Blessings from books

A teen love story by Tushar Raheja, facts about where heaven exists by Sylvia Browne and key to growing rich by Napoleon Hill to make for an interesting read this week As I sit down to write this column today, I am grinning from ear to ear. There is something that needs to be said about doing one's work honestly. It makes one feel so good! Starting today, I intend to concentrate on three books each week, just so that I can give every book I review the in-depth attention it deserves. Even as I type all this, there is a part of me that is wondering if there are actually people out there who read the books I recommend. To be really honest, I prefer to simply review a book, since that leaves it open to the reader whether they really want to go out there and pick it up. Now considering, this review is getting more and more boring with each passing line, let's jump to the books being reviewed. The first book today is 'The Master Key to Riches' by Napolean Hill. The subtitle of the book reads: The world famous philosophy of personal achievement based on the Andrew Carnegie formula for money making. If that title doesn't intrigue you, nothing really will. The nicest thing about this book is the sheer simplicity with which it's written. In fact, I would rate it among the top five self help books I have read. Perhaps the most beautiful thought that this book speaks about is that if only you choose to go that extra mile you can be sure that you will have lots of extra good luck come your way. In fact, there is this instance narrated of a certain elderly lady who was browsing through a furniture shop. Since it was obvious that the elderly lady didn't seem like a potential buyer, none of the sales assistants took any interest. Except for one. Perhaps, he thought he would do the elderly lady a kind deed and hence enthusiastically showed her around. A month later, the proprietor of the furniture show room received a request that a certain salesman of his has been invited to furnish a certain castle in Scotland. It turns out that that the "elderly lady" was Andrew Carnegie's mom who was very impressed with that one salesman who helped her while the others had chosen to simply ignore the old lady. Quite a lesson there, isn't it?! Next on the list is my favorite author Sylvia Browne. 'Blessings From the Other Side' may not be as powerful as some of her other books and considering the book is priced at Rs 860, the cost is bit of a dampener. That apart, the unique thing about this book is that if one is to follow Browne's instructions carefully, one can apparently regress oneself and take a peek at one's past lives. Fascinating indeed. Also, there is this rather queer fact I've learnt after reading Browne's works is that 'heaven' is apparently only three feet above us, only it exists in a different dimension. As in, there is something called 'vibrational frequency' which animals are said to clearly perceive and beings from the 'other world' vibrate to a very high frequency, hence they are invisible to the naked human eye. The analogy given to explain this is that when a fan is rotating at a very high speed, it's blades are invisible, yet that doesn't mean that the blades don't exist. Also, the fact that heaven is said to be only a little above us is because, any person who claims to have seen a deceased soul, says that they saw them "floating". In the sense, the ground level of the beings from across is a little higher and hence to us they seem like ghosts are flying of floating. Quite a lot to chew on, isn't it? Finally, we have Tushar Raheja's 'Anything for you Ma'am'. This book is unique since the author at the time of publication was a fourth year student of IIT Delhi. True to a certain review I read online, this book does indeed read like one long blog entry, but then considering there is a certain earnestness in the author's writing, as a reader you feel obliged to keep reading. With that thought, I take leave, catch ya next week.