Dating, waiting and eating!

Read books by Alan Cohen, Allan and Barbara Pease and Tara Deshpande Tenebaum for some facts about yourself, some about the opposite gender and some about Konkan recipes

The title of the first book being reviewed today will make you chuckle just as I did when I first read it. 'Why Your Life Sucks And What You Can Do About It'. As flippant as the title sounds, here's a book that I would rate almost on par with Rhonda Bryne's works. In fact, that can be said for almost all of Alan Cohen's works. It's obvious that this gentleman is widely read, yet what I particularly liked was the scientific facts so casually slipped in.

The book mentions that the human brain comprises mainly the cortex and the neo cortex. The cortex is the part of the brain that controls our rudimentary actions like eating, breathing and the fight or flight syndrome which we have in common with even the reptile family. The cortex accounts for 10 per cent of the human brain while the neo cortex or the 'new' cortex which is responsible for higher faculties like thought and creativity comprises 90 per cent of the brain.

Most of us use only 10 per cent of our brain and even here the flight and fight response which is meant to be used only in extreme circumstances is used by us even during mundane situations like traffic snarls. Worst part is, most of us cause ourselves stress that is completely unnecessary and we aren't even aware of the damage this causes us. People who meditate regularly understand this concept of brain being over loaded.

And before even my brain gets overloaded, we might as well move onto the next book. But before I move on, let me give Alan Cohen credit for coming up with these little nuggets of wisdom such as 'Looking good doesn't lead to feeling good. Feeling good, always leads to looking good'. Truly, Cohen has a way of stating profound thoughts in the simplest way. Next, we have Allan and Barabara Pease's 'Why Men Lie and Women Cry'.

I used to be a fan of John Gray's works, but that was until I discovered the works of the Pease couple. The writing is lucid, the concepts are bang on and if you are looking for advice on relationships, you need to start stocking up on books from The Pease International Ltd. In fact, I would venture to say that after you read books by the Pease couple, even John Gray with his 'Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus' series seems a bit dense to read. There is something about the book's lay out perhaps that makes reading up about the opposite gender super easy. This 323-page book can be read in three days even if you are a slow reader simply since the writers have a knack of getting to the gist of a subject with interesting anecdotes thrown in. A definite thumbs up for all the books in this series.

Finally, we have Tara Deshpande Tennebaum's 'A Sense for Spice'. This is, believe it or not, a cookery book but with enough history thrown in for it to qualify for a space in the Indian thinkers section of the EFLU Library. It's almost as if Tara Deshpande, the once actress aspires to be Arundathi Roy, Tarla Dalal and some obscure historian all at once. And considering the book is mostly about Konkan recipes reading it is a bit of a drag. The few parts that deal with the author's childhood are superbly written, so purely from a literary point of view the book would actually score a good eight on ten. But then again a lot depends on how crazy you are about Konkan cooking with coconut oil!