Book Reviews

Book review: In Hidden Potential, Adam Grant argues 3 character traits can set you up for success (Moneycontrol, Dec 2023)

Child prodigies and immensely talented people get a lot of attention. And rightly so. But is innate talent the only determinant of success? In his latest book, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, organizational psychologist Adam Grant argues it’s not. It aims to drive home the point that “potential is not a matter of where you start, but of how far you travel.” Given the instant gratification-led world we live in, the definitions of success have become narrower. Grant tries to expand the scope of what constitutes success and how there are ways to unlock hidden potential in everyone, given the right surroundings and motivations.

Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography: Detailed chronicle of a controversial figure with some sections reeking of a Faustian Pact (Moneycontrol, Oct 2023)

This 670-page tome isn’t really a page-turner despite the short chapters and chronological treatment. Undoubtedly, it will sell in huge numbers, irrespective of the reviews. After completing the book, one is left with two major questions: “Is Elon Musk becoming his father, Errol Musk? Should his reckless behaviour be given a pass, given all that he’s achieved?” On the last question, Isaacson concludes by saying he doesn’t find it necessary that one needs to be an asshole to justify their achievements. But then he ends with, “As Shakespeare teaches us, all heroes have flaws, some tragic, some conquered and those we cast as villains can be complex.”

Traffic review: Ben Smith chronicles the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and Gawker media group (Moneycontrol, May 2023)

In his book, Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral, veteran journalist Ben Smith chronicles the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and the Gawker media group. Jonah Peretti (co-founder The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed) and Nick Denton (founder of Gawker) are the protagonists of this riveting record of how news distribution was disrupted by two New York upstarts. Along the journey, we also see other characters who would transform the digital media sphere. Author Ben Smith got a ringside view of these cultural shifts as he was the founder of BuzzFeed News. He moved on to become a media columnist for The New York Times and now heads Semafor, a news website.

The Cult of We Review: Brown and Farrell’s definitive documentation of how WeWork thrived and eventually crashed (Firstpost, Aug 2021)

The larger question the book addresses is: What made a startup which was once valued at close to $96 billion in September 2018 (and was on the precipice of going public) implode so quickly that its valuation was stripped down to $2.9 billion by May 2021?

Despite being a business and startup culture book, there’s so much drama in here that it almost reads like a thriller. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s unputdownable. But as far as big tech biographies go, it comes close.

In Brad Stone’s book Amazon Unbound, critical perspectives on the transformation of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos (Firstpost, Jul 2021)

Brad Stone’s Amazon Unbound is not just a sequel to The Everything Store, which he wrote in 2013, but also a thorough look at how Bezos kept the innovation engine and the cash coffers at Amazon on an ascending curve. Stone has delivered a stellar sequel that’s a joy to read. It is a business book, in the sense that it tracks Amazon’s rise from an $80 billion company in 2010 to a trillion dollar empire in 2020. It is also biographical as the rise of Amazon is unimaginable without the constantly innovative mindset of its founder, Jeff Bezos. And just like Stone’s last book, The Upstarts, the most promising aspect of Amazon Unbound is how it voices the sociological problems that ruthless, profit-chasing big tech firms give rise to. I am hoping Stone revisits the company again for the post-Bezos book.

Krish Ashok’s Masala Lab demystifies the science of Indian cooking in a way aspiring cooks will find delightful, accessible (Firstpost, Dec 2020)

Masala Lab is primarily meant for beginner chefs who can’t cook without the crutch of a recipe or a YouTube video. That’s not to say established chefs won’t appreciate this book, but they won’t have as many “light bulb moments” as a newbie. If you aren’t the experiment-in-the-kitchen kind or are curious enough to ask the culinary genius in your house how certain dishes are made, this book will definitely bring you up to speed. No, it won’t make you a great cook overnight; that’s not the objective of the book. It’s meant to help you appreciate what goes on beyond the visible, when cooking happens. By understanding the core of the process, you’ll become the culinary creator you never believed yourself capable of being.

Steven Levy’s Facebook delivers on expectations as it dives into the inside story of the tech giant and the people behind it (Firstpost, Mar 2020)

Sixteen years can seem like an eternity in the tech world, yet Facebook has managed to remain relevant despite all the zillion privacy scandals. All this, while ensuring it continues to remain a profit-generating machine. Veteran technology journalist and Wired’s editor-at-large Steven Levy explores just this journey in Facebook: The Inside Story. Never before has any journalist got such unfettered access (three years) to Facebook staff as well as its founder. For this book, Levy conducted nine interviews with Zuckerberg. The result is a 530-page tome on what is easily a definitive account of Facebook’s journey so far.

The Ventilator Project documents a thrilling 90-day startup journey, holds a mirror to our administrative flaws (Firstpost, May 2021)

The Ventilator Project is a good mix of not just the thrilling story of making a world-class product in the midst of the pandemic, but also gives a blueprint for future medtech innovators as to how to go about setting up the team and dividing responsibilities. With the Nocca Robotics team laser-focussed on making the ventilator, external senior mentors helping out with their experience in various industries and the IIT Kanpur Incubator team doing the rest of the heavy lifting — the task force had a well-oiled three-tiered system where each team worked to the best of their areas of expertise to speed up the production of Noccarc V310. The book is a good starting point to think of organisational frameworks for young startups.

Pankaj Sekhsaria’s Nanoscale shines a light on how society influences research at India’s premier science institutes (Firstpost, Sep 2020)

Nanoscale isn’t about the latest innovations in the world of nanotechnology, but rather about how laboratories in India working in this discipline of nanoscience and technology have to also take into consideration factors that may not necessarily be scientific in nature. To that effect, the book is more sociological in nature. Sure, nanoscience is the major protagonist in the book, but it’s the various character actors presented by the Indian society that make this book one of its kind. Unlike research laboratories abroad, in the Indian context, it would be naive to discount the impact the world outside the laboratory has on the work that’s happening inside it.

Pakistan’s deep state is at the centre of The Bomb, the Bank, the Mullah and the Poppies: A review (Moneycontrol, Aug 2023)

The Bomb, the Bank, the Mullah and the Poppies (BBMP), Iqbal Chand Malhotra explores the Pakistani deep state as seen through the various lenses highlighted in the title. It distills 40 years of research during which Malhotra also produced a documentary, Nuclear Tango: Why a hero fell from grace?, on the subject of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and how its architect, Dr Abdul Qader Khan, was made to take a fall.

Orhan Pamuk’s The Red-Haired Woman reiterates his strong hold over melancholic oeuvre (Firstpost, Oct 2017)

Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s novels require a sort of mental preparation. One is assured of a deep dive into Turkish culture, forgotten monuments, lifestyles, histories, among other things. But the plots are not quite straight-forward. The beauty of a lot of Pamuk’s novels lie in their intricacies. Think My Name is Red, Snow, The Museum of Innocence. But his latest translated work, The Red-Haired Woman, is far from that. It’s a relatively shorter novel, for one, and the story is almost like a fable at some level. Yes, there are philosophical detours in many portions, but it’s a linear narrative with an element of a reveal which you want to approach soon. In that sense it is almost like a racy thriller on some levels. But scratch the surface and there’s more going on.

Origin book review: Dan Brown’s latest thriller finds Robert Langdon unspooling a mystery in Barcelona (Firstpost, Nov 2017)

With Origin, Brown’s story is exploring the two existential questions: Where do we come from? Where are we headed? Protagonist and maverick scientist and researcher, Edmond Kisrch (modelled on Elon Musk), who also happens to be a former student of Robert Langdon, has an important announcement to make. This announcement, according to him has the power “to not only shake, but shatter the very foundations of modern day religions”. The grand reveal is supposed to happen inside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. If you have read Brown novels, you already know what is going to happen during the grand announcement.