Thursday 22 December 2016

20 books of different genres one must read in his/her 20s to move one level up in smartness & wisdom

You must have read various articles on Internet about books belonging to a specific category such as fiction, drama, sports, biographies, business & management, self help etc. However, in this blog post I am taking a holistic approach and  listing books of different genres all together.
Moreover, it is a collection of not only high-rated books but also some good books which have not been rated to their potential.
One must read these books in their twenties in order to develop shrewdness to face one’s upcoming life of thirties and forties with prudence, therefore, sit tight for another fifteen minutes and get familiar with a very cool collection of books from different genres.

Here we proceed with our first category -
Self Help (god helps those who help themselves)
1. Tuesdays with Morrie

This is the first book I have kept in this category because I am certain that it is capable of making you fall in love with self-help books.
This book is about a student who meets his fatally sick teacher after nearly twenty years and visits him every Tuesday to take life lessons.
You might fall into tears by the time you reach the last page of this book.
2.  Mega living - Robin Sharma
If you are interested in overcoming the negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones then go for this book.  You can read this book to connect with the positive energy around you and learn to maintain a calm head.
Well, this book surely imparts great wisdom and hope; it is the best teacher you can bring home to teach you how to improve your life.
3.  Make yourself unforgettable - Dale Carnegie

By simply reading this book till the last page, one will get to know how a few petty things in human's disposition obstruct him/her to become a person of ‘Class’.
Well, the word 'class' is often taken for granted but it requires a lot of effort to develop. Moreover to be a person of 'class', you do not have to strive to develop qualities  but quit a few negative habits of yours.
4.  The Seven Habits of highly effective people - Stephen R Covey
The book will help you deal with your professional and personal problems. The author has demonstrated a few short accounts neatly and cleverly which really captivate your interest.
5.  Who will cry when you die? - Robin Sharma

The book contains lessons in 101 chapters to improve your life . I recommend this book to the people who are going through a rough patch in their life or the people who think that good always passes a great distance away from them.
By reading this book, one can know how to maintain a happy state of mind by focusing on the minor details of life which one often ignores.

Fiction 
(truth is stranger than fiction because fiction is obliged to stick with possibilities) 
Visit bx-zone.com, an online used book store on which you can sell used books to people around you.

6. Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Canon Doyle

Who doesn’t know Sherlock Holmes and his accomplice Dr. Watson? The characters created by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle. Sherlock Holmes stories become intriguing when he solves each mystery with foresight and extraordinary astuteness with the help of Dr. Watson.
This book can also be picked up by the beginner readers to strengthen their interest in reading.
Once you develop an interest in it, 221B Baker Street will be the only address on your mind.
7. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
A cult mystery-thriller novel by Dan brown, although, majority of the people have seen the movie The DaVinci Code, still I would say this book is a must-read. The book is about the character Robert Langdon who gets entangled into a mystery where his life as well as a thing capable of turning the world upside down is online. 
If you are in college then this book can help you spend your entire year or semester break reading.
8. Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
This mystery-thriller marks the beginning of the character of Robert Langdon. A container tantamount to a nuclear weapon gets stolen which, after 24 hours will trigger itself and leave behind a trail of destruction. Now, Robert Langdon will have to save the world by using his brilliant knowledge of symbology.
9. Inferno - Dan Brown

It is the most recent novel of Dan Brown which features his main character Robert Langdon the fourth time.
The antagonist in the book develops a virus, which if spread, is capable of affecting the population of the world. Now, Robert Langdon with his experience and knowledge of symbols has to find the virus and save the world.
The book is characterized by several twisting events and is capable of holding you spellbound till the last page.
10. The Scarecrow - Michael R Connelly
A crime reporter and an FBI agent try to catch a serial killer who is always a couple of steps ahead of them and commits crime under the nose of law enforcers.
Once you start reading this fiction piece by Michael Connelly, you won’t have to put an effort to build interest in it, the book will lure your attention from the very first page.
Fiction Drama 
(the course of true love never did run smooth)
11. The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri


This book tells a tale of two brothers, born a few months apart with completely different mindsets. One of them locked in his beliefs and the other being dutiful. The story takes a dramatic turn when one of them dies leaving behind his wife whose misery brings a sense of responsibility in the heart of another towards her.
12. The Kite Runner - Khalid Hosseini
This tale of an unlikely friendship between two boys in the country of Afghanistan is very endearing. If you have a friend with whom you share a very strong bond then this book will certainly touch deep in your heart.
13. The Blue Umbrella - Ruskin Bond
A humorous story of a little girl who in exchange of her pendant gets a beautiful blue umbrella due to which everyone turns envious of her especially the shopkeeper of her village.
This is a very light book and is a perfect one which you can read to your kids during bed time.

Biographies 

(Work till you get yourself a biography from the world)

14. Che Guevara - Richard L Harris
The biography of the Argentine leader who travelled through Latin America in his twenties and became a rebel seeing the condition of the poor in the continent; the one who dethroned the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba along with Fidel Castro.
Know the journey of the iconic face you often see imprinted on a lot of t-shirts.
15. The Warren Buffet Way

We all know Warren buffet who made his fortune from stocks. I know one cannot be another Warren Buffet by reading this book, but,  if you are looking to create wealth through investing in stocks then this is a great read.
You surely will get to know the approach of Warren Buffet to investing, his portfolio in the peak years of success and much more.
16. Wings of Fire - APJ Abdul Kalam


This book must be read by every Indian or someone who has a vision of doing big in life. It is the autobiography of the missile man of India, a man who stands a true inspiration for every Indian. It is believed that everyone who reads this book takes something out of it.
Business & Management 
(A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business)
17. Zero to One - Peter Theil

The progress has come to a stand-still and globalization has impersonated it. Peter Thiel has beautifully delivered this message through this book.
If you have plans of starting an enterprise of your own now or many years further then you should have one copy in your collection.
18. 6 hours MBA - Louis Coutts

Get this book and take a superficial look at the basic concepts of management before diving deep into the world of entrepreneurship. Also, this book is for every professional to spread awareness about management at his/her designation level and certainly not restricted only business guys.
19. Romancing with the Balance Sheet - Anil Lamba
Whether you are an engineer, a teacher, an entrepreneur or a shopkeeper, learning basic finance not only helps the organization, you are working for, at your level but also helps you achieve personal financial growth.
 This book is not restricted to accountants or commerce students, but it should be read by every professional. The book teaches you about the basic concepts of balance sheet, Profit & Loss and also few concepts which can help you in taking personal financial decisions.
I highly recommend this book.
New Age
(Believe that the dawn is coming)
20. Target 3 Billion

India’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture and crops are cultivated in farms situated in villages; based on this fact this book analyses if the potential of the people living in villages is harnessed then India will become the world’s largest economy much faster than expected.
The analysis and the motivation provided in the book is fabulous and is surely going to captivate your attention towards the power of natural and human resources found in the rural areas.
With this we come to the end of this post. Hope you enjoyed it!!
           HaPPy ReADiNg !!

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Wednesday 30 November 2016

7 Tricks to remember the things read from books & articles which one normally forgets



Sometimes during reading a book, we happen to learn a thing interesting enough to feel confident. But we slowly tend to forget it after we have finished reading the book. We brood over this problem a hundred times in our life which entails frustration.
People of every age group face the question - How to preserve the information read from books in the mind forever?
Students face this problem irrespective of the field they pursue. Normally, they complain of forgetting the details of a topic they read lately in their textbooks even after going through it a couple of times. Sometimes, it involves very important stuff which needs to be remembered.
Grownups learn some intriguing content from a blog article or a good self-help book and over a period of time they seem to lose it.
Whether you are an engineer or an analyst you face issues of remembering the details of your project or find it difficult to remember the numbers. When we face such problems in keeping our memory intact it puts a big question mark on our brain and leads to moments of annoyance.
I am no memory expert but it has been proved that with a little bit of classification of information and proactiveness we can preserve information in memory for a very long time.  

Following are 7 tricks which, if followed, will definitely help in long storage of meaningful content in your mind -

1. Sticky NotesYou must have been familiar with this technique for always. You can preserve information in a very short form in the sticky notes. You need to ensure that the information stored is not vague and is precise and clear.
An important thing to note here is where you stick your sticky notes and when to look at them. Most people make use of sticky notes but fail to even catch a glimpse of them; this is where you can get an edge over others.
Looking at the information noted in the sticky notes on Thursday/Friday/Saturday mornings will definitely help, why? The reason is your mind will be looking forward to the weekends. :)


2. Knowledge IndexI am not against building a web directory of information or noting all the important content in a notebook. However, I am going a bit different here with maintaining a diary; don’t think I tell you to write important information or a paragraph of an article you find interesting in it, however, I exhort you to use this diary to create your own indexes.
Start with 3-5 words to describe the info and write the page number of the book or the address of the website, where you found it, in front of it. Maintaining this diary is going to do the work of integrating the pointers to information in one repository. Revisiting the information using it will map your mind with the index you created and you will end up remembering the information for a long time.
3. Implementation – Well, if cooking is your hobby then you must know that how making a recipe - read from good Cookbooks - couple of times help you remember it every time in the future. This is the magic of implementation. 
If you are fond of self help books you can bring a big change in your life by implementing the lessons mentioned in the books and believe me, this is the best way to remember.
Practical implementation is very important. It helps you to assimilate the essence of information or lessons you get to read from books.
As an example, Science is there in everything around us and also inside us, hence, science students can definitely find most of the topics inside their books around them, they just have to stretch their thinking a bit to relate the lessons from their academic books with them. Believe me the results will be very positive.
Please be selective with your topics in implementing them, you are wise enough to comprehend what to consider for practical implementation.

4. Non-productive time – Pay attention to your non-productive time and use it to run through the information in your mind.


Your non-productive time can be when you wash clothes or when you wait in the queue at a retail store, when you take a ride in cab or even when you feel lazy to get up from the bed in winters.
Start a mental discussion. You may face problems in the beginning but do not desist from continuing the discussion. Mind is very powerful, it will quickly start relating the stuff with each other and this way you can form your own network of information in your own non productive time.

5. Infographics – With the continuing evolution of technology, it is now possible to create an infographic much faster. As we all are aware of the fact that mind responds more to the visual content, this is one of the best ways to grasp and remember the information read from a good book or a wonderfully-written article.
This will surely develop one more skill of summarizing and transforming the information into graphics for you.
An infographic can be very sophisticated or as simple as a drawing by hand, it’s your choice. People who would not make use of software can simply draw it portraying the information graphically.


6. Teaching – By teaching I don’t ask you to take a professor’s job in a college. When you read something good from a book or a blog, try to impart the wisdom and information gained to others but please be absolutely selective of people you are going to discuss the information with, as sharing it with the ‘not so interested’ people  may lead to creation of a pretentious and presumptuous image of yours.
If at all you are unable to find people to discuss the information with, then start writing a journal or a blog. Writing information or lessons learnt in a journal is not a far cry from sharing it with people, hence, do not get discouraged.

7. Your own voice is boon – Most people mention ‘listening music’ as their hobby in their resumes and that is how they happen to remember a lot of music stuff from tip to toe.
You must have understood by now where I am going with this, yes, recording your voice, while reading something important, in your smart phone makes an audio knowledge bank in your smart phone. If auditory learning suits you then this approach will help you boost up your memory in miraculous ways and preserve information like forever.
You can hear these audio records while riding bike, driving your car or even when you are waiting in a long line of ATM hoping to withdraw money :)

With this we come to the end of this post. Hope you enjoyed it!!
           HaPPy ReADiNg !!

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Thursday 10 November 2016

6 books you must read to see a change in your life in just 30 days

6 books you must read to see a change in life

Once upon a time, there was a very wealthy merchant who had four wives. 

Out of all four, his most favourite was the fourth wife. He would take no time in fulfilling any wish of hers and adorned her with expensive jewels.

His next favourite was the third wife followed by the second; however he would not care at all for his first wife. On the contrary, the first wife loved him the most.

Over the course of time, the merchant developed a terminal illness and was on his death bed when he called all his wives. He made them a request to accompany him to the other world, he would reach, after he dies.

The fourth wife rejected the request bluntly and went away.

The third wife also rejected him and insinuated that she would move on after he was dead.

The second wife, being a little gracious, offered him to accompany only till the grave.

The merchant became dejected with the misery and felt his mind would implode because of the agony.


To his surprise, the first wife, who had become skeletally thin by now, offered to accompany him to the other world. Her gesture led the merchant reach a point of extreme regret about the fact that he didn’t take care of her at all.

Do you know who those four wives were?

4.  Body
3.  Wealth
2.  Family
1.  Soul
I hope by now you have understood the moral of the story.

We spend the whole life paying our entire attention to body, wealth and family but hardly turn the head towards our soul, the inner self.

Taking care of the soul, nurturing it is as important as pursuing the first 3 elements. With a degree of candour, I say I am no master of it. However, we all can give it a shot by taking lessons from a few influential thinkers and authors of this world through the medium of self-improvement books.

Here is a list of 6 books which, if read till the last page, will definitely intrigue you to bring a positive change in your life -



I will bring the positive change

    1..  BHAGVADGITA - The solutions of your enormous problems, daily issues, petty frustrations and all the problems that exist on this earth are there in this book. 

Believe me, if you read it with an open mind you will definitely relate your problems with the challenges Arjuna encountered in the battle. 

Bhagvadgita has even inspired many leaders of Indian Independence.

Tap the potential of mind by reading books

 2.    Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon hill
This book always appears in the list of the best self-help books. 

It teaches you how your own thoughts can help you to materialize your dream, how important it is to take care of your thoughts and the magic they do if nurtured properly. 

This book does the task of instilling right attitude in its readers. You will surely be filled with a positive energy after reading this book.

3. Mega living - Robin Sharma
If negative thoughts often come in your mind then this book is a must read .It will teach you how to guard your mind against the negative thoughts and convert them into positive. It shows how few often ignored habits can turn your life on the road to bliss.  

4. Make yourself unforgettable - Dale Carnegie

If you want to become a person possessing stupendous charisma and class then go for this book.  It explains the real meaning of ‘class’ and goes deep in order to eliminate the myth that only rich and wealthy are classy people.

Well, happy to share an important lesson of this book ‘stop bitching behind anyone’s back’. Tough one to implement, right?

Read : 6 ways to effectively use time at places you get bored

Make your will stronger by reading books

 5. Be rich & happy - Robert Kiyosaki

After reading this book you will realize the grand need to subvert the current education system which has forgotten the meaning of ‘education’ and is totally based on grades. 

If you were a student who fell prey to this system then you’ll surely relate yourself with this book.  

It inculcates a spirit to get up on being knocked down by life and use it to be RICH.
Build your personality so that people get attracted towards you

      6. Who will cry when you die? - Robin Sharma
Life lessons in small 101 chapters. It is really a treat to read. This book will teach you the minor details a person tends to ignore due to the fast pace of life necessary to achieve success and attain bliss.




If you don’t have interest in self-improvement books then reading one can be a bit challenging but, as we all know, good things come at a cost, hence, why not give it a shot and become responsible for bringing a positive change in your life?

With this we come to the end of this post .I will also insist you to take a sneak peek in our online used book store by means of which you can buy books directly from the readers around you and post ADs of your own used books to sell them to other readers. 

Hope you enjoyed this post!!


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Wednesday 5 October 2016

Best way to make your Sunday afternoons better


The best way to be happy is to read to your kids in the Sunday afternoons

“It’s Sunday, I will watch TV and will also do something productive”.

Unfortunately, the first thing becomes a habit and the second never sees the light of day on a Sunday.

The moment you are done with your lunch you get jammed in your couch, watch television for 4 hours and then deep dive into the pleasant world of sleep.


A thought would pop in your mind now, “Well, I have worked very hard the whole week and it is the time to relax doing nothing”.

Actually, this relaxation manifests into procrastination gradually and procrastination becomes your second nature.

Afternoons seem to be very long and ineffective when you are procrastinating.
Changing the channels of the TV for hours when no programme seems to be of any interest to you is also a form of procrastination.

Don't let this time slip from your hands which can be effectively used to enhance the quality of your life. 

An important question

After your lunch is over on Sunday, ask yourself a question “Have I been productive on Sundays, I promised myself to be once?” If the answer is ‘Yes’ I suggest you read no further.

It is a bitter truth that every Monday morning one feels awful. A small proportion of this obnoxious feeling consists of the regret that we couldn’t do anything productive over the weekend.

Everybody likes to be efficient in his or her work. Today the world is just not limited to doing the job properly, besides doing your job you have to be creative and innovative at your work.

There is an activity which, if performed, can change the course of your Sunday afternoons, make you more creative, create a cheerful disposition  and make you more amiable than you are currently.

‘READING’

Tap your mind’s potential every Sunday afternoon by reading books. I assure you reading books is one of the best ways to become happy.

Read to your Kids

A very refreshing form of reading is reading books to your kids for about 30-45 minutes and thus, what can be better than doing the same in the sunny afternoons of Sundays.

So, make sure to buy some good story books for your children from your favorite book store this week and prepare yourself to read to them this Sunday afternoon.

This may instill a habit of reading in the kids and an early habit of reading can help your children think beyond the current course. Children become more creative and innovative, exhibit advanced skills if they are habitual to reading during the early years of growth.

Pick your own genre 

Initially, reading the book may produce a soporific effect and may push you for an afternoon nap but do not give up; therefore,  it is essential to pick up a book of the genre of your choice.

Read a lovely novel - A love story, a crime thriller, mystery or simple story but keep in mind it should be so intriguing that watching a non-productive program may look very tiny compared to it.

Read self help books – Few things which we overlook in our life can be reminded to us in these books. These books teach nothing new but the minor details of life which we do not pay attention to. By reading these books you can realize that finding happiness in life is such an easy task.

Here are a few recommendations of self help books – 
  • Mega living – Robin Sharma 
  • Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill 
  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin  
  • A Monk who sold his Ferrari – Robin Sharma

Read cookbooks and be a chef. You can find the nicest pleasure by cooking something new for your family on a Sunday afternoon and where you get the recipe? Cookbooks !!
Well, it is often said that sometimes cooking a good recipe is tantamount to finding happiness within yourself.

Read Magazines you love. You are crazy about cars but are only limited to watching images on Internet. Increase your knowledge by picking up a famous car magazine. Believe me, in no time you will end up reading every article of it.

Give reading a shot by grabbing a copy of your favorite book.

You can get books at a very low price from any online used books store in case,initially, you are not interested in putting money in new books. 

Kill the Myth

There is a myth among people, who do not read, that reading books make afternoons boring.

Books are not boring they are a great source of entertainment. Try and capture the meaning, a book wants to convey; reading a book can fill your afternoons with joy and peace and is the best way to be happy.

In the beginning, you might feel reading is not your cup of tea but do not give up , hang in there for two to three weeks and the results will start coming into picture.

Monday will not be filled with regret but with a pleasant feeling of reading something good to your children or reading something new the last afternoon. Books leverage your effort to be focused and creative.

To conclude, I would like to mention a very interesting scientific fact. “If a person continues to read in his field of work for 7 years he becomes an international expert.” Don’t you think this is something worth to be given a thought over?
Moreover, do you get the message of what can bring happiness in your life ?

HaPPy ReADiNg !!

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Wednesday 21 September 2016

How to sell books online and make money




Situation of a student

Neil is an engineering student & his semester just got over, for the first few days he hangs out with his friends, plays games on Xbox & celebrates hard. But after a few days when this rapture comes to an end, he looks at the books of last semester on the study table and a thought crosses his mind saying he doesn’t need these books anymore.

What should Neil do in such a situation?

Here are a few options-

1. Sell his used books to a scrap dealer who buys them at 25% or 30% of what they actually worth.

2. Get hold of a few junior students and try selling books to them.

3. Leave the books on the study table and let them gather dust with time. In this way, a big pile of books gets created gradually.


Increased worth of your used books

The 3 options mentioned above may not be the best for him, but,
  • What if he sells his used books to the people who are in need for them indeed?
  • What if he doesn’t have to bother finding junior students in college?
  • What if he doesn’t let his old books occupy space on the study table & use that space to keep new books?


Selling your used books to the people who need them may bring you a price up to 70-80% of the original, any day better than the price given by a scrap dealer, therefore, making you good money from your used books.

This idea forms the foundation of our website www.bx-zone.com . On bx-zone.com, you sell your used, old, second hand books to people around you. It helps you find buyers for your books in your city.  The buyer may be any person from your school, office, neighbourhood, football ground or even your residential building. If you are a student, then using bx-zone you can even sell used books online to junior students studying in different colleges of the city. Isn’t it helpful?

Eliminating the concern

Many book lovers and bibliophiles are interested in collecting rare books. They have to keep looking for those books for a long time in order to add a copy in their collection. There are students, who need to buy books for the next academic year or semester but are not interested in paying the whole price. There are beginners, who want to develop a hobby of reading but are more interested in buying a second hand book rather than a new one.

BX-Zone eases all the above concerns using its ‘used books store’. Used book store displays all the used books people want to sell, this means, a lot of books from people’s personal collections are on used book store available for sale. The bibliophiles can buy the desired books from the sellers by directly contacting them. Students can buy books from the senior students of any college in their city. The biggest advantage is that the books will be available at lower prices than the original.

Conclusion

Basically, there are 3 purposes of bx-zone.com; first is providing service of helping you sell your used books online to people around you and make some decent money out of it. 

Second, help you buy books from people around you at low prices. 

Third, helping you find readers who are interested in exchanging books. It is the trade place for books where buyer directly meets seller and vice versa.

Hope you liked this post, if so then share it across and pay a visit to www.bx-zone.com

Your SUGGESTIONS,COMMENTS and FEEDBACK are more than welcome !

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