Ever wondered how Bookmarks came into being? It is intimately connected with the development of the book itself. Though the earliest bookmarks date from the medieval ages, it is obvious that even in ancient times - when papyrus scrolls were the reading matter of choice - bookmarks must have been used to mark a reader's place on the scrolls that could be 40 meters or more in length.
Some of the oldest bookmarks were found in medieval monasteries and among them are clip-on type bookmarks made of vellum. Therefore it is easy to imagine that this type was also used to mark place on the papyrus scrolls in ancient Egypt.
However, if you are still using those wooden sticks, crumpled receipts, old catalog cards, and ripped parking tickets as bookmarks, then it’s time to get yourself some real bookmarks.
Our cute mascot can now give you company while you read your favorite books! Get free bookmarks from Librarywala.com in various colors and with beautiful quotations for FREE. Just send your address at librarywala.facebook@gmail.com and we shall courier them to you!
Make the best of 2012 and have a ‘Read-a-thon’ year!
Please Note – Free bookmarks are available for all Members and Non-Members. Offer valid for Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore residents only. Last date is 7th January.
We hope you are doing great and are enjoying your days reading some lovely books. Our main aim of starting Librarywala.com was to reach out to each and every household and spread the love for reading. Due to time and space constraints, reading takes a back seat in our ultra-modern life.
But with Librarywala.com's, free delivery and pick up service, as well as 'Rent-Read-Return' concept, this hindrance gets completely removed. And you enjoy convenient reading sitting right at home!
To reach out to a lot more book lovers, we have come up with a special Super Saver offer, wherein, registering with us can fetch you waivers on Registration Fees, Security deposit as well as on monthly rental plans as much as Rs. 1000! Isn't that superb?
When a man with a shining Ph.D. at the end of his name who was written a bestselling book called Businomics is interested in a guest post on our blog, we Librarywalas think we're doing something right. His name is Dr.Bill Conerly, Ph.D. and he is also co-author of Thinking Economics, a high school textbook used in 24 states in U.S.A. Two of his articles are required reading in graduate courses at MIT and Wharton.
He sent in his review titled "Good Books on Economics" from the Businomics Blog, recommending 2 books on the subject that will make the average man comprehend the nuances of modern economics. Do read on:
Nariman Behravesh's Spin-Free Economics is THE book I'll recommend when I'm asked to recommend a book for the layman. It's not too technical, but it covers all the key elements involved in modern discussions of economics. In contrast to many other books I've browsed, this book is written in clear English. If you wonder how a Ph.D. can do that, there's a simple explanation: Behravesh has been working outside academia for decades.
The book's title makes it sound like a Fox News product, but that's terribly misleading. It's broadly mainstream. I agree with almost all of it. Where I disagree, Behravesh is presenting a more mainstream view than I take. But about 95 percent of his content is I heartily endorse. Who said we economists never agree? (In fact, Behravesh has a chapter about what we economists agree on--it's surprisingly more than you might think.)
An interesting book--which I recommend only for people who have fully internalized Behravesh's book--is George Akerloff and Robert Shiller's Animal Spirits. They look at how we humans are fallible and prone to errors, a topic in which both authors have contributed academic research. They are challenging the mainstream view described by Behravesh--but only around the edges. Unfortunately, they emphasize those edges, rather than the core of economics which works tremendously well.
For instance, back in the late 1960s two economists (Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps) figured out that there is no long-term tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. Bringing inflation down permanently requires only a temporary price in higher unemployment. Later research found that low inflation tends to be steady inflation, which is very favorable to long-term economic growth. The conclusion: keep inflation low, and don't try to fight unemployment with higher inflation.
Akerloff and Shiller challenge the basis for this conclusion when the inflation rate is in the neighborhood of zero. And they are probably right. However, huge economic damage has come from policymakers who tried to use inflation to reduce unemployment, triggering the boom-bust cycles of the 1970s. Akerloff and Shiller say that Canada's effort to bring inflation from two percent to zero percent may have caused unemployment to be 1.5 percentage points higher than it otherwise would be. However, they don't mention that when the basic lesson was ignored in the U.S., we had unemployment rise to nine percent in 1975 and well over ten percent in 1982. I would prefer that the general public around the world learn the basic lesson, even if that means occassional errors through lack of understanding the advanced lesson.
If you're headed to a Ph.D. program in economics, read this book. If you just want to understand general economics, which works almost all of the time, stick with Behravesh.
Our Librarywala website has a whole lot of corporate members and they're feeling slightly ignored with our reviews on books in the fiction category. So we gladly dedicate this book review to all of them!
The book we bring to you was the first place winner of the Indie Awards held in 2010 in the Finance Category. Guest reviewer, Erin E. Schmidt Smith pitched in this week with her review of Martha Maeda's brilliant book on accounting fraud. By all standards, this is a book that will definitely help you spot a muddled up balance sheet when you see one! This is what she says about it:
When I first started The Complete Guide to Spotting Accounting Fraud & Cover-Ups: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply by Martha Maeda (Atlantic Publishing Group, 2010), I thought I was going to be bored. Actually, this book is quite fascinating. It promises to be easy to read, and it lives up to that promise, even for someone who'd had no background in accounting or finances.
There are plenty of examples, including the cases of Bernard Madoff and Martha Stewart and examples from Coca-Cola, AOL, the International Olympic Committee and more that show how the lessons apply to real life. As a psychology major, I found the discussion of psychopathic personality disorder in business especially fascinating.
This book is also very thorough. It discusses in detail the different kinds of frauds that are most likely to occur, why they occur, and who is most likely to be involved in them. More important, it details the ways owners of businesses large and small and investors can keep an eye out for the various kinds of fraud. Numerous resources went into researching this book, and Maeda shares the particularly valuable and user-friendly resources with the reader.
According to the introduction, organizations in the USA lose about 7% of their annual revenue to fraud, or an estimated $994 billion total. For these reasons, anyone who runs a business or a charity (even church groups) or who has investments should read through it at least once.
Our online book rental website (http://www.librarywala.com/) has been doing a phenomenal job at making readers happy all over the country. Numbers most definitely are the best way to judge a book's popularity. After pouring over Excel sheets and analysing numbers, we bring to you a definitive list of the most circulated books across genres on the site.
A true storyteller keeps the reader hooked by unravelling the suspense at the very end. True to that, we go backwards and start with the 5th most circulated book on our website leading up to the most popular book.
5. The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
About the Book:
"Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s....Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium."
4. 2 States-The Story of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat
About the Book:
"Love marriages around the world are simple: Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married. In India, there are a few more steps: Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy. Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love girl. Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to love girl's family. Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married. Welcome to 2 States, a story about Krish and Ananya. They are from two different states of India, deeply in love and want to get married. Of course, their parents don t agree. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple have a tough battle in front of them. For it is easy to fight and rebel, but it is much harder to convince. Will they make it?"
About the book: "The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen years later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny is endorsed by custom and law. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters."
About the Book: "The Lost Symbol once again features Dan Brown’s unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. The book’s narrative takes place in a twelve-hour period, and from the first page, readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Langdon through a masterful and unexpected landscape. Dan Brown’s prodigious talent for storytelling, infused with history, codes and intrigue, is on full display in this riveting novel."
The number one book won by a huge margin. It is a book loved by many Indians and undoubtedly one of the most popular authors in recent times, Chetan Bhagat.
To the sound of resounding applause, let's usher in the most popular book on Librarywala.com!
About the book:
"In late-2000, a young boy in Ahmedabad called Govind dreamt of having a business. To accomodate his friends Ish and Omi's passion, they open a cricket shop. Govind's wants to make money and thinks big. Ish is all about nurturing Ali, the batsman with a rare gift. Omi knows his limited capabiltiies and just wants to be with his friends. However, nothing comes easy in a turbulent city. To realize their goals, they will have to face it all - religious politics, earthquakes, riots, unacceptable love and above all, their own mistakes. Will they make it? Can an individual's dreams overcome the nightmares offered by real life? Can we succeed despite a few mistakes? Based on real events, from the bestselling author of "Five Point Someone" and "One Night @ the call centre", comes another dark, witty tale about modern India."
On a different note, while we don't rest on our laurels, we definitely appreciate the voices of our loyal customers. Subhash Macha has been a satisfied customer at Librarywala.com for more than 2 and a half years now. He is an avid reader of both English and multi lingual books. His reading appetite gets full at Librarywala.com. Press PLAY to see what the happy Librarywala user had to say about our service:
At Librarywala, we make an effort to connect with readers and writers the world over in search of stories that are heartwarming and beautiful. It was an absolute pleasure to stumble upon the story Stephen Gallup has to share with the world in his poignant parental memoir "What About the Boy?" due to release in September this year. A story of undying devotion to his developmentally challenged son, it promises to take readers on an emotional roller-coaster like none other. It is a story of courage, love and belief that a silver lining does exist.
Here's a little bio on this wonderful father Stephen Gallup.
Stephen Gallup grew up in North Carolina and Virginia. He studied at NC State University, earning a bachelor's degree in the life sciences, and then at the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s in English.
Beginning in 1977, he worked in various roles in technical communication in the aerospace and wireless telecommunications industries, with projects ranging from proposals for satellite launches and feasibility studies of space missions, to user guides for trendy new cell phones. In the early years, he wrote occasional short fiction on the side, and features for newspapers.
Gallup’s life changed dramatically with the birth of his son Joseph in 1985. Upon learning that there was a problem, he applied his energies to a pursuit of answers that he felt certain must exist. After a year of consulting with physicians to no effect, he located other resources. For the next four years, he and his wife Judy implemented an intensive two-pronged treatment campaign that resulted in dramatic improvements in Joseph’s condition.
His memoir What About the Boy? shows what the family did, and what happened next.
Here is an unpublished piece about his upcoming memoir, 'What About the Boy?' due to hit stores in September this year.
Of course, you would take your baby to the doctor. But what would you do if, instead of offering treatment, the doctor simply told you to be less anxious? Time passes, and your baby is already one year old. The way he cries, and thrashes about, and vomits, you know he’s in distress. And he still cannot crawl or even sit up by himself.
Finally, without ever diagnosing your baby’s problem, the doctors tell you that you need counseling. They see a problem in you. You need to change your focus. The baby? Well, there’s not much to be done about the baby.
There is a choice to be made at such times. Yes, we must rely on specialists who surely know more than we do about such things, but if the specialists do not even try to help—what then?
What About the Boy? A Father’s Pledge to His Disabled Son is a memoir written by the father of such a child. Stephen Gallup and his wife Judy were a young couple who had recently moved to California, thousands of miles from their families and friends. When the doctors let them down, they had no support other than their own sense of what was right.
They knew their son Joseph depended on them to overcome whatever it was that bothered him, and they knew that, ultimately, trying to find real help for him was their responsibility.
The memoir follows their reluctant first steps into the realm of alternative medicine. Some of the providers they find do not inspire confidence, but others personify common sense. What is more important is that, under a new regimen, Joseph finally attains peace within himself and begins the slow process of developing new skills. Such as crawling. And walking.
In the interests of disclosure, the victories this family achieves do not come without a heavy price, nor are they as complete and final as one might wish. Joseph’s path to wellness goes only so far.
Given that, let’s return to the question with which we began. Should the family have accepted the advice of authorities, or should they have dedicated their lives to an uphill battle that had no guarantee of success?
The book promises to be a compelling and honest read, offering a remarkable view of families who have to deal with similar situations in their lives. We champion the author's cause and hope this book is a grand success.
Do share your opinions with us. You may also connect with the author on his blog http://fatherspledge.com/.
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
The opening lines of David Copperfield set the stage for a remarkable novel. Not too many people would disagree that Charles Dickens truly was a genius with words. These dramatic first lines prove it. Many of us choose to live life like a spectator sport. It's time you show up in your own life. Have you read this book yet? :)
