Book Review: Breathing Two Worlds by Ruchira Khanna

About the Book:

Neena Arya, a Delhi-born goes abroad for

further studies and decides to settle down there. Determined to be a 'somebody'

from a 'nobody' she blends with the Americans via the accent and their

mannerisms while having a live-in relationship with her European boyfriend,

Adan Somoza.

When illness hits home, Neena rushes to

meet her ailing dad. Tragedy strikes and amidst the mingling with relatives and

friends, she finds herself suffocated with the two different cultures that she

has been breathing since she moved to the United States. How will she strike a

balance between both the cultures as she continues to support her widowed

mother? Will she be able to do justice to her personal and professional life

after the loss?

Amidst the adjusting she bonds with an

ally and learns about ties beyond blood. On what grounds will she be able to

form an invisible thread that she has longed for since childhood?

Breathing Two Worlds ventures into

cultures and ethnicity allowing Neena to ponder upon her foundation and

priorities.

Available

on

Amazon

Book Trailer: 

About the Author

Ruchira Khanna, a biochemist turned

writer, left her homeland of India to study in America, where she obtained her

Master’s degree in Biochemistry from SJSU and a degree in Technical Writing

from UC Berkeley.

After finishing her studies, Ruchira

worked as a biochemist at a Silicon Valley startup for five years. After the

birth of her son, Ruchira took a job as a technical writer, so that she could

work from home. Soon, she began doing freelance writing work as well.

Her love of writing grew and she started

working on her own books. After four years of freelancing, Ruchira published

her first book, a fiction novel for adults called Choices.

Then came the children’s book The

Adventures of Alex and Angelo: The Mystery of the Missing Iguana. She got a

thumb’s up review from Kirkus Reviews

In January 2016, she has published her

second fictional novel Voyagers into the Unknown. It talks about the quest for

happiness as the heavy hearted tourists travel miles from different parts of

the world to Raj Touristry in Agra, India. Return to their respective home with

a healed heart. This book talks about their journey!

In Breathing Two Worlds, Ruchira talks

about ethnicity and cultures, and helps to strike a balance via a fiction-drama

novel as her characters breathe two worlds.

In addition to writing books, she is a

holistic healer associated with Stanford Healing Partners and also maintains a

blog of daily mantras on Blogspot, called Abracabadra. Ruchira currently

resides in California with her family.

Find

her on:

Website Blog

My Review (3.5/5)

The book had me at its idea. The metaphoric title seems just apt, and someone who relocates to another continent/country can very well relate to the conundrum. The story follows the journey of Neena Arya as she adapts to the professional lifestyle and embraces the work culture of a new culture while still keeping herself grounded to her roots.
This dilemma is as old as time, or at least time since travel was invented. But the point is the story was simple, lucid and easy. It is a quick read too, and the occasional quirks of India and the clashes of the culture are an entertaining element.
The millennial generation will have these lives over and over again, in different forms, so the story makes a whole lot of sense. The interactions between the family members of the protagonist and her boyfriend were warm and cordial, which was a welcome departure from the cliche.

At some point I may have thought that this theme has now been beaten to death and something more crispy is worth exploration, but the story, due to its simplicity, made me finish it till the end. If for nothing else, for the metaphor!

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Book Review: Minced Bits by Maneevak

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Author's Ink Publications (2017)
• Language: English

My Review: 

Precision is the order of the day. Brevity is a trait to be revered. Succinct descriptions and crisp endings are attractive to a reader pressed for time.
Haikus are all the rage.
It is the era of nano tales and micro tales and flash fiction.

And with that point in mind, as the book blurb says too, "In this fast paced world where no one seems to have time to read a book with a precious tale, here's an anthology of micro tales for all types of readers. In a few words these tales will feed your soul in the modern way.", the book acts like a Social media page on paper: A Terribly Tiny Tale, or a Scribbled Stories.

A lot of the micro tales have been laced with that wit that makes it endearing to the reader. For instance, the book begins and ends with these tales, respectively:

My mind suffered from indigestion, writing was the only antacid available for me. And thus began my pen, spilling ink...

and

And my pen pauses, the indigestion I talked about is cured. 

It is this sort of attention to words and thoughtful messages that make such a book worth reading. There are many tales that have a surprising twist, leaving the reader emotionally evoked.
That said, there are an equal number of stories that are predictable too. There's an equal number of witticisms that seem forced as there are the ones that appear fluid.

The best micro-tales are the ones that end in a cliffhanger. But even the ones with a natural conclusion are sweet and palatable.

She told everybody, except me, that she loved me 

I told everybody except her that I loved her.

Both spent sleepless nights thinking about each other,

Until a cupid helped us.

What makes this a good read, is the fact that after an overdose of this genre on social media, it was surprisingly refreshing to read this on paper.

Book Review: Hire Train Monitor Motivate By David J Waldron

About the book:

Title: Hire Train Monitor Motivate By David J Waldron

Paperback, First Edition, 86 pages
Published May 31st 2016 by Country View

Rating: 4.5/5

Blurb: The transformational workplace of the twenty-first century is front and center. Are you ready to navigate its twists and turns toward reaching your career goals and dreams? In Hire Train Monitor Motivate, author and veteran organizational leader, David J. Waldron, offers powerful, yet simple techniques that can dramatically improve your organization, team, or individual career achievements in today’s hyper-competitive local and global marketplaces.

This practical book will teach you how to master the art of workplace effectiveness by first making a lasting commitment to placing people first, whether a customer, recruit, staff member, or coworker. Then hire, or get hired for an optimistic mindset; train, or be trained for delivering quality products and services; monitor, or allow monitoring for regulatory compliance; and motivate, or stay motivated for enduring performance.

As a practitioner more so than an academic, Waldron, presents unpretentious, everyday workplace rules that when implemented, or followed, can transform your organization, team, or individual career to one of lasting distinction. Master the proven techniques for playing the game the right way and learn how to practice leadership or teamwork by inclusion toward making your workplace a great place to learn, earn, and grow.

Hire Train Monitor Motivate guides the reader toward recognizing his or her essential role in today’s transformational workplace. A work environment—whether for-profit, nonprofit, or in the public service—that requires an understanding and buy-in to the Millennial Model, the cultural transition of the now predominant generation that, according to Waldron, is fast becoming the new standard in organizational behavior, group dynamics, and individual effectiveness. This horizontal hierarchical model will likely drive the influential organizations, teams, and careers of the twenty-first century as the vertical hierarchy of the Baby Boomer generation did in the twentieth century.

Waldron guides the reader in embracing crucial areas of the modern workplace. Join him as he explores the emerging dominance of the expert economy; the importance of lifelong learning and perpetual career development; and how to be an active participant—as opposed to the spectator—on the precipice of reinventing compensation and worker equality. Plus, why accepting the significance of work/life balance will remain necessary to sustainable career success.

Whether an owner, donor, leader, manager, supervisor, or staff member, make a commitment to your essential role in the transformational workplace. Read Hire Train Monitor Motivate, today, and make your workplace a great place tomorrow. Your organization, team, and career are counting on you.

About the author

David J. Waldron is a passionate student and practitioner of organization, team, and individual career effectiveness in the transformational workplace. He is the author of the new book, Hire Train Monitor Motivate (Country View) published May 31, 2016 and now available on Amazon Books and in the Kindle Store.

He is also author of The Ten Domains of Effective Goal Setting (Country View: 2016) and A Great Place to Learn & Earn (Country View: 2015).

David is an award winning contributing writer to Seeking Alpha; and frequent contributor to Career Education Review, HR.com, and Pulse. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business studies from Stockton University and completed The Practice of Management Program at Brown University. David lives with his wife, Suzan, outside Providence, Rhode Island USA.

Find the author here: 

My Review:

To begin with, this is a quick, good read. Usually the books that talk about HR and management wisdom and the like read as textbooks, always didactic, always sleep-inducing. What sets this book apart is the fact that this isn't a lengthy text or research paper that uses jargons to make a point look valid.
For one, it is a fairly quick read, and while you'll surely want to make notes and markers and jot down tips from it, it doesn't take you very long to absorb the meaning that the book is trying to convey.
There are umpteen professional, hands-on tips on important HR activities like interviews, group discussions, hiring, incentives, among other things. So, even if you are not hiring but are getting hired, it provides useful insights from the other side of the table. I have myself made a lot of markers at different pages to refer to these points in the future.
If you're a part of any organization, which at some level, each one of us is, then, in my opinion, you need to apprise yourself with the mechanics of the crucial processes of hiring, training, etc.
So, to give you an example, it talks about ninety-day impact, which is a very useful piece of information, considering its knowledge will help everyone in the system aim at higher efficiency.

With short paragraphs and short snippets on every HR topic under the sun, I can see myself coming back to the book for reference purposes in the future.
Simply put, here is some practical knowledge. here are some techniques that work.
The other things- the title, the cover are also so precise and apt that they reflect and portray the meaning of the book quite well.
So now, while this book is certainly not boring as a textbook, while imparting equal, if not more, information, still there's a scope for including more and more anecdotes and maybe engaging comments/exercises. It would have drawn me to read the book almost instantly.
The author's own experiences have been drawn inspiration from, considering his amazing background in the field and his body of work. No doubt, this book is a resource for anyone who wishes to enhance his/her knowledge about human resource management.

For a limited time, the eBook edition of Hire Train Monitor Motivate is being offered in a free promotion on Kindle, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Inktera, and Smashwords. 

Links to the book:

Source of the review copy: Book Received from the author, in exchange of an honest review

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Book Review: Dream Job by Janet Garber

About the book:

Title: Dream Job, Wacky Adventures of an HR Manager

Paperback, 178 pages
Published March 16th 2016 by Janet Garber via Lulu

Rating: 4/5

Blurb: Single sexless Melanie Kohl's trying to keep it all together at Axis Mundi Medical Center in NYC where misbehaving doctors and immoral staff line up outside her HR office for solace and solutions. Hey, she's got her own problems! Where is her life? Just as she's starting to melt down . . .

Join Melie for a wild ride through a landscape dotted with comical mishaps, murder, and romance. Will she learn to balance work and life? Have you?

About the author

Janet Garber toiled in the trenches as a HR exec in NYC for xx years, using those experiences to indulge in her prime passion: Writing. She focused on careers (WSJ, NY Post, trade journals), reviewed new books (www.neworldreview.com and simplycharly.com), movies (Stage and Cinema, Senior Film Files), and published a non-fiction book, assorted articles, essays, poems, short fiction, and, in March 2016, her first novel, Dream Job, Wacky Adventures of an HR Manager.

Find the author here: 

My Review:

I will start from the cover of the book. It has management and HR written all over it.
With a silhoutte of a face and dream job inscribed on it, it is hard to miss the irony and the multiple meanings lent to it.

At first I found it an exercise and a tough one to delve under the skin of the book but there was an inundation of names making it a bit tougher for me to get through without going back every 5 sentences or so.
But then the humor and the cases of HR take over, and my reading caught up speed.
There's the tricky area of sexual harassment cases, and makes me want to double up how grievance redress can be so annoying and for the lack of a better word, cathartic at the same time.

The protagonist is an interesting portrait herself who at one point was just okay with the idea of having a boyfriend, but as it turns out romance isn't every ones domain of expertise.
Bottom line: the job of an HR manager is not an easy one. If anything, it is the resignation to a morbid tell-tale of people's complaints and dealing with the most difficult creatures on this planet: humans. Oh the relief it is to have defused a major catastrophe.

Her subway escapades had me sympathising with her. And the description was so life like.

Links to the book:

Source of the review copy: Author

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Book Review: Acquisitions by Tania Joyce

About the book:

Title: Acquisitions

ebook, 248 pages
Published April 28th 2016 by Gatwick
Erotic Romance Novel

Rating: 4.5/5

Blurb: An erotic workplace romance.

A new start. A short term project. That’s all it was meant to be.

Losing his wife in a car accident has left Troy Smith doubtful of ever finding love again. He’s tried, but failed. Now he thinks he’s found solace as a hard-working business partner at Gumtrees Winery. 

Kelleigh Johnstone needs a break from dealing with the mess and debt her fraudulent ex-boyfriend left behind. The opportunity to manage a project in the Hunter Valley seems like the perfect escape. 

When these two strangers meet, a one-night stand delivers unexpected surprises. Troy is shocked when he finds out Kelleigh represents the company trying to purchase his vineyard for a new golf resort. In order to protect his home and community, Troy must do whatever it takes to stop the project from proceeding. 

About the author

 Tania Joyce is an Australian author of erotic, contemporary and new adult romance novels. Her stories thread romance, drama and passion into beautiful locations ranging from the dazzling lights of Sydney Harbour or the glitter of New York, to the rural countryside of the Hunter Valley or Darling Downs. 

She’s widely travelled, has a diverse background in the corporate world and has a love for shopping, shoes and Shiraz. She’s rarely seen without glitter, sparkle and stilettos. Her quirk is she collects key rings everywhere she goes and often has an intriguing tale about each one. 
Tania draws on all her real-life experiences and combines them with her very vivid dreams to form the foundation of her novels. She likes to write about strong-minded, career-oriented heroes and heroines that go through drama-filled hell, have steamy encounters and risk everything as they endeavor to find their happy-ever-after.
She grew up loving books like Anne of Green Gables, reading the classics like Pride and Prejudice, and getting lost in the world of fantasy, like The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan, before finding her home in the romance genre. 

Only unearthing the desire to write after having children, Tania now shuffles the hours in her day between part-time work, full-time family life and never-finding-enough-time to write. One day she hopes to find balance! She lives in Queensland with her husband and two boys. When she’s not writing, she enjoys camping, hot yoga, and the company of friends and family – especially if it’s over a glass of wine!

Find the author here: 

Social media:

      

My Review:

When it comes to the genre of erotic fiction, Tania Joyce is a safe bet. And that is saying something because the market is plagued with enormous titles in the genre, and most of them have cliched plots.
Joyce brings to her books the crucial element of a plot, which can so easily be neglected otherwise in the genre. The fact that the plot is prioritised over the steamy scenes is commendable, and even more is the fact that everything is measured to be of just the right amount- the twists, the suspense, the sexual tension, the characters' dilemma.
Another important feature that sets her novels apart is the workplace setting, which gives it a feminist tinge, much to my relief.

The way she has linked the plot of the sequal to the preceding novel was amazing too.
Coming over to the book, it is the story of Kelleigh who is here on an assignment, and the vineyards are a beautiful setting. She has personal issues of her own, what with being broke and having been deceived by her ex-boyfriend. Her job is the one thing keeping her sane, and she is good at it.
Her paths cross with those of Troy, our male lead, whose personality is introduced and unflowered page by page.

A business deal is in the pipeline, and it could make or break Kelleigh's career. But, what it can also do is destroy the vineyards that Troy, along with his partner, has brought up with an astute knowledge and business acumen. The stakes, as is evident, are high.

Through the plot twists, the book is a thorough entertainer, giving the reader just what s/he expects from it.

Links to the book:

Source of the review copy: The Choosy Bookworm Team

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