Last four books

The Google Story

By David A. Vise and Mark Malseed

I really liked reading the books, for one, being the story of the most exciting technology company in the world today, and also for the unconventional way in which Larry and Sergey built their gem - right from the logo, to hard disk boxes built out of lego kits, their 'dont be evil' motto, the way they pitted Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers and Sequoia Capital against each other to get all their venture investment without having to let go of their voting rights, their conventional Dutch-auction based IPO, ... well, the list could go on. However, one thing I really appreciated in the book and the story is that it shows you how excellence always goes rewarded - people are suckers for good products and they would not mind using it even if you don't spend a nickel on advertising your brand. It goes to show that the pursuit of excellence can transcend all the other little things that corporate strategists worry about. My biggest takeaway from the book!

Link

Split Second

By David Baldacci

The usual Baldacci - very high on secret service stuff. The story of two Secret Service Agents who are protecting Presidential Candidates. One of them dies in the custody of Agent Sean King, and ten years later another gets abducted while Michelle Maxwell is in charge of his security. The two cases, although separated by ten odd years have a lot in common, and King and Maxwell discover them as they get together to find out what happened in the Split Second in which they lost their concentration which cost them their jobs.

Link

Digital Fortress

By Dan Brown

A BIG LET DOWN! I just can not believe its the same guy who wrote Da Vinci Code! The plot is Okay, but somehow, Brown has over-dramatized it in most places. He tries to unnecessary suspence where it is neither expected nor desirable. A suspence while running a computer command can probably be appreciated in a movie, but never in a book - not at least in the way Brown has written it. The story revolves around the National Security Agency and a new unbreakable algorithm codenamed 'Digital Fortress'. In most places, it seems more like a Hindi movie where things happen more by co-incidence rather than the protagonist having to try anything hard for it!

Link

Sam's Letters to Jennifer

By James Patterson

Liked this book - its about Jennifer whose Grandmother is in a coma, and when Jennifer goes to meet her at Lake Geneva near Chicago, she discovers her grandmom - whom she is really attached to - has left behind letters writing about her furtive romance. Jenny herself is recovering from the death of her loved one, and finds a new love at the banks of the river. However, she is in for a huge shock!
The book was different from the usual Grisham-Archer-Baldacci-Rowling variety I usually end up reading - a nice change.

Link

Blood Memory

By Greg Iles

Back to the usual - murder mystery. Cat Ferry is a forensic odontologist (teeth), and gets imbroiled in a serial killing case, where the killer seems to be targetting old men, which is odd because most sexually-motivated serial killers target women or children. At the same time, she is grappling with a boyfriend who is not firm in his commitment, and her own past where she had to undergo some very bad times as a child, including the death of her father, an 'Nam veteran, when she was just eight. She discovers some blood stains in her childhood home, and get her started on a new quest for the truth. She is in for a great shock as she discovers that the two cases are interlinked, and that her family has not exactly been very truthful about what happened on that fateful night. A very quick read despite its 500 odd pages!

Link

Oops! That's five [:D]