Two Tales of the Moon by Jennifer Sun has Lu Li, young daughter of a Chinese doctor, who
escapes to USA, pursuing her studies to become a successful investment banker.
Sage Donovan is her friend, whose brother Will is the proud owner of a
flourishing cyber-security firm. The Chinese show interest in acquiring certain
business interests in this country, which includes Will’s firm and he requests
the services of a professional expert, Lu Li. Business interests take them to
China, where Lu meets face to face with her past life and charts new avenues,
to ponder about the future. Both the takeover, which comes to a fruitful end
but not without unexpected twists, and their romance, which flourish but not
without ethical dilemmas, life choices and coming to terms with the past, take
place as planned.
Two Tales of
the Moon by Jennifer Sun is a gripping tale. All characters are marked by their
independent presence throughout the story, each familiarizing us with one facet
of the modern business world, its international dimensions of the present
times. The book is also replete with intriguing turns, sentimental moments and
warm thoughts characteristic of a good romance, woven into the plot befittingly
for the ripe and mature industrialist, the friendly banker and his doting
sister who attempts to add romance into the life of her brother as well as her
friend. All the events, the settings and their progression blend beautifully
with the chosen characters, thus making the narration riveting while smooth
flowing. A very good read, I didn’t really notice the pages turn, till I
reached the last one.
‘THE REAL REASONS YOU ARE STILL POOR’ by JAMES WAMANI is book about success, suggesting, an approach in
facing the issues of life to achieve any thing. It gives a long list of reasons
for ones failure, with a good discussion to elaborate each. Beginning with the
most likely cause, You work hard but not smart, ten different reasons like, You
think small, You will not ask or seek information/ advice from those who know
better, are covered in this book. The book then turns to answers, how we can
overcome these pitfalls. Propounding a four phase solution, it offers a
comprehensive arsenal to help one in his quest for success. Describing the four
A’s of success, namely, Aspire – Choosing ones dream. Create a clear vision of
what your financial dream and financial freedom look like to you. Hold onto
your vision throughout your journey, Acquire - Learning, the education, the
facts, the figures, and the data you need in order to take action. The acquire
stage is ongoing because the markets and the economy are always changing, Apply
- Put the knowledge you’ve acquired to real use. Take action. With a small
amount of acquired knowledge, you can quickly move into the apply stage, which
will produce results, and, Achieve – One should feel involved throughout ones
journey, achieving with each and every win or success.
‘THE REAL REASONS YOU
ARE STILL POOR’ by JAMES WAMANI book can boast of an easy narration and a
friendly tenor. Simple explanations adds to its reader friendliness, however,
as the points are covered more in its abstract, these might have to be tweaked
to suit ones industry or business environment before adopting for use. Or this
can act as a guide while forming ones plans or procedures for consolidating or
bettering performance.
‘For seeing eye dogs only: A non-fiction treatise on intelligence’ by Robert S. Swiatek introduces laughter as a good medicine, that too,
the only one available without health insurance. His observations of the funny
take us through the common lanes of our townships to present them in an
uncommon manner. Beginning with the ubiquitous forms (placed at every place a
citizen has to approach) that invariably contains a standard caution – “Filling
this form is optional” and misbehaving soda machines that take revenge on needy
customers, to end with an apt definition of monotony – synonym for monogamy,
this book took me through some of the best gems of humor. Looking for the
printed data at the bottom of kittens, leaves perspiring to make dew, and
politics becoming a combination of many ticks, are few of those that continue
to be with me long after I finished the book.
‘For seeing
eye dogs only: A non-fiction treatise on
intelligence’ by Robert S. Swiatek is a very good book for light reading, as
well as for a deeper consideration, especially of the possibilities of
bureaucratic jugglery. Well done Robert!
‘LAUGHTER 101’ by SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE is a manual for laughing out ones life. It
starts with a declaration that life is complex and one may never know why it is
so. The therefore book proposes inevitability of sadness, no two people at
identical circumstances can never find themselves equally fulfilled. Examining
this and other factors that activate laughter, Samuel teaches us how, those can
be put to use in surmounting life’s troubles. How one can derive more fun from
life, how that can boost health and well being as well as, how to assess the
effectiveness of the changes in approach to life, are discussed in this book.
‘LAUGHTER
101’ by SAMUEL UFOT EKEKERE is easy
to read, the book being written in simple conversational style. Highlighted
actions and numerical steps make it easy to adopt these techniques in practice.
A set of review questions and an index would have been a wonderful addition.
In his book ‘Metaphysical Elements of Ethics’, Immanuel Kant presents moral philosophy
as a doctrine specifying the duties of all humans. The duties that are easily
understood have already been grouped together as jurisprudence or external
laws. Though we generally regard them as separate, the laws should be
considered as a subset of ethics and subject to the very same considerations
that mould our ethical behavior. Kant has brought out an interesting aspect of
moral principles, those ones, where the principle could be specified rather
strictly and in an unambiguous manner, or the ends could be clearly measurable,
became laws. And all duties where no tangible measurement is possible came to
be termed as ‘virtues’, the field of ethics. Terming these as indeterminate
duties, this book examines the many facets of ethics, of virtue, conscience and
morality.
‘Metaphysical
Elements of Ethics’ by Immanuel Kant is
not an easy book to read, even when due allowance is given to the complexity of
its topic. But it does examine many sides of the subject, which as the author
mentions is a collection of ‘problems encountered while discussing duties’,
answering many of the questions that were troubling my mind. Like “Love is a
matter of feeling, not of will or volition, and I cannot love because I will to
do so, still less because I ought (I cannot be necessitated to love); hence
there is no such thing as a duty to love.” How all the questions that had
answers of hazy nature happen to join together to make ‘ethics’, is one
interesting idea narrated here.
This Book, ‘IT IS S.A.D.: THE LEFTIST
BRAIN EXPOSED: Why Conservatives and Leftists Think so Differently’ by Rooster Bradford summarizes author’s efforts in trying to convince
folks of the best form of government for us, given that we are flawed. Rooster
Bradford, with his conservative roots and, an acquired leaning to the left
thanks to the influence of his mother, examines the question – “Why leftists
and conservatives think different?” The book notes the logical inconsistencies,
recognize the differences and draws conclusions. The author identifies the most
significant disability of the left, as an impaired common sense and, this book
examines the origins of this feature.
Beginning
with an interesting quotation from Winston Chuchill, “The inherent vice of
Capitalism is the unequal sharing of the Blessings, the inherent blessing of
Socialism is the equal sharing of its Misery”, the book, ‘IT IS S.A.D.: THE LEFTIST
BRAIN EXPOSED’ by Rooster Bradford contains many episodes and reflections on the author’s
journey from a conservative in his childhood, where his father’s influence
played a pivotal role, to rather left leaning, when swayed by his mother’s
convictions. It examines the qualitative differences between conservatives and
the liberals, and how, the approaches differ on all matters of societal life
like tolerance of power, debate, or representative functions. The antipathy,
the left exhibits for certain words, for example divorce and the suggested
replacements, dissolution, or disillusion (same sex couple), the varied
perception on all matters affecting personal or social life and the penchant to
embrace the unreal, and long list of other features of the left – right divide, the obscure
ones in addition to the obvious, make this book a an interesting companionand a good reference.
To answer this question, let us re-examine in earnest, the
whole gamut of life and living, both for humans and for all other forms of
life. In fact we can safely reduce this rather wide area of search, to just two
aspects of living. One, how good or effective is their approach as far as
comfort and longevity of life, and two, what is going to be the load on
environment and how much of resources get depleted in each generation that can
be a measure of the longtime survivability of species. 
Humans do everything they can to save them from the damage
done by natural calamities as well as forms of extreme violence but follow
everything in their life style that can harm them. Whereas all other forms of
life show a rather resigned approach when it comes to the inevitable but,
scrupulously avoid anything and everything except those well established as
part of their diet and life style.
