Freakonomics: It is written by an economist named Stevan Levitt. The book is written in a very unconventional method and is composed with Stevan's insight on many things like Why do teachers cheat or Why the Crime rate in America fell during 90s though all the intelligencia was predicting to take a big leap. He analysed these things in his own different way. Though, this book provides a totally new angle to some phenomenon, it has not aroused my interest much and therefore has been put on hold for completing other books first.
Losing My Virginity: A riveting book by an interesting person. Sir Richard Branson. A tinge of royality comes when Sir is added to his name which is not compatible otherwise with an otherwise vivacious Richard Branson. Alhough he owns a large airline, music company and many other companies, this guy looks like a rookie. He has shown that to be at top one doesn't need to have his eye brows always raised or to embrace a very discreet (read, nitpicking) and artificial behaviour. He believes in living the life at full throttle. The last picture i saw of him was the one where he was holding Pamela Anderson in his both hands over a wing blade of his plane. Now, when i have started reading his autobiography, i saw how much efforts he has made to come here. He started his first enterprise at the age of 17 with no funds at all. This was a magazine called 'Student'. He was mainly overlooking the marketing aspect of this magazine i.e, selling and persuading people to place advertisements in it. After this he started selling music titles through posts but very soon postal serviceman announced a strike and he was unable to carry on selling titles through post. So he made an arrangement with a shoe shop owner to allow him to share space in return of the prospects of people coming for buying titles may buy shoes also. After setting up some more shops he thought about a recording studio and therefore, purchased a manor for it. He took a debt from a bank and borrowed some money from his aunty for buying this manor. But soon he was finding it difficult to meet financial commitments. Around the same time, he brought some titles from a neighbouring country without paying proper taxes. First time it was done unknowingly but later he thought it to be a good way to repay the loan of 15000 pounds. His profit with one round was coming to around 4000 pounds. So he decided to make 3 more such trips so that he can repay the loan. But on the 3rd trip, he fell foul of law and had to spend one night in jail also. He was imposed with a penalty of 45000 pounds to be repaid in next 3 years failing which he would be imprisoned. From now on, he and his team was going to work even much more harder to earn this much money.
He started looking for Musical Bands to make albums. Very soon, he found Mike Orefield whose music was sold heavily but had to struggle to find some more bands. He did some poaching also. Like when he was touring France alongwith a Polygram senior executive he was introduced to one of their very efficient and successful person. After reaching London, Richard invited this person over a dinner and persuaded him to join his upcoming France venture. The Polygram executive commented to it as :
" When you are invited for a dinner, you are not expected to walk away with cutlery." Similarly, he was told by MD of one another company that they are going to hire one band over an informal meeting. Richard did not know this band but he immediately went to bathroom, wrote the name of this band over his palm and called up his local person to tell that currently, this band was not on anybody's list so he should immediately sign it. This band was, at that time, the most popular band of that region.
Loosing My Virginity tells the way through which the giant Virgin group has come up and it makes it a nice reading.
