Fiction vs Non-Fiction: A Perspective from a hardcore Non-Fiction reader

I am a non fiction reader to the core. And, I hate reading fiction.  I  know that it  is a grave mistake, which I am slowly realizing now a these days. But I  can't help it. Recently, I was given the classic War and Peace  by one of  my friends . I failed miserably at it.I  read 100 pages and  I was out. I could not complete it, and I had to put it down. In my friend's words, I was just another victim of War and Peace!I am sure you must also have  had a similar experience like me with few fiction books.

That event  kept me thinking as to which is more important: Fiction or Non-Fiction. Both have their pros and cons. What are the benefits of reading fiction? Is it so that  we really gain useful knowledge by reading non-fiction books?Are there really great benefits as many claim to be. Let us see. In this post, I am going to attempt to answer at least some of the questions that many have lingering in their minds. 

The answer to the question whether to read fiction more or non fiction depends on the type of person you are. If you are an imaginative type, then reading fiction will definitely prove to be an enjoyable experience. Nothing can be more joyful than picking up a classic, and delving deep in to the minds of characters, and vicariously living  their lives . On the other hand, if you are thinking type, who loves facts and concepts, then you would definitely enjoy non-fiction. Think Malcolm Gladwell’s books for that matter.

But to answer the main question, ideally you should strike a fine balance between the two genres. Nassim Taleb, the modern day saint comes to my mind with respect to this. He tweets: almost all of what's in these  mounds of "nonfiction" books is BS.However, much of what's in fiction is pure truth”.He nailed it with those words. We live in a world where there is more misinformation, fake knowledge and pseudo science than genuine stuff. In that case, it becomes really hard to discern which is a good book and which is a bad one, especially when it comes to non-fiction books.

It is only by reading both kinds of books that we get a holistic perspective of the world. In case of fiction books, you will find that , it is in the form of stories that the moral is hidden. Non-fiction is straight to the point, and it misses the mark in driving the message due to its obviousness. So, keeping this in mind, we have to be very choosy in picking up a non-fiction book.

You better follow the Sturgeon’s law when it comes to reading books; be it fiction or non fiction. Sturgeon's  law says that 90 percent of everything is crap. But  the catch here is that, to understand the top ten percent of the books, you have to wade through the remaining 90 percent. You have to read plenty of mediocre books to understand the value of great books. That is the secret of being a great reader.

Hope, you will agree with me on many points. If not, I would love to know what are your thoughts. So, please leave your comments below .Thanks for reading!  

Review: God: A Human History

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was my first ever book of Reza Eslan. It was really amazing. This book is as interesting as Sapiens, and in certain theoretical aspects, much better than it,when it comes to explaining the origin of religions. This is short and crisp filled with many interesting facts about the origin of religions, especially in the middle eastern regions. Let me tell you, what this book is not about. This book doesn’t talk about the origins of far eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism or Shintoism, though you will find the mention of Hinduism here and there. It exclusively deals with Abrahamic religions to be precise.

What makes this book a pleasant read is that it explains even the most abstruse cognitive mechanisms that lead to the origins of some kind of belief in Supernatural phenomena in very simple terms. This book has concepts such as HADD( Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device),Theory of Mind(ToM),Substance Dualism, Cognitive Dissonance and much more. Instead of I explaining what these concepts are, you should read the book to know more about them. Reza Eslan, being a religious scholar and a creative writing professor has done a fabulous job at explaining these concepts, which I believe, anybody who wants to understand the religion should know.

Sapiens made me think that it is the power of story telling, which led to the origin of religions, is the sole domain of Homo Sapiens . But Reza Eslan says no. The extinct human species such as Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Denisova and even Neanderthals indulged in some spiritual practices  in some form or the other. One of the anthropologists in the book goes so far in calling Homo Sapines as Homo Religiosus(The worshipping human). But that name should not be restricted to Homo Sapiens alone in my opinion.

Two factors have played a very important role in the origin of religions: dreams and complexity of the world in which our pre-historic ancestors lived.It is only in our dreams that we conjured up weird images, and that, coupled with certain cognitive mechanisms, made our ancestors believe in some super natural power. To add to that, our creation of our Gods were limited to our imagination. To give you an example, if horses had the capacity to draw and were asked to draw a version of their Horse God, they would draw their God which would look just like a horse. Same was the case with the humans too.

To delve even more deep into the subject, this book says that, animism is  the foremost form of beliefs our ancestors had. Animism is a belief that everything, whether living or non living has a soul. We sustained on this belief for tens of thousands of years. Slowly, this was also one of the reasons why we developed manism, the belief that, our ancestors have souls and they go on to live in some celestial world.Just to give you a tidbit, it is the reason why whenever someone died, the people of  Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, buried the body with the heads decorated.Because they believed that the soul resides in the head.

Gobekli Tepe, a place in Turkey, the book mentions remains a very importance place for the study of origin of religions. It is the receding  of Ice Age, I thought that gave birth to Agricultural revolution.But no. As per the sculptures found in Gobekli Tepe, Reza hypothesizes that the people of Gobekli Tepe;to satisfy their spiritual inclinations were so much involved in the building of sculptures that, they had to give their hunter-gatherer  lifestyle as it was not feasible anymore. Then, they started rearing crops and that is how the Agricultural revolution came into place and spread throughout the world.

Then the book goes on to explain in detail, how the monotheistic religions took their birth deep rooted in concept of henotheism; meaning, one supreme God presiding and ruling over other Gods.It all changed with Egyptian Pharoah Anekhetan, who was the world’s first ever person to get revelation from the Egyptian sun God Re and established the world’s first monotheistic practice in the Egyptian empire. Then, followed by a tribe in the Canaanite region whom they called their God Elohim or Eloha(coming from the Sumerian word Ilu, which means the lofty person),who went on to be called later as Jews . 

With the coming of Moses, he reshaped the canaanite spiritual tradition by establishing the supremacy of Yehowah over the pre-existing Gods of the Israelites. Then,the same kind of spiritual revolution happened in Persia when a person belonging to the priest class  by name Zarathustra Spitoma receives a revelation about the God called Ahura Mazda. As the time passed by,it was the time for Jesus to come and declare that, “ I and my father are one” which was a revolutionary thought at that point of time followed by the Arabian Prophet Muhammad, who unified the tribes in Arabia with his revelation from Allah.

He concludes the book by explaining the concept of Pantheism- everything is God. This was in line with the Spinoza’s God. Predominantly this book deals with the humanization of the Divine, and as the book progesses,with the Divinization of the human.All in all, it was a great read, especially for some one who wants to know the origin of the Abrahamic religions in particular. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I encourage you too to read this book, because, we are after all, the ultimate expression of God.

Good Job Reza Eslan! I loved it. Waiting for your next book to come.















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Review: The McKinsey Way

The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have an omnivorous taste when it comes to reading books, and my choice of books is driven by my curiosity. If I want to learn any subject, I have a thumb rule. I would read the best 5 books written on that subject. Recently, I was fascinated by the subject of consulting, and decided to master the subject by reading the best books ever written on that subject. So,when I typed in Google, “ the best books on consulting, the book The McKinsey Way was among the top 5 books. Hence, I decided to give it a try. So, in this blog post, I want to share with you whatever knowledge I have gained from reading the book.

The book McKinsey Way was written by Mr. Ethan M Rasiel, a former consultant who worked for McKinsey. Having been with McKinsey for few years, he enlightens the readers about the so called closely guarded secrets, techniques and concepts which McKinsey has been using for many years to solve the pressing problems of the major corporations and the different governments of the world at large. The McKinsey, among the elite corporate circles, is known as the Firm. It was founded in the year 1926. The firm’s hierarchy is plain and interesting. First comes the client, second the Firm and third are the employees.

To start with, the author introduces the readers to the concept of MECE. It stands for Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive . To simplify it,MECE is a way of thinking about a problem.With the given constraints and taking into account certain incompatibilities, how to arrive at a solution. Anybody who steps into McKinsey, the first thing that h/she would learn is MECE. It is an indispensable tool for solving the problems of the clients.Apart from this there are so many conceptual tools,such as the 80/20 rule being the obvious one, which would help not only an aspiring consultant for instance, but also the business managers and even the individuals with problem solving.

One of the key takeaways from the book is that, what doctors are for the individuals, the consulting firms are for the businesses. Individuals go to the doctors because they have some health issues, organizations too approach consultants because of their inefficiencies and sub optimal productivity, or they just want to grow bigger , or to grab a bigger share in the market. You might be wondering, why not the firms do the analysis themselves instead of paying the consulting firms in millions of dollars. The catch here is that, corporations , just like individuals lack the insight about their problems. Hence, a dispassionate outsider perspective with objective analysis is how the consulting firms help the organizations or the governments in attaining their objectives.To elaborate a bit more, a patient with a headache might think that it’s just a simple headache, but it might be something more serious than that.Similarly, even the consultant’s job is not to just solve the problems posed by the client, but have a look at the bigger picture and point out to them the real problems, which might be in some cases,more serious than they have actually imagined.



That being said, let me now take you through the exact problem solving methodology of McKinsey.

1.Initial Hypothesis- It is how you actually frame the problem or define the problem
2.Fact Based Analysis- Gather data from as many sources as you can for the objective analysis of the problem.
3.Rigid structure- Every problem has to go through a set pathyway of problem solving.

Now, you might be wondering, how does McKinsey gets clients? The obvious answer that comes to anybody’s mind is selling. But no.The firm doesn’t do active selling. The Firm doesn’t sell its services by cold calling or marketing or any other means that you can think of. Rather doing that, it markets itself. And, there is a big difference. What the firm does is , it encourage its employees to actively participate in networking events, become the board members of the organizations,play advisory role to the NGO’s etc. In this way, so much of leads get generated informally. Word of mouth marketing, being the most powerful one, is how business is generated for McKinsey.

It is every MBA grad’s dream to get into McKinsey Firm. To get into the Firm, is not as easy as you imagine it to be. They look for stellar academic record, MBA from a premier university in the world, and yes you need to be of average intelligence to make the cut.But, the story doesn’t end there. Even after you become a part of the McKinsey, you have to prove your mettle, as, the organization is purely meritocratic.You are only as good as your last assignment. There is no room for mediocrity at all. The consultants , known as the Engagement Mangers work in a small team of 3-6 members, and go on to form very close bonds with each other. Working with McKinsey can be an intense learning experience. Astonishingly, the average tenure of a consultant in the McKinsey is 2 years. Need I say more?

This book is over all, a good book, though it didn’t cover all the aspects of consulting. This book would have been even better if the concepts were illustrated with specific case studies, so that the reader would understand the context better. Moreover, this books has routine advice such as the importance of team bonding, active listening, obsession to service among others. That’s why I felt, as the book progresses, only 70 percent of it is actually worth reading. The rest of the content can be found in other business books too.

That's all I have for you now. Keep reading . Sia.







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