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D. Murali

AS MINISTERS play kings pronouncing policies that hapless citizens have to listen to, the right stuff to read is Kingdomality, by Sheldon Bowles, Richard and Susan Silvano, published by Hyperion (www.HyperionBooks.com). "Kingdom can't function properly unless all points of view are present. Everyone is needed," writes Ken Blanchard in his foreword, and that's a thought for the Opposition not to be absent from discussions.

The authors introduce us to Harold the Wise, a king amidst chaos. "Unfortunately in his Kingdom, projects got started but were rarely finished. Meetings called to discuss how to get a project concluded would soon turn into meetings discussing why the project wasn't completed, which in reality meant everybody disclaimed any responsibility for the mess and blamed everyone else."

As the court jester put it, the five phases of any project were: "Enthusiasm, trouble, search for a scapegoat, punishment of the innocent, and praise and reward for all non-participants." People were quarrelsome and defeatist.

"The only people who got along were like-minded individuals who banded together. They resembled bands of chattering monkeys, which, when trouble strikes, head for the treetops, scolding whoever and whatever is left below." Too real to ignore!

Travel back into science

IF ONLY time could be stopped, there would be no Budget today! Well, that's not possible, so I turn Palle Yourgrau's book instead, to get to know `the forgotten legacy of Godel and Einstein' in A World Without Time, from Basic Books (www.basicbooks.com). Einstein had as much taste for sausage as for a good theorem, writes the author: "He had a taste for solid German cooking, which he consumed with relish, topped off by his omnipresent pipe. Friends and wives would be swept aside in the current of his turbulent life, but his pipe never left him."

Once he wrote to his wife Elsa: "I have firmly resolved to bite the dust, when my time comes, with the minimum of medical assistance, and until then to sin cheerfully... smoke like a chimney, work like a beaver, eat without thought or choice, and walk only in agreeable company, in other words, rarely."

In the light of recent taboos on smoking in public, one wonders if one should carry a `statutory warning' when displaying the picture of a smoking Einstein! Enjoyable read.

Make a difference in small ways

KIRAN Batra emerged from being a housewife for 18 years to become a corporate trainer. And she has written a self-help guide titled The Confident You, published by BPI (India) P Ltd (bpibooks@vsnl.net).

The book is about how you can make a difference in small ways. Such as, projecting an image of a successful you.

"The irony of our behavioural pattern is that, for a once-in-a-while, friend's cousin's party we project a very presentable personality package, while in the every day business of life we walk around with a grim, unimpressive personality," writes Batra, down-to-earth.

More than for others, a pleasing visual image works wonders to oneself too, by raising self-worth and confidence.

You can connect to people by keeping to spoken commitments, says the author. "A commitment is a promise meant to be kept," she defines. "In day-to-day interactions and dealings with people, we make commitments right, left and centre; unblinkingly, unthinkingly. Our commitments take the form of simple words: `I'll call you back,' and they have the simple meaning: `I will not be calling you back.'" Do I hear you making a commitment to read Batra?

Jailed for winning a quiz

VIKAS Swarup's Q and A from Doubleday (www.booksattransworld.co.uk) makes an arresting beginning in the prologue: "I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show." The book is set in India, and presents "a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle of good against evil," screams the back cover.

Here's a snatch, where Salim and `I' meet Ashok, "a thirteen-year-old with a deformed arm."

Ashok says, "We are not schoolchildren. We are beggars. We beg in local trains. Some of us are pickpockets as well." "And what happens to the money you earn?" "We are required to give it to Maman's men, in return for food and shelter."

Question number 12 carrying a prize of `one billion rupees' comes towards the end of the book: "What was the name of Mumtaz Mahal's father?" To know the answer, and what happened afterwards, hunt out Swarup!

Mathematics is about ideas

DOES math frighten you? If yes, you're in the majority. However, now that you've lived through the scare of the subject in school and college, it will do good to read The Story of Mathematics, by Richard Mankiewicz, published by Cassell Paperbacks (www.thestoryofmathematics.com). "Mathematics is not about impenetrable symbols," writes the author. "It is about ideas: ideas of space, of time, of numbers, of relationships." Mathematics of the Vedic period of Indian civilisation is found in Sulbasutras, informs the books. They were appendices to the Vedas and spoke of rules of ritual.

"The term sulba came to mean the cord or rope used to measure the dimensions of altars."

There's a quote of Baudhayana on a simplified Pythagorean theorem: "The rope which is stretched across the diagonal of a square produces an area double the size of the original square." For fearless reading.

Books courtesy: Landmark (www.landmarkonthenet.com)

Tailpiece

"I've been switching channels between election analysis and... "

"Budget blah-blah?"

"No, a TV serial, to feel reassured about life!"

ReadingRoom@TheHindu.co.in

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