was wished away as only suitable for advertisements or professional grade publishing and non-entertainment related applications such as healthcare, these guys worked tirelessly with a single point aim of making 1 3D film in their lifetime and boy did they make 1 film. With that one film as good as Toy Story, they broke all technology and commercial barriers and established themselves as the Gold standard in animation surpassing even the mighty Disney in their technical prowess.

Pixar Touch is the heart warming and inspiring story of John Lesseter, Ed Catmull and the visionary Steve Jobs who made the core of Pixar Animation Studios and their herculean effort to make 3D technologies suitable for animation movies.

Readers will be amazed to find that these guys were not just animators and artists but actually inventors and scientists who were behind multiple complicated algorithms for rendering, texturing, colouring, shading and what not. They almost worked like a kitchen cooking up new algorithms and ways every day to enhance the animation potential of 3D. Their work almost solely forms the base of the work that adobe does today in desktop publishing and the healthcare imaging industry apart from giving us the wonderful world of 3D animation.

The book also explores the complicated relationship between Disney and Pixar and how Steve Jobs took this group from being a technology provider for Disney to an animation powerhouse giving ground breaking hits after hits.

Extremely well written and pacy, The Pixar Touch will take you inside the world of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Monstors Inc and many other hidden gems and the gems who worked tirelessly to bring these movies to us.