RICH DAD, POOR DAD

The book teaches everyone why is it necessary to have financial education. The story is of the author himself. The book starts from his childhood where he wanted to be rich as other kids in the school. He had two fathers- rich one and the poor one. One was highly educated and intelligent while the other never finished his 8th standard. His own dad was poor and his rich dad was his best friend's father. Both were successful in their career. Both earned but one always struggled financially and left bills to be paid when he died. The other became the richest man who left millions of dollars to his family after his death. Both had different viewpoints about money. One believed that 'love of money' is the root cause of all evil while the other would say 'lack of money' is the root cause of all evils. The author had two paths to choose and he followed the path of his rich dad. The author has shared his personal example on how his small and simple maths calculation made him rich. He also tells how education systems are training future generation to work for money. He thinks that to become rich, one needs financial IQ and not money.

LOVE STORY OF A COMMANDO

This is a story of an Army personnel Virat and a girl Riya who is studying engineering. They meet in an art exhibition and fall in love with each other at first sight. Slowly they realise that an invisible bond has built up between them. But they don't confess their feelings to each other and their love story is left unsaid. After sometime, there is an attack on Taj hotel and Virat saves her life as well as confess his feelings for her. After that, she realises that he has left her alone. To cope up with her loss, she moves to Kashmir but her fate brings her back in front of Virat again.

Love story of a Commando is clean, classic, romance, adventure and thrill tied in a package with a sweet ending. It is not just a regular romance book that we read, it's of a girl in love with a commando in extraordinary situations. The overwhelming feelings, especially the love, anger and loss are so vividly described that we will feel for both characters. They struggle with their choices and feelings, trying to do what's best but not always succeeding.

This is a story of an Army personnel Virat and a girl Riya who is studying engineering. They meet in an art exhibition and fall in love with each other at first sight. Slowly they realise that an invisible bond has built up between them. But they don't confess their feelings to each other and their love story is left unsaid. After sometime, there is an attack on Taj hotel and Virat saves her life as well as confess his feelings for her. After that, she realises that he has left her alone. To cope up with her loss, she moves to Kashmir but her fate brings her back in front of Virat again.

Love story of a Commando is clean, classic, romance, adventure and thrill tied in a package with a sweet ending. It is not just a regular romance book that we read, it's of a girl in love with a commando in extraordinary situations. The overwhelming feelings, especially the love, anger and loss are so vividly described that we will feel for both characters. They struggle with their choices and feelings, trying to do what's best but not always succeeding.

ANYTHING FOR YOU, MA'AM

The title is used almost every time wherever it was needed while narrating the conversation between the main characters. The book starts with the description of Tejas meeting Shreya. Tejas flirts with his sister's friends and when his sister comes to know about this, they involve in a fight. Meanwhile, Tejas has to go to his college's industrial visit for 10 days but he decides not to go on the visit but shall go to visit Shreya (his latest crush) who resides in Chennai. But the whole story revolves around the problems every time he thinks that he will be able to meet Shreya. In the end, Shreya's brother helps Tejas in meeting her without any problem.

THE GREAT INDIAN LOVE STORY

The book starts with Riya narrating how she leaves USA because of financial problems and comes back to Delhi. The whole story is unpredictable. The story talks about lavish parties, coke mafia, sexed up dolls and raunchy extra marital affairs. It also talks about how youngsters fall prey to the glittering web and lose themselves in the world of drugs and sex and finally lose their lives. Coming back to Riya's story, when she returns back to Delhi, her life changes and she meets Serena, who becomes her closest friend in town. Many incidents take place after which Riya realises her aim in life. Ira has weaved many issues together like revenge, sex, glitz, friendship and an unwilling murder to create a potent cocktail.

THE ALCHEMIST

The book starts with a boy named Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story focuses on all the spiritual and motivating messages be receives on his path from the elder people. This way, be keeps proceeding towards the treasure. This book is spiritual in which in the end, Santiago comes to know what is the real treasure of our lie and how it is achieved.

"Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own." (pg 28)

Santiago is a shepherd who journey everywhere with his sheep. One day he had a dream bout treasures in the pyramids in the desert. So he sell his sheep and journey to the desert. Upon his journey, he was robbed so he worked under a crystal merchant. After saving an amount of money, he joins a caravan which will travel across the Sahara desert. In the journey, he met an Englishman who wants to be an Alchemist. The caravan stops on an oasis because there is tribal war further beyond the desert. There, he met  Fatima, the girl he loved. In the oasis, be almost met the 200 years old alchemist. Then when they told that it is safe to travel, they go along their journey to the pyramids. But they were captured by the tribesmen.  To be fled by the enemy, Santiago proved that he was powerful by morphing into wind. After their escape, they go separate ways. Santiago go on to the pyramids. There be finds nothing. He met someone who dreamed about a treasure in a ruined church. Then Santiago realised that his treasure is in Spain. So he went back and found his treasure.

FEW THINGS LEFT UNSAID

The story revolves around Aditya and Riya. They meet through common friends and they see love in each other's eyes. They take time to express their feelings but as soon as they are in a relationship, they don't wait much and keep on stepping into the next level of relationship in every few days. A break up takes place due to some twists and turns but they get back together again. After that, something happens which changes Aditya's life. With this, Riya's life also changes. Their story is unpredictable till the end.

TRULY, MADLY,DEEPLY

The story is a pure teenage love which begins from school. Rahul Kapoor shifts to US because of a reason. He is lost in his thoughts and his classmates find him weird and he gets Sahil as a very good companion. He talks less but still Sahil remains with him. Rahul has a very hurtful past. He remembers all what happened between him and Seema (his beloved) right from the first meeting to the last. This story tells us how people take wrong decisions when they fall in love for the first time, how the misunderstandings overcome the passionate love between the lovers.

The book explores teenage romance which transcends across borders and horizons and love that grows beyond itself to culminate into something more. This book makes you realise not only the power of love, but also that of memories... something that will remain with us forever, even when the world backs out.

THE SECRET LETTERS OF THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI

Julian, who went to the Himalayas and returned back after attaining wisdom and secrets of life from the monks and sages living there, then doing the same what monks/ sages did with him i.e sharing the knowledge with others who have lost faith in life and enthusiasm in living.

       

This book is about the journey of a man named Jonathan, who learns some principles of life as before moving to the journey, be was frustrated with life but once he gets all the principles, be gets excited to return back to his life and fix his unsettled job, unstable marriage and disappointed son. The talismans that is to be collected by Jonathan from different people residing in different areas of the world take us to the exploration of many beautiful countries existing in the world. This book is not meant to be read just once for thee sake of reading but to be kept with us and read whenever we feel angry, tired, sad, depressed, exasperated about life.

SORRY, YOU'RE NOT MY TYPE

This is the true story of one of the reputed Delhi based college music band VAYU. The characters Vikrant, Anamika and Yuvi prove that 'When your passion and purpose is greater than your fears, you find a way to overcome them.' Aditya's story shows the reality of everybody's life that there is a girl be will never forget and vice versa. All relationships should come with a precautionary warning- HANDLE WITH CARE. This book covers just two years of life of these 3 friends and so much philosophy and content in it that it feels you have read a book about how to value people throughout your life. It tells how a small trip changes everything for these 3 friends and other two included is an astonishing experience. Multiple themes are used like friendship, passion, betrayal, love and suspense. When you get a lust for anything, when you think nothing above your passion, things get stressed to the extent that a part of its consequences remains unnoticed.

   

The best scenes are when VAYU meets during the audition, when Vikrant meets the stranger girl in Metro, Anurag's proposal to Anamika, the Daman events and the day VAYU breaks apart- everything is presented well. In short, it is not an ordinary story but an uncommon tale of a college life where you learn the teachings of journey ahead.

ARISE,AWAKE

This book comes with the tagline- 'The Inspiring Stories of 10 Entrepreneurs Who Graduated From College Into a Business of Their Own.'

        

This book consists of 10 stories in which got an idea while studying of starting some unique business and they didn't wait but started building blocks by blocks and finally succeeded.  All the stories seem to be realistic as if we are interacting with the characters. The characters and their works are-

1) Abhinav Lal and Shashank ND (NIT Surathkal)

Practo-Technologies (A software used by 10000 doctors)

2) Puneet Mittal (CA), Saurabh Bansal (IIT, Kharagpur), Sidharth Bansal (IIT, Delhi and IIM- Lko)

Magicrete (Construction)

3) Prakash Mundhra (SCM HRD, Pune)

Sacred Moments

4) Prabhkiran Singh (IIT, Bangalore), Siddharth Munot (IIT, Bangalore)

Bewakoof Brands (They sell funky clothing and accessories online)

5) Ankit Gupta and Dhruv Sogani (BITS, Pilani)

Innovese Technologies

6) Rupesh Shah (IET, Alwar)

Inopen Technologies ( This company teaches Computer Science to over 5 Lakh school children)

7) Aruj Garg (NLS, Bangalore)

Bhukkad  (Food Joint)

8) Anurag Arora (ICFAI Business School, Pune)

Ganpati Facilities (A MBA student who faced accommodation issue when he joined college in Pune. He seized opportunity and started hostel business in 2nd year for new batch and  made Rs. 25 lakh in profit 5 times the salary he could have got through placement.)

9)Apurva  Joshi (CA Final  student)

Fraud express

10) Eshwar Vikas and Sudeep Sabat (SRM Eng. College, Chennai)

Dosamatic (They set out to create an dosamatic dosa machine. Three years later, they have succeeded in producing the world's first tabletop 'dosa printer' and secured order from more than 100 restaurant owners.)

OUR IMPOSSIBLE LOVE

It is a story of Danish Roy and Aisha Paul, both different in their own ways since school days and find it very hard to compare themselves with their peers. But time brings them together and then how chemistry changes and twists and turns happen. Different topics are taken like how a girl has to go through uncomfortable sex in the name of relationship, the scary days after the girl decides to stop the boy from misusing her body, an emotion of a boy who hears rumour about his sister sleeping with different boys daily, an emotional turmoil of a boy who realises that he is a gay and his fight against daily abuses from his classmates for being something which is not in his control, an inferiority complex of a boy who is always treated extra against his brother who is a performer and achiever etc. This book also talks about many other youth issues.

"WAKE UP, GIRL!"

This novel is funny but serious at the same time. It discusses the society's unreasonable rules such as the 'right age to get married.' Naina Bansal, a 20 year old girl is the protagonist who faces the same problem. Through this novel, the author teaches all the girls how to deal with over-enthusiastic aunties and relatives. Naina just completed her graduation abroad and returned to India. She still is not sure what to do with her life and before she could think of it, she also is stuck in the trap of relatives and parents to get married.

            Our society has high expectations from girls like being obedient to parents, being thankful to them, following their advice and never listen to what their heart says, hear the criticism if something wrong happens, the need for a slim figure, fair skin, good cooking skills, good dressing sense, etiquettes, not roaming out late at night and many more. These things are to be done and they have to be perfect as according to the society, the main goal of a girl's life is to get married. This novel reminds all the girls that this is your life and you need to take charge, make mistakes, learn from them and try to communicate with your parents, do what your heart says. You and only you have the right to decide what makes you happy and live the life to your heart's desire.

ONE INDIAN GIRL

The story is about a girl who is quite feminist and does not believe in getting pulled down by her parents or anyone just because she is a girl. She always does things which she feels are correct. She is restricted to do the things which are not acceptable by the society. She lives abroad, earns well, has more than one relationship. All these things are a sign of an independent person. Story is told in flashback. The final decision made by the girl in the end makes the climax justifiable.

           The protagonist Radhika Mehta, like every other independent Indian girl comes out as a fighter who knows how to learn from her own experiences and how to live life on her own terms. Her ethnic look in sari, chain, nose pin, and hair bun indicates her consistent struggle to meet all the social expectations beyond her personal aspiration. Her bent head and leaning stare give readers the deeper insight of her urge for equal human rights and equal human freedom.

THE 365 DAYS

The book is about what a character named Shijukutty goes through when he leaves his motherland to change his fortune but gets trapped in a land which looks glamorous but has  a very depressing lifestyle for some people like him. How tough is it for a person to live and survive in such a place without a entity known and familiar to him is very well described in this book. What a migrant goes through in a totally different country in the quest of earning money is realistically portrayed. The minute detail of every  minute how a day passes is very nicely depicted in chapter with timeline.

"Every night I would go to bed daydreaming. The morning after, in the light of reality and logic, everything would seem meaningless.. Life was predictable and mechanical. Life was a handful of sand."

The story begins where Shijukutty goes to Dubai for more opportunities but sooner be realised how he was fooled regarding employment. A very harsh issue is discussed here- human trafficking, where a poor is forced to get lure by people whom he might not be aware of as well as their background to him are either unknown.

THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL

This diary is not just mere entries by a teenager but a record of human minds, who have to live in hiding for years with the constant fear of getting caught. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a 13 year old Jewish girl and her family fled from their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters and the ever present threat of discovery and death.

          

Anne has recorded vivid expressions of her experiences during this period. She referred her diary as 'Dearest Kitty'. In her words, 'Paper is more patient than people'. In this, she describes her relationship with her sister, father and her hatred towards her mother. She has written that she wants to be a journalist and wanted to do something for herself and want to make her name. Her thinking was way ahead of time and it totally reflects from her diary. This book advocates the importance of Hope and how a 'HOPE' can make you stand in the adverse situation. Anne's perpetual feeling of being lonely and misunderstood provides the impetus for her dedicated diary writing.  She frequently expresses her conviction that there are 'two Annes'- the lively, jovial, public Anne whom people find amusing and exasperating; and the sentimental, private Anne whom only she truly knows.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Every person has a hidden good and evil persona. It is totally upon him to use the good or bad qualities. We can find a scary element when a normal human being tries to experiment on himself or separate the good and evil. It gives the message that good and evil reside in each and every person and it is u to you how you are going to use it. This novella narrates the story of a lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend Dr. Jekyll and the evil Edward Hyde.

     

We can read about the split personality, a medical condition where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In the end, Hyde overpowers Dr. Jekyll which be no longer is able to control and hence commits suicide. In this novel, the duplicity of the human nature becomes more explicit, in fact the same man, drinking a potion, can make dominant the one or the other disposition of his soul. Mr. Hyde is deformed and smaller than Mr. Jekyll and we can interpret it as the evil part is a small part of the human feelings.

      
Victorian age is not only a great age of great virtues but also of murders, atrocious rituals and sexual  violence. This age is all a show of respectability, serenity and virtues, trying to imitate the queen Victoria. But, behind these virtues, this respectability, there is the 'dark side of the human world'. Perhaps, this is the real theme of this beautiful novel, where Jekyll is the incarnation of the virtues, and Hyde the evil part in the Victorian society and the human world.

The Kite Runner

This is Khaled's first novel and also the first novel published in English by an Afghan. It's a universal tale of friendship, redemption and profound hope. The story is plotted in Kabul in Afghanistan, where two young boys, Amir and Hassan stay in a lavish house. Amir is the son of a renowned merchant while Hassan is the son of their servant. Amir has lost his mother on birth while Hassan's mother had fled from home leaving behind her husband and young son. Each year, it was a tradition for the Afghan community to hold a kite festival during winters. Amir was an incredible kite flyer while Hassan was the best kite runner. During the festival, Hassan gets caught by a sociopathic bully who beats and rapes Hassan. Years later, Amir and Soraya get married and fail to have kids. Be receives a call from Rahim Khan who tells Amir of the unfortunate shooting of Hassan and his wife but that their son is now in an orphanage. Amir then decides to adopt his son.

This is the story of two children whose life changes drastically due to a small incident. This is a perfect tale of tragedy which shows the love and loyalty of Hassan towards Amir. The book also highlights the miserable living conditions and violence in Kabul.

College Days

The  book 'College Days' written by Devayu Mir explores the golden days of college life. This is the period when one is at the pink of health, confidence and ambitions are skyrocketing. It talks about a band of friend's journey together in a college. The characters are Neilabh, Avani, Amancha, Rinichi, Pia, Baba, Chinu, Vinay Jaju and Atanu sir. The story is set up in Surat, Gujarat. Most of the time we see that the set up is from any educational institution in a metro city or any renowned campus. But here, we can see the plot is of a normal college. You can see a realistic exploration of incidents which take place in a college. The language can be related to the current youth. Many incidents are there which are used in the movies like 3 Idiots and Gujarati movie Chello Divas. The author not only entertains us but also brings out some issues like the virtual world in which the youngsters are involved most of the time. Instead of living in the moment, they are involved in capturing it and showing off to the world via social platform.

" Bhai, always remember, when you known the bridge is broken, you should not drive on the road. It is important to take a U-turn at the right moment otherwise it will be difficult to turn back."

The author also shares the point of view of both genders while making a selection for a life partner-

           

"Don't be judgemental. If a guy selects girl on the basis of her looks, then it's fine but if a girl peeks a little into his bank balance, the world loses its sleep. Don't we have a right to look for financial stability?"

"Failures are the scars of an Entrepreneur. It shows that you have fought a battle. Like a warrior, embrace it and be proud of it. Also, never ever forget, a true warrior never takes a hit on the same wound again."

I Too Had a Love Story

                             

This book is a narrative of the journey of meeting of two strangers through a matrimonial site to the point where their relationship becomes the most precious gift of God. Ravinder (author) has beautifully described the depth of their relationship through lively depiction of their conversation, feelings and emotions. After meeting on internet, they wait for the first phone call. The little surprises bring them closer. While they are going to meet in person,  both are nervous, curious and excited. All these emotions and feelings are described very beautifully. The emotional element occurs when Khushi meets with an accident just before their engagement day. The ending lines touch our heart- "Not everyone in this world has the fate to cherish the fullest form of love. Some are born, just to experience the abbreviation of it."

     

This book tells us that not every love story has to end on a Happily Ever After note. Some love stories remain incomplete due to fate and yet are immortal. With this book, Ravinder Singh has made his first love Khushi remain alive and immortal in people's hearts.