This book is a miracle worker. It brought me out of the ennui that must engulf all avid readers at some point. That search for a book that puts the passion back in reading ended with this book for me.
The book is a forensic pathologist's professional autobiography. It traces his journey from the 1980s to the present, and in the process, also the journey of the profession, and surprisingly, of marriage as an institution. If it is possible to bring romance to the work of post-mortems, he does it successfully. A person like me, who is now averse to all things gore and violence, read with fascination about lacerations.
It was after a really long time that one could call a book a real page-turner. Evening turned to night, night to midnight, and midnight to early morning. The next morning, the newspaper was ignored and this book finished instead.
Probably the best thing about the book is how easy it makes a difficult (in more ways than one) subject, how well it weaves the tapestry of the professional and the personal, demonstrating how one affects the other, sometimes, irretrievably.
The second good thing is how well the author balances the topic without giving in to the temptation of using hyperbole, gossip, or sensationalism. In fact, to write a book about crime without giving in to sensationalism, is an achievement by itself.
One gets to know the various aspects of being a forensic pathologist - the stakeholders, the physical and scientific challenges, the process, the political and legal processes that one must contend with, and how they have changed over a period of time. This variety of facets, I think, contributes greatly to the reading experience.
The book is a gripping read - all 442 pages of it.
I picked this up because it dealt with Wealth Management, and told stories. So, one thought that this might be a good book to teach wealth management to children. It is good for children. But it is absolutely essential for young adults.
The first few episodes, that deal with how to accumulate wealth and put it to use even if one starts from nothing, are interesting. After the solutions are presented, they appear very obvious, just like a Sherlock Holmes story. But each solution is brilliant in its simplicity.
Why every young adult (and most of us not-so-young adults) need this lesson/reminder is that most of us appear to have forgotten it. The standard savings rate of India (40%), which was also partly blamed for the Hindu rate of growth, is now completely unheard of, at least in modern metro families. In fact, in some families and for some young adults, the savings rate is negative (leading to that tragic financial cancer - the debt trap).
RBI data tells us that the savings rate is still 37.8% in 2019, but I doubt that it is uniformly spread. In fact, my suspicion is that there is a very strong skew in savings rates. But back to the book review.
As the book progresses, it deals with more complex issues – Is luck real? How does one deal with debt? The answers are very realistic and convincing too.
The techniques of story telling and dialogue are as old as history itself. Both are used liberally in this book, and with good effect.
Halfway through the book, you wonder if this is all real. As if the author has read your mind, the book ends with a description of Babylon and its riches.
I recommend this to all young adults, and everyone else dealing with personal wealth uncertainty or illiteracy.
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