Book Review #101: Crooked Minds - Creating an Innovative Society By Kiran Karnik

Title: Crooked Minds – Creating an Innovative Society

Author: Kiran Karnik

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Innovation Ideas/Society and Social Science

Pages: 220 (Hardbound)

Source: Advanced review copy from Publishers

What it takes to being innovative or inventive? What are the roles that an individual, society, organizations, governments, cities, states and countries play in building those sustainable models? What are the pros and cons of doing the same? What are the parameters that one should and must consider while innovating? How those markets can be capitalized? These are some of the questions that any entrepreneur will face in their lifetime while they’re trying to establish a new venture of their own.

This is a book that speaks about those challenges of setting up an innovative culture in any aspects and in any scale. Be it an individual contributor or a team, each one of them can gain a good insight from this book on how to take a step ahead. Innovation is something that requires out of the box thinking in each and everything that a person or an organization does. But, what are the pitfalls or lessons that one needs to incorporate in dealing with such aspirations? This book specifically deals with that ideas where the entrepreneurs can get a new perspective altogether.

The book has various sections covering wide range of topics which deals with the innovation. Author Kiran Karnik, a man of many credentials, has crafted a well researched and thought off book that could create an interest among individuals who can take up the role of entrepreneurs. The author emphasizes the fact that exploiting and capitalizing the Indian innovation market (popularly called as “Jugaad” market) and tap into those areas which is not yet been given full research and importance. He has given numerous examples of companies from Indian and international arena. 

One such example is the organization called “Zip Dial” a venture setup by a foreigner in Bangalore which purely exploited the Indian invention of “Missed Call” concept and started out a huge organization based on this very comical idea. Zip Dial has assigned a specific number to their clients where customers can give missed calls to it and immediately the customer would receive the required information regarding that product or services at no cost. This is purely a win-win situation for both customer and the company. This was proven a game changer for the company Zip Dial, and they went on to add nearly 500 clients as their customers in few years of starting it up. Zip Dial was acquired by Twitter recently.

Further reading into the book, we will also get to read stories of the startups, now big companies like Uber, Netflix, and Airbnb. These companies have had their basic idea of exploiting the untapped markets and created a niche out of it. Now, Uber has definitely changed the concept of how the customer will book a taxi service and how Airbnb has asked the users to become hosts for strangers in their country by sharing their accommodation for a nominal fees setup by the customer themselves.

The book also covers some of the important aspects regarding the logistics considerations while setting up the new company. From the Indian perspective, author has carefully probed and analyzed the major metro cities and the advantages and disadvantages that it provides to support a new venture. He has eloquently explained about cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata and so on. He also emphasized the 2^nd tier cities like Ahmadabad, Cochin, Surat, Pune, etc…

Author also expressed his concern regarding the government policies that are available in promoting the innovation and startup cultures in the country. Also, he has suggested the new entrepreneurs to reach out to specific government bodies to avail the facilities and funding for their startups. This includes from various fields and not only IT sector.

The author has made some good amount of research on the standings of India on a global startup scale. India’s ranking in the yearly patent filing category. How India is faring low compared to USA and China in filing and procuring the patent rights for their unique designs and concepts. He has explained the importance of obtaining the patents to inculcate the habits of safeguarding the intellectual property rights of an individual and organizations.

The book also stresses about the need of the high quality university requirements for our country. How a globally recognized institutes would result in fostering a startup culture and why India is basically lacking these kind of infrastructure. For sure, India is struggling with old syllabus in our technical universities and is not keeping up with the pace of the changing world. The book has a clear explanation of the importance of higher; advanced technical education. This is the need of the hour if we want our younger generation to compete with others globally to make a mark in the startup initiatives and making them a success.

Overall a must read book for all those aspiring entrepreneurs. This will give you a fair idea of how competitive this world has become in terms of setting up new ventures. I would definitely recommend the readers to buy this book.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #100: Chanakya in Daily Life By Radhakrishnan Pillai

Title: Chanakya in Daily Life

Author: Radhakrishnan Pillai

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Life Lessons/Motivational/Non-Fiction

Pages: 272 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced Review Copy from Publishers

Life is all about doing the right things in the right way. As the old adage puts it out “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad”. There is a clear idea of what to learn and what not to learn from vast amount of sources. But, what if you find everything in a book that is combined as a one stop solution for all those life lessons? The book “Chanakya in Daily Life” by Radhakrishnan Pillai would fill that gap. This book is all about differentiating between what is right and how to tread that path.

The blurb at the back cover of the book says “Life is unpredictable and full of challenges. One wrong step and everything can come crashing down. In such a scenario, one often wishes for a roadmap of life, but how is that possible?”

This book is a clear roadmap for all your doubts and worries ranging from personal, professional and family life. Taking example of an Indian guru, Chanakya and his ever popular work Arthashastra, author has come up with a book that can be read every day and for lifetime too. The book is broadly and rightly classified in to three different sections. The first part deals with the individual life and lesson that can be learnt and adopted in one’s personal life. The second part of the book deals with the professional life that teaches what one must do in their professional life. The third and final part of the book teaches the importance of a family life. Each part holds its importance and is equally connected to the other two. One cannot have a sounding personal life, but lacking professional or family life satisfaction. It is interdependent on each other and this book explains the best way of handling all these things diligently and in a profound way.

In the first part of the book, the author discusses the personal life of an individual. The ideas ranges from waking up at a certain time every day, daily ritual, exercise for the body and the mind, relaxation, developing tastes in music, inculcating the habit of reading, having a hobby that could become a profession one day, sleep duration, breaking and planning the day into productive hours, imparting the knowledge of astrology and up to what extent one can believe in  astrology, practicing meditation, food habits, financial goals, creative hobby, finding a guru, having a personal philosophy, etc.. Each chapter holds a valid point and a direction in which one can master these habits. Each chapter is explained by keeping a reference of Chanakya’s Arthashastra.

In the second part of the book, author discusses the professional aspects of an individual. This part mainly focuses on how one should behave and adopt a disciplined professional life. Author has discussed topics ranging from going to the workplace, pondering over the day to day task, preparing for the day in advance, developing the interpersonal skills, handling the team member and co-workers that has different mindset and thinking capacity than yourself, training people, daily documentation of work, developing the contacts in a working place, how to give a recognition for your sub-ordinate, what one must follow while appointing a manager, what one should do in case of work related travel and how one can adopt these leisure hours to productivity, how to plan for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly review meetings, and finally how one should plan for their retirement in advance. These lessons for sure are relevant even today. As per Chanakya’s reference in Arthashastra, each and individual lesson explained in this chapter would make a king wise and assertive in the long run. So does a common man when he adapts a tiny bit from these sections in to his personal life.

The final part of the book deals with the family life and its importance for an individual and how it is connected to the personal and professional life. The author discusses various facets of one’s family life and how Chanakya has prophesied in this Arthashastra regarding a King’s family life and how it is still relevant in present world scenario. This chapter begins with the duties of the householder and what best one can offer to his family at his abilities. What is the purpose of marriage and how one should treat his spouse, what are the advantages and disadvantages of sex that can impact a family life of a person, how one should take care of his family and provide basic necessities for his dependents.  How to educate their children, what is the best way to bring up their children, the power of family prayer. What are the lessons one can learn for being a good parent, why imparting the concept of charity to children should be encouraged, and how to give personal individual space for each family members. This part ends on a chapter of how to feel gratitude for whatever things we have obtained in this life from their family.

Overall, this book is not a regular one time read it and forget it affair. This book can be read again and again. You can start in any chapter and it still makes profound sense. A book that can be considered as a package of life lessons in all three important aspects of a human life. I would encourage readers to buy this book. This is definitely a collectible stuff.

Few famous Chanakya’s quote that are used in this book:

-       Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.

-       There is some self interest in every friendship. There is no friendship without self interest. This is bitter truth.

-       As soon as the fear approaches, attack and destroy it.

-       Once you start working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

-       Learn from the mistake of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all by yourselves.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #99: Taking Wings And Winning By K.V. Subramaniam

Title: Taking Wings and Winning

Author: K.V. Subramaniam

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Startup Stories/Management/Non-Fiction

Pages: 230 (Hardbound)

Source: Advance Review copy from Publishers

In today’s competitive world, setting up a new company is a tedious and challenging task. There are many parameters, aspects, ideas, processes exists that one should follow diligently in order to succeed. The unflinching determination and an innovative idea should be the focus of any startups. What this book might offer is not a regular mumbo-jumbo of how your startup should be setup or what are the guidelines should be followed. Rather, it is the story of a company that has been setup with a zero experience in the particular field and yet, the company has passed all the hurdles and established a name in the business arena.

This is the story of a company called “Reliance Life Sciences” authored by its very own President K.V. Subramaniam. The author was the person who took the responsibilities of setting up this company from ground zero. Given his background, he was more of a management expert, expertised in energy and utilities sector and little or no knowledge about Biotechnology or any clinical research medical industry. But still, with an enormous support from the Reliance group head and chairman, Mukhesh Ambani, this company took its birth as a novice in the industry and today it is one of the top contenders in the field of Biotechnology, Stem cell research and other medical based products.

The book gives us a clear and a detailed explanation of how this company has been conceptualized at the first place. Author has described his inspiration of taking the responsibility of setting up this company with his own personal traumas in his family in his younger years. The need of advanced medical equipments, medicines and other related products are the need of the hour in a country like India as per the author’s assessment. So, he started off with the basic plan of understanding the industry in the first place.

As we read through the book, we get to read a lot of initial planning that has been put to set up this company. What was the management decisions made, how the team has been recruited, how the real estate has been procured, how the plant came into existence, what was their action plans on the crisis management, how they managed their finances, what are all the pitfalls they had to face, how they overcome the resources issues, how they strived for the top notch quality in their products and finally how did they sustained in the race, is all well documented and an inspiration to read from the book.

Having the backing of a huge organization like Reliance doesn’t necessarily proves that a new company can be managed without any bottlenecks. Each company has its share of pains and pleasures. So does the Reliance Life Sciences. In terms of working as a team, they had to endure lot of adverse situations from the likes of industry experts who are hell bent on working in a specific way and would not budge to the rules and regulations of a new company. This is true in terms of any startup. Once we recruit people that claim they are experts in some of the core areas, we cannot ask them to tow the line, but it doesn’t mean that, they are allowed to work on their own accord. This is precisely what happened with Reliance Life Sciences too. Especially when it comes to research experts or scientists, they work like they have all the time in the world. So, how did they manage to make people to work for them?  How their people management system was was effectively put in place? These are the grey areas that a startup is more concerned, and this book provides a clean and simple explanation on how to manage that kind of egoist personalities.

There are also a few examples of money laundering cases in Reliance Life Sciences where they had to take drastic measures on top officials in order to stay clean and work with utmost morals and ethics. This is one area where a startup should focus on disbursing their funding. If too much of money spent on the extravaganza of few people, then the company is bound to answer their investor for the amount of money they are spending.

Overall, I guess this book is a step by step guide to establishing a new company and how to make it a success. It has great lessons on people management, finance management, property management, quality control, human resource, administration, logistics, procurement, contracts, micro managing, etc... I would definitely encourage readers to buy this book and read. It will surely give you a fresh perspective on the task that you’re ready to take up.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review. 

Book Review #98: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History By Sanjeev Sanyal

Title: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

Author: Sanjeev Sanyal

Publishers: Penguin India

Genre: Geo-political History/History/Maritime History

Pages: 374 (Paperback)

Source: Personal Copy

Being a regular reader of the history I was fascinated by this book by the author Sanjeev Sanyal. Having read his previous book "Land of the Seven Rivers" I was all eager to read this new book. In his previous book, he talked about the seven important rivers of India including the mighty Saraswati River. The Land of seven rivers was summed up in one line as “Seven Rivers (Sapth Sindhu), One Country, Five Millennia, Startling History”.

Asian histories have been rendered in a biased manner since time immemorial. As a famous saying that goes, until an animal has its own history, the history of the hunting will always glorify the hunter. If we take any history curriculum in Indian education system, we can read leaps and bounds of Mughul Empire, the British regime, the Sultanates and such similar accounts. 

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to read the histories of Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas in greater detail and their glories have been limited to few pages here and there. This book, one of a kind in its genre, breaks that stupor and gives us a riveting account of how the Indian Ocean has shaped the human history. Indian Ocean is itself a big mystery. It holds many unresolved or undiscovered history that is hidden deep into its core. Author Sanjeev Sanyal tried to uncover this in this vast researched and well articulated book and succeeded in satiating his readers.

The book opens up by a fascinating tale of how the Pallava dynasty has traced an heir to their Kingdom when the erstwhile King, Parameshwara Verman II died in 731 CE. A delegation of Brahmin scholars, which travelled across the Indian Ocean to the far ends of Cambodia, and got back an heir that traced his roots to the Pallava dynasty from five long generations ago!! Thus, the reign of Nandi Verman II has started.

Hundreds of questions pop up as we read further through the book. For example:

Why did Vasco Da Gama worship in a Hindu temple when he set in India for the first time?

Why there are fossil remain of marine animals have been found in the Himalayas?

How come the Parsi community of India embraced the Guajrati culture so effortlessly?

How did the Sinhalese come to Sri Lanka?

What was the connection of the Sri Vijaya Empire with the Chinese?

How did the world’s second Mosque (King Cheraman Perumal) have been built in Kerala, India? What was the motive behind it?

How did Portuguese and Dutch have taken advantage in conquering parts of India?

How come we see oriental faces of engravings by Pallavas?

And so on…

The Ocean of Churn begins its journey even before the formation of the Indian Ocean. It talks about the super continent called Gondwana (This name is derived from the Gond tribe of the central India) that existed more than 270 million years ago and the mighty Saraswati River and how it dried up due to the tectonic plate shifts, how the Himalaya has been formed, and how the races have been migrated from India to outside world. This book traces the history through the Ocean way. How people set up its civilizations, how their trade hub got established, what was their commercial aspects, how they dealt with various traders inside and outside their territory and so on.

Sanjeev Sanyal views this history as Complex Adaptive System. Given his background in Economics, where he considers multiple factors act upon a system to determine the direction it takes. From Harrappan times, Indians have been trading with the world in many ways. Maritime trading is the major aspect during those times when land routes were hardly discovered. The powerful Chola king, Rajendra Chola made a naval attack on the Sri Vijaya Kingdom of Sumatra by 1025 is one such example. Chola Empire was one of the powerful empires in the entire South Asia region during that time. There were a major geo-political-economic alliances or rivalries between Indians, Chinese and the Sri Vijaya Kingdom.

Kerala being the hub of the maritime trade have witnessed a vast amount of geo-political-economic tradeoffs. As a testimony to those, even today in Kerala, we have the world’s second Mosque and India’s first mosque (Cheraman Perumal Mosque) built by the king Cherman Perumal by the orders of Mohammed the prophet himself in 629 AD. We also get to see the memorial of St. Thomas (doubting Thomas fame), a disciple of Jesus, who visited Kerala via sea route.

Overall, this book is a well researched one. It starts right from the origin of India Ocean due to the tectonic plate shifts and ends right at the transformation of Bombay to Mumbai with the reclamation of land over the Ocean. This book is full of rich details of all Kingdoms that throve around the Indian Ocean, Indian coastline, and several islands of the Indian Ocean that also had cultural trade ties with India and its Kingdoms.

Author personally visited several of these places that he mentions in his book. It shows what kind of painstaking research that he has put in this book. It is extremely informative and knowledge enhancing. As the author himself remarks at the end of the book “A systematic bias I have found in the existing literature is the preference given to the writers and sources from outside the continents.” This is evidently true, as we are fed with the histories that are written by mentally enslaved minds. It is time to look through a new perspective and stop looking towards the west for our recognition. India was and is an ancient lands with many millions years of history. Authors like Sanjeev Sanyal should be encouraged by reading these kinds of books.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #97: White Clouds, Green Mountains By Ruskin Bond

Title: White Clouds, Green Mountains

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Short Memoir/Short Stories

Pages: 135 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced review copy from publishers

Ruskin Bond is a master story teller. When it comes to capturing the essence of nature and beautifying it exceptionally through writings, then, Ruskin Bond tops that list. He wrote an excellent collection of stories that describes the vast range of North Eastern region. This book mainly has the stories of nature, mountains, rivers, animals, birds, rains, snow capped mountains, etc… Author also dwells little into his personal details by writing two short stories on his adopted family and penned few pages describing his life along with them.

The book “White Clouds, Green Mountains” describes the stories of author’s sojourn in his hometown Mussoorie and his stay at various places surrounding this area. His encounters with the nature, the birds, and the animals are a treat to read from this book. The book has a collection of over 10 different stories that describes the nature, animals and birds.

A story that titled “Songs of the Whistling Thrush”, in which, the author speaks about a bird that has made its nest next to his bedroom window. He has seen this bird perched on his window and singing the sweetest whistles. As the days passed by, he sees the bird has formed its nest near the window and there are three eggs of that bird. Amused at the sight of it, author exclaims in jubilation saying, what if all these birds (young ones and old ones) started to sing in next few days, and for sure he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his writings.

Another story that titled “Travels with my Bank Manager”, in which, the author writes about his experiences with his Bank Manager Ohri, who takes the author on a surprise trips across the valley to see some rare birds and animals. Though the author always finds these trips as tiresome, but he seems to enjoy a lot. He hasn’t forgotten to mention an embarrassing event where they had to eat Dog biscuits in order to satiate their hunger, when they were out of town and stuck in the middle of the forest.

In one of the stories that titled “The Kipling Road”, author finds the traces of the route that was long used by another famous writer Rudyard Kipling that visited Mussoorie a few years back. He got the leads from his friends from abroad regarding the Kipling’s visit to his town.

Describing his personal family details, author has penned a story that titled “And Now We Are Twelve”. Author gives us a brief account of his adopted family and fair share of their names. He also mentions about his grandsons with whom the author had shared a special camaraderie.  He also mentions about the places they have lived along all these years and the houses they have shifted, the female members of the family, the male members, the kids and toddlers with whom he has lived all these years and grown old with them.

We will also get to read some other interesting stories from the book such as The School among the Pines, The Night the Roof Blew Off, The Last Truck Ride, In Search of the Sweet Peas, White Clouds, Green Mountains, etc… overall, a nice collection of short stories along with some personal details of the author. Not a recommending material, but worth the time pass.

My Rating:

3/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review

Book Review #96: A Song of Many Rivers By Ruskin Bond

Title: A Song of Many Rivers

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Pages: 132 (Paperback)

Genre: Short Stories

Source: Advanced review copy from Publisher

Ruskin Bond’s books are always a treasure of experiences. The little amusements of life is captured luminously by the author. Ruskin Bond is able to strike a chord with his readers with another book that speaks about the vast range of North Eastern culture, atmosphere, rivers, forests, mountains and the mighty Himalayas of India. This book is not a regular Ruskin Bond’s ghost stories collection. This book covers the aspect beyond his regular flavor. This book contains the vivid details of rivers, mountains, forests, rains, etc…

A Song of Many Rivers is the first short travelogue of the author where he spent some quality time travelling the important rivers and shrines in the Northern India. This particular short story captures the vivid niceties of the rivers like Alakananda, Ganga, Bhagirathi, Yamuna, Jamuna, Suswa, Rudraprayaga, Nandaprayag, and such several places. Author not only explains the exquisiteness and tranquility of these rivers, but also includes the historical background of these important rivers. Especially, the story of the river Bhagirathi and how it merges with the river Ganga and what was the story behind it.

Further reading into the book, we get to read few more, yet interesting stories like the Wilson’s Bridge, From the Pool to the Glacier, Ganga Takes it All, Angry River and so on.

Wilson’s Bridge is an interesting tale narrated by the author when he visited the village called Harsil, situated near the banks of river Bhagirathi on the way towards the Hindu piligrimage, Gangotri in Uttarakashi. The story revolves around a person called Wilson and his wife Gulabi. The local folklore has believed that, Gulabi, the wife of Wilson has committed suicide by jumping off the bridge that Wilson has constructed many years ago, citing the reason that Wilson is cheating on her by having an illicit relationship with another woman. The interesting part is, still people would see Gulabi at night near the bridge as a ghost jumping into the river sometimes.  Author also narrates his own experience of seeing this woman. The tales ends on a tragic note and we witness a young wife of a person committing suicide that toured along with the author and his team.

From the Pool to the Glacier is the tale of author’s childhood. He along with his two other friends discovers a pool near his house. They feel elated by the sight of it, as they thought they were the first to discover this trail of water. So, it happened one day that, they all decide to visit a glacier in Himalayas. They took the help of a Sherpa boy called Bisnu. They trek their way towards the glacier and had the best experience of their lifetime. The narration of the vast beauty of the Himalayas should be savored by reading this story.

The most interesting story in the book is the Angry River. This is the story of a girl called Sita that lives on an island along with her Grandfather and Grandmother. They have little livestock and few hen birds to support their daily breadwinning. It so happened one day, when Sita’s grandmother fell ill and had to rush to the hospital down the hill. Her grandfather decides to take his wife to the hospital and warned Sita that a possible flood might happen as it was raining heavily. As expected, the same night when Sita’s grandfather left for the hospital, there was heavy downpour and the island village started to submerge in the torrential rain. Sita decides to follow the instructions given to her by her grandfather. First, she climbs rooftop to avoid the flood. When the water reached the roof level, she climbs on to a Peepal tree, and hoped for the best. As it was destined for the worst, the tree also started to bend towards the water. As a miracle, Sita was saved by a boy called Krishan. Soon after all the floods have subsided and she reconciled with her grandfather, she longed to see this boy and kept looking at the Flute that boy has given to her as a gift.

Overall the book expresses some of the mundane life aspects in a great lucid way. There is no denying that, the reader will enjoy reading such stories. I would definitely recommend it to others to read it at least once.

My Rating:

3/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #95: The Empty House - Collected by Ruskin Bond

Title: The Empty House

Collected and Compiled by: Ruskin Bond

Author: Various authors

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Supernatural/Horror/Children Stories

Pages: 158 (Paperback)

Source: Early review copy from Publishers

Stories that are horror and supernatural are always a fascinating experience. These kinds of books intrigue any reader, and especially the fans of horror stories. The mild horror slowly seeps into your mind and makes you wonder at length. Being a huge fan of horror stories, I definitely enjoyed reading this collection of 11 short stories by Ruskin Bond. Ruskin Bond never fails to amuse his readers. Be it his own stories or collected stories like “The Empty House”.

“The Empty House” is a book of short stories collected and compiled by Ruskin Bond that includes his own story “Gone Fishing”. Among the collected stories, the story of Empty House by Algernon Blackwood adorns the title of this book. The book has other stories like “Mrs. Raeburn’s waxwork” by Lady Eleanor Smith, “Thurnley Abbey” by Perecval London, Chunia Ayah by Alice Perrin and so on.

The book beings by the story of one of my favorite author Rudyard Kipling titled “The Return of Imray”. This is an interesting story that holds the suspense till the end. Imray is disappeared and despite many attempts to find the whereabouts of him, the result was in dismay. After few months, Imray’s bungalow was rented by Strickland of police and the narrator of the story is now inside this bungalow. During the stay in that bungalow, the narrator experiences some strange movements of figures. Even Strickland’s dog is quite disturbed. The very next day, Strickland and the narrator finds a snake up by the corner of ceiling cloth, which is disappearing into the roof space. When Strickland climbs up to see, to his horror, he finds Imray’s dead body up there with its throat cut. Upon interrogating the servant of Imray, the servant confesses to the crime citing the reason for which there is no rational explanation.

The next story that I liked the most is, The Empty House. It’s a story of a supposedly haunted house. The main characters of this story are Jim Shorthouse and his aunt Julia. One day, Shorthouse arrives to see his aunt for a weekend visit. He had received telegram from his aunt only that morning and he arrived soon with excitement and mystery. The moment he embraced her, he felt a surge of electrical shock like condition. Julia, a maniac of psychical research was all excited to visit that Empty House as she got the keys.

As the two enter the old house, Aunt Julia relates a brief history of the brutal crime that initiated the haunting. “’It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants' quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below.’"

The tension continues to build as Shorthouse and Julia are certain they hear a man sneeze next to them. Then it happens, with a sudden jolt as powerful as the one that accompanies the first appearance of the old woman in “House on Haunted Hill,” “Facing them, directly in their way between the doorposts, stood the figure of a woman. She had dishevelled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death. “She stood there motionless for the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered and she was gone—gone utterly— and the door framed nothing but empty darkness.”

And the third story that I liked from the collection is, “The white Wolf of the Hartz Mountains” By Frederick Marryat. This is the story of serf’s people. A family of three children and a father. Krantz is the only surviving member of a small Transylvanian family whose history has been marked by violent death. A family whose father murdered the mother, after catching her in an act of infidelity, then fled north to the Hartz Mountains (Germany) of the story’s title. There they live a harsh and lonely existence that settles into routine until, while hunting one day, the father sees and pursues a white she-wolf. Just as he draws a bead on it and is preparing to fire his rifle, however, it mysteriously disappears. On the way back to the family’s cabin, though, he encounters a man and daughter, half-frozen, looking for shelter which he, naturally, offers.

The beautiful young woman becomes an “evil stepmother” to the storyteller and his siblings. The oldest brother begins to note her strange nocturnal disappearances where, upon returning, she invariably goes to wash herself. What could she be doing out there? Many of these nights of her absence are also marked by the howl of a wolf, seemingly just outside the window of the children. Hmm… Slowly, as the evil deeds of this “woman” mount up, young Krantz’s fear of her transforms: “…but I no longer felt afraid of her; my little heart was full of hatred and revenge.”

I would encourage the readers to read the remaining stories from the book. It’s a great collection of horror stories from past. It still holds that suspense and thrilling factors. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the publishers in exchange for an unbiased review