How To Travel Full Time by Colin Wright
Published by Asymmetrical Press on 06/11/2011
Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Business
Pages: 125
Format: eBook
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Travel is unexpected and uncomfortable and often the opposite of what you were expecting. #BookQuote #BookBlogging
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Published 7 years ago, How To Travel Full Time by Colin Wright still relevant today. It is not a complete how-to book but rather more of Colin’s philosophy on what makes him want to travel the world and earn to cover costs of travel or save money. Colin started traveling full time in 2009. Along with that, he was blogging and has already published a few ebooks but the main motivation that was that on his blog, he would ask his readers to vote for the country which they’d like him to move to. Sounds crazy, right?

The type of person who excels at long-term travel embraces these situations and sees them as opportunities. They’ll do what needs to be done, whether that means pulling new plans from thin air, hopping on another train, or finding…
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How To Travel Full Time is a pragmatic approach to kickstart your own journey. It is straightforward. The book clearly targets a mindset. Colin Wright has clearly stated in the book that traveling full time is not about reaching out to tourist places but is about getting lost intentionally. Learn about the new cultures, language or food, and provide a value wherever you go. The author of this book talks about common sense that I see few full-time travelers over YouTube and on their blogs still do not get, even in 2018 when there is so much content, advice, suggestion and resources to become one while you work your ass off.

To a person lacking dreams and causes and imagination, money is just another expensive bottle of liquor or VIP seat at the club; borrowed dreams from generations of advertising. #BookQuote #BookBlogging
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Colin is one of the first few digital nomads I would say. He has written a lot of books and is an advocate for minimalism. He offers how most people think traveling will turn in to a journey of nirvana and they will find a new self. If that is the mindset you want to set off, you are completely wrong. You will face problems with no conscious confidence and boldness. It is going to be uncomfortable. That is why I said, the main ideology behind this book is to observe and understand a mindset that you can merge along with your current one.

The idea most people have about travel is wrong. It’s not going to solve your problems. You aren’t going to go on vacation and become a person reborn. #BookQuote #BookBlogging
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Interesting read, the context is still relevant. It is inspiring because it makes me want pursue a similar journey. The writing style is simple but there are some glimpses that Colin Wright can be a good storyteller. Even though the book is around 125 pages, there is a lot to think about.

4 out of 5

Visit Colin on his website. If you’d like to read the book, you can buy it for $1 from here.

My notes and highlights from Colin’s Book are available to Read on Goodreads.

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My Rating: 5/5

• I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn’t mean much.
• You can’t really think hard about what you’re doing and listen to the radio at the same time.
• When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.
• the intellect of modern man isn’t that superior. IQs aren’t that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know.’

• Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past.
• ‘Art’ when it is opposed to ‘Science’ is often romantic. It does not proceed by reason or by laws. It proceeds by feeling, intuition and esthetic conscience.
• keep a lab notebook. Everything gets written down, formally, so that you know at all times where you are, where you’ve been, where you’re going and where you want to get.
• the act of writing down the problems straightens out your head as to what they really are.
• Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive.
• It was reason itself that was ugly and there seemed no way to get free.
• Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not final wisdom.
• The illusion of separation of subject from object is best removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and emotional activity.
• One of the most important is the Sanskrit dhyana, mispronounced in Chinese as ‘Chan’ and again mispronounced in Japanese as ‘Zen.’
• Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You’re so sure you’ll do everything wrong you’re afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than ‘laziness,’ is the real reason you find it hard to get started. This gumption trap of anxiety, which results from overmotivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of excessive fussiness. You fix things that don’t need fixing, and chase after imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors into the machine because of your own nervousness. These errors, when made, tend to confirm your original underestimation of yourself. This leads to more errors, which lead to more underestimation, in a self-stoking cycle.
• The best way to break this cycle, I think, is to work out your anxieties on paper. Read every book and magazine you can on the subject. Your anxiety makes this easy and the more you read the more you calm down. You should remember that it’s peace of mind you’re after and not just a fixed machine.
• Impatience is close to boredom but always results from one cause: an underestimation of the amount of time the job will take.
• Impatience is best handled by allowing an indefinite time for the job, particularly new jobs that require unfamiliar techniques; by doubling the allotted time and by scaling down the scope of what you want to do.
• Overall goals must be scaled down in importance and immediate goals must be scaled up. This requires value flexibility,
• The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself.
• The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things.
• The term logos, the root word of ‘logic,’ refers to the sum total of our rational understanding of the world.
• Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We’ve won it. It’s going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.

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The Last Attractor of Chaos by Abhinav Singh
Published by Notionpress on 04/2018
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 332
Format: eBook
Goodreads

If you get a chance to read a Spy novel written by an Indian writer you to read it. It is a like once in a blue moon material that gets out in the market.

The plot starts with a married couple. Ashwin Rathore is killed in a well-planned murder that gets wrong. The murderer was after his wife Shruti Rathore who is a retired R&AW agent. This is just a start of this thrilling storyline as the wife gets arrested by the Intelligence Bureau on the charge of stealing a strategic weapon and killing her associate. Unaware of her wife’s past, and after his death Ashwin meets a strange consciousness appearing in the form of a guide in his afterlife. Both of them try to save Shruti’s life as Ashwin himself tries to fight a dilemma of protecting his wife or choosing what is right to do.

The plot covers an interesting theme and there is a lot from a philosophical point of view on the death and afterlife. I was surprised by this as I expected it to be a traditional spy novel. However, the inclusion of this law of nature as the primary theme of the novel did make things interesting. With glimpses of mysterious nature of characters, this novel has a good pace, and the setting of the novel which includes an Intelligence Agency of India is something altogether new out there for the reader to pick this up.

The characterization is bold but more significant within the plot. They are like a molecule in the shell of the storyline and without it, they won’t exist. The use of sob plot was not much of an intriguing point from me but I think it copes well in the end. The writing style is crisp and lucid. It does help to turn the page at a faster rate. There are many twists and turns that made not to put down this book. A glimpse of realism is there which is what Indian readers are after these days.

Overall, this book is recommended for the sole reason that there aren’t many Spy novels written in India or by Indian writers. Another point that I can add is that this book is highly entertaining due to the way it reaches the climax of the story.

5 out of 5!

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Sherlock's World: Fan Fiction and the Reimagining of BBC's Sherlock by Ann K. McClellan
Published by University Of Iowa Press on 15/11/2018
Genres: Nonfiction
Pages: 286
Format: ARC, eBook
Goodreads

Sherlock series by BBC set in contemporary London has one of the most mixed bag reviews I have ever heard from fans and non-fans of the original Sherlock Holmes books. Sherlock Holmes is still popular after making his first appearance in the print 130 years ago. It is one of the most fan-fictionalized characters. No other character from the literary world has been written about than Sherlock Holmes. So what makes Sherlock’s fanfic so popular?

Ann McClellan tries to answer this question in her latest book which consists of a series of essays. She tries to answer, even after 130 years of Sherlock Holmes, why are people so attracted to it? Sherlock’s fanfic does not end at the BBC’s remaking that stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson and created by one Mark Gattis and Steven Moffat. After reading this book, it does seem that Sherlock as a series is a mere portion of the fandom. The more aggressive and a larger portion is available on the internet where the world of Sherlock is constantly rebuilt. It explores different characters, genres, settings, fictitious realities.

I was shocked to see people often think of Sherlock as a sex symbol and there is a huge collection of fanfic all over the internet that likes to talk about it. Heck, many fans even have re-imagined their wildest dreams of performing a relationship between Dr. Watson and the detective himself. Most essays are written in third person narrative. I do feel this book could have been a bit short. It is a perfect read for someone looking to write or explore Sherlockians world deeply but if you just want to be in the awe of the literary character, this book is not for you.

3.5 out of 5!

What is your fantasy about Sherlock Holmes? Or do you like the classic/original cast and do not want to fiddle with it since it is mind-boggling…?

The post BOOK REVIEW: Sherlock’s World: Fan Fiction and the Reimagining of BBC’s Sherlock by Ann K. McClellan appeared first on Confessions of a Readaholic.

Zen and the Art of Admin Tasks by Nic De Castro, Nathan Pettijohn
Published by Lioncrest Publishing on 27/06/2018
Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Entrepreneurship
Pages: 66
Format: eBook
Goodreads

In the world of hustle, we often forget how much time we lose instead of spending it in a useful manner. Time management is an actionable task if you run a startup or a micro business. If you are not managing your time wilfully, you are not only losing time but your energy too in performing mundane tasks. Think about the most mundane task you go through every day that unknowingly consumes a lot of time?

I am a remote worker and I spend a lot of my time reading and answering emails (not from my workmates). Emails in a modern world, consume a lot of our time. I often find myself reading emails on my laptop and if away from that, my mobile phone happily delivers them to me. Zen and the Art of Admin Tasks is a short book, mere 65 pages, about how to outsource these type of administrative tasks. It offers a system that if followed and maintained can add a lot of value to your time and save that energy. It is a tactical guide that might not interest everyone, but let me convince you to read it at least once.

Along with defining the situation by giving a real-life example of the major difference by managing these tasks on your own versus hire someone to manage your inbox, this book offers a variety of tools, mostly free. Written by Nic De Castro and Nathan Pettijohn, both of them are startup owners. They describe by hiring a virtual assistant how they were able to add more value to their personal and work life.

This book even the so short is about implementing the strategies defined in it ASAP. That is the idea both the co-authors want to convey. The writing style is simple and to the point. The tools and systems defined are pragmatic. Two of those tools, I have started using them. However, I do feel this book could have been a longer and tackled other issues for a modern-day hustler. I would have loved to hear about how Nic’s and Nathan’s manage and tackle different situations in their startup world. That zen could have been more descriptive.

3.5 out of 5!

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Mastering Fear - A Navy SEAL's Guide by Brandon Webb, John David Mann
Published by Portfolio on 07/08/2018
Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Entrepreneurship, Self Help
Pages: 256
Format: eBook
Goodreads

Best book I have read in 2018!

When I saw the cover of the book I knew I had to get my hands on it. The cover is unique and simple. A yellow background with a man representing a warrior type of a person on a horse killing a lion with a spear. Might sound mythological to some or hypothetical to others. It has a significance to the context of the book. I urge you whatever thought comes into your mind after grasping the cover image from both of your eyes, either try to remember it or write it down somewhere. You will be astonished by its significance.

Mastering Fear is a great title to start the book. It is not your typical self-help book if you read it carefully. The author of this book had experience in war zones of Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL where he learned a lot of things and developed a conscience for trusting himself in the situations where panic easily takes over a human mind. Brandon Webb, he is an accomplished author and has written many books before this one. Apart from being a Navy SEAL, he now runs a media business that is worth millions. Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand the motive behind this book. To master the fear, the first step is to take a decision and I want you to take decide for yourself whether this book is for you or not.

Mastering Fear is not about facing a hostile gang of men or being in a war zone. It's about the battlefield in your mind.
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Think about it. Who is that person that you most spend time with? Talk to, care about or listen to? Yes, yourself! This book talks about you. It is based on you. There are stories of people who are have mastered their own fear of drowning in the water, heights or build their own life after getting bankrupt 2 or 3 times. But all are these realities of others who have faced panic in its face when the time came for them. Brandon Webb, the co-author of this book starts it in a storytelling way about his friend who is suffering from the fear of drowning for the last 35 years of his life. The only reason he is still suffering because he wants to learn to swim and has tried everything. Contacted every medal winner or coach but always failed. This how Brandon concludes this situation:

Mastering Fear is not about becoming physically stronger, or tougher, or more macho r more aggressive, or more stoic. It is about how to identify and change the conversation in your mind.
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I consider this a universal truth after hours of dwelling in works of ancient and modern day writers. The book focus on the self’s thought process and how to change it when the situation of an excruciating adrenaline rush comes where we often fail because we forget to give it a second thought right there, in that circumstance. This is the core of the book. Switching your thought process and understanding that fear is not something you should despise and can have your own way in life. Brandon points out that fear is a signpost, a gateway to the prize or the achievement or your success. It can be that secret weapon or the missing piece of puzzle right under your nose. To do so, Brandon divides the whole process into five interesting steps that are demonstrated with real-life anecdotes.

The writing style of the book is simple and easy to grasp. The book even though only 250 pages long is time-consuming. The chapters are short and consistent. Each follows the previous one, so I would not recommend skipping one for another. Its narrative style is catchy. Once you sit down and start reading it, it is hard to move away from it.

I would also like to say here that the context of the book is solely a pragmatic POV. Some readers might do not want to read it since it is written by a Navy SEAL or some only want to read it because it is written by a Navy SEAL and will have content on war zones, et cetera. You both are going to be disappointed. This book is about overcoming your fear even if you sit in a cubicle all day. It is about how to grow as a person and achieve what you always wanted to.

A must-read book for everyone.

5 out of 5!

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Pennies to Power by Tom Graneau
on 30/04/18
Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Entrepreneurship
Pages: 340
Format: ARC, eBook
Goodreads

Netgalley is a good platform to browse for upcoming books. If you get lucky, you will get the chance to read an ARC of a book you wish too. I also think it is one of the biggest platforms to search for indie authors. Recently, I got my hands on Tom Graneau’s new book, Pennies to Power: How to use your 20’s to Gain Financial Independence for Life.

For those of you who do not know, Tom is an advocate for working independently. At least to generate an income for your own efforts instead of working for others and fulfilling their dreams. In this book, he tries to provide pragmatic patterns and suggestions. He intakes 7 cultural barriers that are adhering most people from earn money outside their monthly paycheck life. There is no harm in that, but doing what you love and earning for yourself instead of paying to the banks to clear of your loans, is the motivation behind this book. Pennies to power gives the example of the American financial situation. It is full of researched anecdotes and diagrams. The author shows how temptations lead debt that looms for the rest of their lives. This forces one to think and live in a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

Pennies to Power tries to educate young ones about what financial situations they might lead into if there are no proper steps taken early in their lives. Tom believes that an individual’s 20s are the best time to start. Even though this book is targeted at people of a certain age group. The author claims that it can be useful for someone in their late twenties, I feel otherwise. I think the right audience for this book is for the age group of 18 to 22. They might feel more empowered and find it useful.

The writing style is not an attractive one. Even though it is a work of non-fiction, I felt it could have been better. The language is easy to understand and the book justifies the theme it revolves around: money.

3 out of 5!

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Do you write book reviews? Do you post them on Goodreads.com apart from your own book blog or Amazon account? If yes, then you must read this article.

Goodreads.com is such an amazing IMDB + Social Media for books. I have been using it for 7 years now. The interface might not be the most dynamic and user-friendly but I think it is a great platform to meet with like-minded people who read books. Finding new books through reviews and connecting with authors are other perks of using it.

Recently, a platform for authors and readers alike called BookSirens.com launched an amazing tool that analyzes your reviewer’s profile on Goodreads.com. They did mine, and the results are more interesting than I expected.

A bit about Booksirens.com?

There are many platforms out there I have seen for Book bloggers where they can get free ebooks. In return, they have to provide a review of the book assigned or interested. Many such platforms run an emailing list that you can subscribe too and then your inbox will get full of it book review requests. Then there are platforms such as Netgalley.com where you have to browse for books and send in a request you like to read.

BookSirens tries to follow the model of the first one however they would not spam your inbox. Its working is different and supports many bestseller and indie authors at the same time. They have a directory of book bloggers around the world in different genres and interests. Their listing of Book bloggers is public and free to use for the authors and do have paid option for connecting with hundreds of readers.

Analyzing a Book Reviewer’s Profile: The Right Way

BookSirens is not a typical marketing tool where authors pay to lure reviewers. It is similar to Netgalley in terms of getting only the interested readers for a specific book. They recently launched a tool where it reviews each and every data from your Goodreads.com profile and displays it in a more statistical and detailed manner. The type of data they are using already made public by Goodreads so do not worry about being snooped.

They invited me to try their tool and first I thought Goodreads already provide stats for every book read in my profile. What are they trying to do differently? What is their goal? With these questions, I politely gave in. The result was amazing.

It analyses these results on the basis of what you have read so far. I am Top 20% in Reading Diversity. 

Not only that, it checks your reading taste and what you prefer most to read. This is classified in two sections, Primary and Secondary.

Looks like I should read more Fiction! With that, it tells you about the topics, themes and characters you include in your reviews.

But one of the most amazing analysis for me in the overall was this. It is called the Early Adopter vs. Late Adopter. I have never seen anything like this before on Goodreads and find it useful to concentrate on which books in my TBR currently.

Lastly, along with others that I have missed out in this post, there are other useful patterns.

I think this is a very helpful analysis of one’s profile. If you take your reviewer’s profile or book blogging seriously than I do think you should join BookSirens.com.

You can check my complete profile here!  

DISCLAIMER:

In no way I am getting compensate for writing this article. I am not trying to promote anything related to BookSirens.com or Goodreads.com. All I am trying to do is spread out the word for fellow book bloggers who can use this tool for their own benefits. All the stats shared here are based on Goodreads.com and their public API.

Special Thanks to Mr. Dhruv Garg for telling me about BookSirens.com.

The post How to Analyze the Profile of a #BookReviewer? appeared first on Confessions of a Readaholic.

Anon by Bhavani Iyer
Published by Fingerprint! Publishing on 31/05/2018
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Literary
Pages: 312
Format: Paperback
Goodreads

Bhavani Iyer is a screenwriter for many Hindi films and television shows, so when I received this book, I knew I would not be disappointed. Anon is her debut work published earlier this year. The storyline is based in Calcutta of 1960s-70s where Jazz clubs are still lively.

The storyline revolves around two personalities, who are different by a vast amount of surroundings between them yet, they found each other become friends. One is a son of a wealthy landowner and another is born into a fisherman’s family. One is a genius vagabond, another is an ambitious dreamer. However, both of them share a common passion. They both are aspiring writers and have their own share of struggles.

Their friendship is however not only based on the common passion they share. It is actually the different personalities, like two opposing forces attracting each other. It is their story, where one gets the chance to live and other to die.

The narrative style third person and is used very well. The charm of this book is in its characterization. Apart from the two main protagonists of our novel, the characters are lively and cope well with their own roles or the amount of time they are given to appear. The development of the two protagonists can be observed throughout the novel. The writing style is excellent and engrossing. It is because of the manner it is written that as a reader I could observe the emotions that change with time inside a human mind. Crushing memories from past, nostalgic ones from the childhood, this book is full of them.

4 out of 5!

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Infin-Eight: Eight Principles for Infinite Professional Success by Prajeet Budhale
Published by Fingerprint! Publishing on 01/05/2018
Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Entrepreneurship, Self Help
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Goodreads

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