Suppose you are in the turbulent time period of the 1960’s – 1970’s when various colonial ruled countries in Africa were reaching their independence. There were many different influences working in the countries at that point of time, the Soviet Union was trying to get regimes to be in its favor. Many of these countries were mineral rich, and there was a fight to get the rulers of the country in favor of companies so that they could get advantages of the mineral rights that were being awarded by these countries. It was not unheard of that a country’s Government could be deposed off in a coup, although using mercenaries was not unheard of. As is normal with Forsyth, his novel is based on a lot of detailed research, enough that people who were in this line of business were astounded by the accuracy of these details.

In fact, there is a lot of buzz that the country that Forsyth refers to as Zangaro was actually the country of Equatorial Guinea; the book is supposed to be atleast partly based upon Forsyth’s time as a reported in the Biafran War between Biafra and Nigeria, and in fact, as a part of researching this story, Forsyth was researching how to attempt a coup against the Government of Equatorial Guinea, and it was supposed to cost a ridiculously small sum of a quarter of a million dollars. There is a lot of speculation that there was an actual coup attempt against the Government that was spoiled by Spain.
The book draws mixed reviews, with many people praising the depth of description of the details; however, there was also criticism that there were too many details or preparation and not enough action. The story is about a British mining tycoon learning of a hot discovery of the priceless metal, platinum, in the Central African republic of Zangaro. However, the ruler is leaning towards the Soviet Union, who in turn decide to give him a KGB guard and also send in their own survey team. At the same time, the British tycoon Sir James Manson hires a mercenary, Carlo Alfred Thomas “Cat” Shannon, who had left Zangaro earlier after the side he was supporting failed. They decide to plan an operation in which they will kill the current leader, Jean Kimba, and replace him with their own man. The rest of the story is about the execution of the plan, and how it meets with its challenges.

Airframe is an interesting novel by Michael Crichton. It starts out with a normal flight returning back to Denver from Hong Kong when suddenly the whole plane starts to go haywire. The plane starts rapidly going out of control, and everything inside moves very rapidly, with passengers getting bounced around. And the plane declares a emergency off the California coast, and makes a rapid landing. A pretty horrific event. This starts the whole novel.
A typical event like this, which results in injuries and deaths to passengers will get investigated to the last bit of detail; after all, if there is a problem inside the type of plane, it needs to be found out so that the same thing can be avoided on other planes with other airlines. Part of the people who get affected by such an accident are the plane manufacturers, Norton Aircraft. They have to quickly figure out what went wrong, both to avoid scaring other airlines and to satisfy other stakeholders such as the media, shareholders, etc.

The person central to this novel is Casey Singleton, a divorced single mother who is currently the Quality Assurance Representative on the Incident Review team (the team who actually does these sort of investigations) at Norton Aircraft. She will also be the press spokesperson, a high pressure job. Unfortunately, for the investigating team, there are some constraints;
- The flight crew has already left the country
- There is a probable deal with the Chinese airlines for 50 aircraft, so this incident needs to be investigated accurately within a very short time
- The union has heard rumours about a vital transfer of technology to China, and is beginning to get hostile
AS the investigations start, Casey soon discovers that not everything is as it seems to be, and she could very well be the scapegoat. She also has to balance being a single mother on top of everything else. She is also getting attacked by a mediaperson out to get some sensational stuff. DOes she manage to do a good job and uncover the truth ?

Whats great about this book is that it will change the way you look at things. Economics, for me, has never been my cup of tea. It is a science much bigger than reaching to Mars, I think. But this book is made for people like me. It is fun reading, all the while using data mining, to prove why things happen as they happen in terms of economics.

“Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything” is a book by Steven Levitt (University Of Chicago) and Stephen J. Dubner (New York Times). It proves that economics is not dull all time and not all related to finances most of the times. The book’s topics include:
Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers (See below)
Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers
Chapter 4: The controversial role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime
Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children

Authors ask a lot of hilarious questions like: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? or Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? or Do real estate agents have their clients’ best interests at heart? or What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? or How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

The book was first published in 2005 and was a best seller, selling more than 3 million copies till now in around 30 languages. For many people, this book is an absurd book. But for me, this has been a “aha” effect book – nice one time read. Wonderful way of looking at things – it surely turns conventional wisdom on its head.

For more, have a look the book’s official site.

This book “The Search: An insight into the development of Google and search” is probably one of the most important books highlighting the development of search as a business, focusing on the evolution of the idea and growth. You will get an inside view of how a company named Google became an icon, the undisputed market leader of search and the company feared by many others. You also get an idea of the future potential of the search market, and some trends of how the future of search could develop into.
Google is the main star of this book, and this focus on Google seems quite natural. There have been many search engines before Google such as Altavista that were popular, but the sheer simplicity and power of Google blew away all contenders, and it would be hard to talk about why search is such an interesting topic unless you focus on a company that made search so popular.

The author of the book, John Battelle, is well suited to write a book such as this. After all, when you get a person who has been intimately connected with some of the pioneering influential sites on the Internet arena such as ‘Wired’ magazine, ‘The Industry Standard’ magazine and is able to touch base with the heads of some of the leading people in this area – such as the founders of Google, founders of Yahoo, the chief brain behind the Altavista search, and the venture capitalists (who are as connected and important for technological developments as the entrepreneurs themselves). As a result, the book presents a great detail of the inside view on how search as a technology and business developed, how early pioneers such as Altavista and Goto.com pioneered some of the technology, but were almost shoved aside when Google came into the picture.
There are some great number of stories in this book; one among them that always puzzled me was as to why Altavista, at one time the number one leader in the search space lost out so easily in the search game (the suits running the company failed to take advantage of the early lead). If you ever wondered as to how this company called Google came into being and what was the growth like, then this book has the answers. For people who were confused as to the difference between Google and Yahoo, you get a lot many answers in this book.
However, the book does not always go ga-ga over the Google Story, with a fair amount of criticism of the company also included. Thus you get to hear about the internal style of functioning of the company (with the 2 founders almost being portrayed as dictators), about how different the development/organizational model of Google is when compared with other software companies. For me, one important section was about the Google policy of ‘Do no evil’. Even though the book has covered the ethical dilemmas of Google when matching this policy with the force exerted by the Chinese Government, it does not cover the disappointment that a lot of people felt when Google compromised and agreed to be a part of the China censorship effort (through its google.cn site).
Overall, this book will take you through the development of search in some detail, including the evolution of Google and to some extent of Yahoo, and some trends in future search technology development. Most of all, this book should enthuse you about what the single-minded dedication (and luck) of a group of inventors can take them. Read the book for some inspiration.