Eat That Frog! By Brian Tracy

Review by Shwetha H S

Imprint: Collins Business
ISBN: 9781609946784
Genre: Self-Help, Non Fiction

Brian Tracy is from the field of self-improvement training, for both individuals and companies. In this book, Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy has put in all methods to avoid procrastination. A very good read that teaches how to eat that frog.

Here, the frog denotes the most difficult task that is in front of you among many more. If someone asks you to eat a frog, you wouldn’t do it. But if this task makes things easier for other task completion, then you would do it. It is a simple concept. Finish the most difficult task first and it would make other minor tasks more easier than they are. Brian Tracy has explained twenty-one different ways to cut down on procrastination. All are proven methods, the ones that many companies and individuals have implemented in their day-to-day life.

Eat That Frog is a must read for everyone. It is not for working professionals, it is also important in domestic life. Go for this book.

Handbook for Personal Productivity by Henry E Liebling

Review by Shwetha H S

Many of us have ideas and want to bring all of them to life. If not all together, at least one at a time. But not all of us know how to manage ourselves to make dreams come true. That’s where Henry E Liebling’s Handbook for Personal Productivity comes into picture. A self-help book that does not promise you to bring you out of the unproductive phase all alone, but says it will help you only if you are willing to give at least 50% of your best and rest will be done by the instructions.

The book deals with personal productivity, team achievement, quality customer service and health achievement. Under each segment, the author has encouraged help-seekers to follow his instructions and challenge themselves with certain simple tasks that help in improving your approach towards life and nearing your aims.

Though it is better to be self-motivated and look within instead of depending on somebody else to drag you out of hellhole, you can “use” Handbook of Personal Productivity to help you get a hold on your life better than before. This book helps you control your life and doesn’t take your life into its control. You can safely go with this book as it doesn’t ask you to completely and crazily alter you way of life and schedules. A safe bet it is!

Atha Kāljnānaprakaranam: The Knowledge of Death Related to Time (Edited by Pandit Shoe Shankar Mishra and C N Burchett)

Review by Shwetha H S

Whatever were the intentions of the editors when they began working on publishing the shlokas compilation and its translation, they have failed in it. Atha Kāljnānanprakaranam is based in the collection of ancient shlokas made by Shri Banwarilal. Maybe the shlokas actually teach us something good, but we never know because they are in Sanskrit and not everybody understands that ancient and mother of all languages. Hey! They have provided translation too in Hindi and English. But the translations are so miserable that they will make you cringe out of frustration because you aren’t learning anything from this book and it doesn’t even justify at least its title. The editors must have given the background of the book, neat translations and explanations about why such shlokas were made in the first place. This book is a complete laughing stock, that too in a pathetic way. Please don’t bother reading this unless you have some money as well as time to waste.

Cave Kiddos: A Sunny Day by Eric Jay Cash

Review by Shwetha H S

My first reaction as soon as I saw the cover of Cave Kiddos: A Sunny Day was to clap my hands together and exclaim about the illustrations of four cute cave kids. They appear throughout the book trying to pronounce the word “water” and teach you the same. The author and illustrator, Eric Jay Cash, teaches children as well as adults how to pronounce the word “water” using four cave kids named Alk, Haha, Lala and Zee. There is not much to read in here except the splits of the word “water” so that the reader can read them in halves first and together later to learn how to pronounce the word “water.” This book is basically and especially made for children with speech development problem and for people who are dealing with such children. If not either, you can buy the book only for the sake of illustrations.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

Review by Shwetha H S

Don’t go by the title of this book. And definitely not by the whole cover of this book! You may find some of your unasked questions answered by Dear Sugar inside this book. Before this book, a collection of her advice to random people came out, Cheryl Strayed had already authored her bestseller Wild. But that is not what we would be discussing about. We would be discussing her role as an Agony Aunt of digital era.

People expected an honest, life transforming advice from her; she who had been in all sorts of situations that you can think of at this moment. And they got it. She didn’t suggest them anything impossible. She only suggested them things which they already knew they had to do to change their lives. And in that, Dear Sugar used no sugar-coated words in advising struggling humans.

Her replies to the troubled seekers were most of the time like a snap of fingers in front of their faces. Most of the time? Yes, because sometimes it was a slap in their faces. Now, did you ask me why she wrote in such a way? As said in this book, it is a memoir with an agenda. Because she is someone who has been there.

As and when you read each reply, you are forced to imagine Dear Sugar either sitting next to you and talking in a calm and contended way or pacing in your reading room talking to you while you timidly look at her without opening your mouth.

Each seeker has a story behind his or her question. Together, they were Cheryl Strayed.