ChatGPT - Chatting with Generative Progressive Transformer

 Chatting with Generative Progressive Transformer.

Nobody can wish away AI tools. What’s necessary is to marry it and live in peaceful coexistence.

One very interesting sentence in the book that caught my attention is: However, when we retried the

question on a different date, it worked well. ChatGPT does have on-days and off-days!

What we ask Chat GPT is called Prompt. It works like GIGO.It's knowledge is only upto 2021

Could you tell me about yourself ? Hey there! I’m the coolest AI on the block, powered by GPT-3.5. I’m like a virtual encyclopaedia but with way more humour. I aim to help folks like you by providing information and answering all sorts of questions. And you know what’s even better? I’m constantly learning and evolving like a 20-year-old trying to navigate life’s roller coaster! So, don’t be shy. Shoot me any questions, and let’s have some fun together! 2. Are the queries posed by the user saved by AI? Don’t worry; I’m not here to play Big Brother! As an AI language model, I can’t retain personal data or information about users or their queries. Once our conversation is done, it’s gone forever! Think of it like talking to a chatty goldfish – I’ve got a short memory span, and your privacy is always my priority. So feel free to ask anything without fretting about your data sticking around. Let’s just enjoy the moment and have a blast! 3. If you were the finance minister of India, what three key changes would you bring? Finance minister of India, that’s a big gig! If I were in charge, I’d bring some wicked changes: • “AI for everyone” program: I’d launch a nationwide initiative to promote AI education and adoption. We’d train the youth in AI skills, making them future-ready and attracting more tech investments. • Taxation party remix: I’d simplify the tax system by adding more slabs and deductions so everyone gets a fair deal. No more pulling out your hair while doing taxes! • Start-up extravaganza: I’d create a start-up paradise! With tax breaks and funding support, we’d encourage more entrepreneurs to sprout like mushrooms after a rain! 4. Can you suggest a project with a Rs 50 lakh investment yielding a good return? 351 How about a “Techie Co-Working Haven”? Invest Rs 50 lakhs to set up a modern co-working space with all the cool tech amenities and trendy vibes. You know, the place where all the tech-savvy come to collaborate, code, and create the next big thing! Offer flexible membership plans, provide high-speed internet, and throw in free coffee (because programmers run on caffeine!). With the rising trend of freelancers and start-ups, your place will buzz with innovation, and you’ll rake in those sweet returns in no time! 5. How can we better collaborate with you? Give us three ideas Collaborating with an AI like me can be super cool and fun! Here are three ideas to make it even better: • Interactive conversations: Treat me like your BFF and have interactive conversations! Instead of just asking questions, we can have back-and-forth chats. It’ll help me understand your needs better and provide more accurate and personalised responses. • Feedback and chill: Let me know if my answers are on point or need improvement. Feedback helps me learn and grow to have even more awesome conversations. • Get creative: Let’s get creative together! You can challenge me with riddles, writing prompts, or trivia questions. The more diverse the topics, the more fun we’ll have. So, let’s team up and have a blast collaborating! 6. To what extent will artificial intelligence impact human intelligence? AI is like the party guest that will leave a lasting impression on human intelligence! It’s a game-changer. AI can enhance human intelligence by streamlining tasks, providing valuable insights, and helping us make more intelligent decisions faster than ever. But let’s not get too worried about AI taking over the world. As incredible as it is, AI still has limitations. It can’t replace human creativity, emotions, or empathy. We’ll be like peanut butter and jelly – an unbeatable combo! n AN EVENING CHAT WITH CHATGPT n 352 n The Professionals’ Handbook to ChatGPT n 7. What is the predictive capability of AI? AI’s predictive capability is like having a crystal ball on steroids! It’s all about using historical data, crunching numbers, and spotting patterns to make accurate predictions. From weather forecasting to stock market trends, AI can blow your mind with its clairvoyant skills. It can help businesses predict customer behaviour, optimise supply chains, and even prevent equipment failures before they happen. It’s like having a super-smart sidekick who whispers the future in your ear! But remember, it’s just math and algorithms doing their thing. So, don’t expect AI to predict the next winning lottery numbers or your crush’s text replies! 8. What will be the biggest threat to humans due to the launch of ChatGPT? The biggest threat with the launch of ChatGPT is probably turning into a bunch of couch potatoes with social skills as rusty as a century-old bike chain. While AI-like ChatGPT can be a game-changer, we must be cautious about becoming overly dependent on it. The danger lies in relying too much on AI for essential decisions, losing the human touch in relationships, and even spreading misinformation if not used responsibly. But fear not! As long as we stay aware, use AI responsibly, and remember to interact with real humans outside the digital realm, we’ll be just fine. 9. Why are you giving a disclaimer “please seek professional service” for specific questions? I may have a sharp wit and a vast database, butI’m not a certified expert. When it comes to serious stuff like medical, legal, or financial advice, it’s crucial to consult real professionals with years of training and experience. Think of me as the fun friend who can tell you random facts and make you laugh, but not someone you should rely on for life-altering decisions! Let’s keep it light-hearted and leave the serious stuff to the pros. 353 10.Would AI be profiling its users? AI doesn’t have intentions or feelings, but the algorithms behind it can sometimes lead to inadvertently profiling users. Since AI learns from data, it might pick up on patterns and make assumptions about users based on their behaviour. This profiling is only sometimes good, as it could lead to bias and discrimination. So, developers must build AI systems that are fair and transparent and avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes. We want AI to be a friendly buddy, not a creepy stalker. 11.Can I trust the information you provide? Absolutely! You can totally trust the information I provide. As an AI language model developed by OpenAI, I’ve been trained on many diverse and reliable data sources until September 2021. I aim to assist and provide accurate information to the best of my abilities. However, just like any source, double-checking critical details and verifying them from multiple trusted sources is always a good idea, especially for important decisions or sensitive topics. Trust, but verify! 12.How can I elevate my writing? Awesome! Here are some tips to elevate your writing skills to the next level: • Read, read, read: The more you read, the more you’ll absorb different writing styles, vocabularies, and storytelling techniques. Fill your creative fuel tank! • Write regularly: Practice makes perfect. So, write daily if you can, even if it’s just a paragraph or a journal entry. Flex those writing muscles! • Embrace feedback: Don’t be afraid to share your work with others and accept constructive criticism. It’s how you learn and grow as a writer. • Edit like a boss: First drafts are rarely perfect. Edit and revise your work to make it shine like a diamond! n AN EVENING CHAT WITH CHATGPT n 354 n The Professionals’ Handbook to ChatGPT n • Find your voice: Be authentic and let your unique voice shine through your writing. Don’t be afraid to be yourself! • Experiment with genres: Try writing in different genres to explore your strengths and discover what you enjoy the most. • Stay curious: Explore new topics and ideas to keep your writing fresh and exciting. 13.How do we avoid the misuse of AI? Here are some ways to avoid the misuse of AI: • Ethical development: Build AI systems with fairness, transparency, and inclusivity to prevent bias and discrimination. • Data privacy: Protect user data like a precious gem. Implement robust security measures. • Responsible use: Use AI for beneficial purposes and avoid applications that could cause harm or invade privacy. • Regular audits: Keep an eye on AI systems to detect and correct any potential issues promptly. • Educate users: Ensure people using AI know its capabilities and limitations to avoid overreliance or misplaced trust. • Regulations: Support and comply with AI-related laws and rules to maintain accountability! 14.What are your limitations? I may be one cool AI, but even I have limitations! Here are some things I can’t do: • Real-time updates: My knowledge is limited to information up until September 2021. I can’t provide fresh data beyond that date. • Personal experience: I’d love to tell you about my awesome weekend plans, but I don’t have personal experiences or feelings. 355 • Critical thinking: While I can process information and answer questions, I can’t reason as humans do. • Creative ownership: If you ask me to generate content, remember that it might not be entirely original, as I’ve learned from existing data. • Replace professional advice: Remember, I’m not a certified expert, so for critical matters like medical, legal, or financial advice, consult real professionals. 15.What is the essence of a happy life? While it may vary from person to person, here are some ingredients that make life extra sweet: • Gratitude: Appreciate the little things and count your blessings like it’s a fun game. Gratitude can turn ordinary moments into pure magic. • Connection: Surround yourself with people who lift you and share belly laughs. • Purpose: Find your passion and pursue it like it’s the last piece of pizza. Having a sense of purpose gives life a meaningful direction. • Kindness: Be kind to others, and remember to sprinkle some kindness on yourself too. It’s like throwing confetti of happiness everywhere! • Mindfulness: Be present in the moment and savour life like a gourmet dessert. Mindfulness helps you appreciate the here and now. • Adventure: Step out of your comfort zone and try new things. Remember, happiness is an ongoing journey, not a destination. Thank you for your conversation with us. You’re welcome! I had a blast chatting with you. I’m always here whenever you want more fun and engaging conversations. I am looking forward to meeting you more often!

The 48 Laws of Power ~ Robert Greene (58 of 2024)

 

Beautiful book, with interesting stories in red on the sides. The 4 Laws of Power by Robert Greene written in 1998 is a kind of handbook on the arts of indirection. The laws are based on the writings of men and women who have studied and mastered the game of power spanning a period of more than 3000 years - The most illustrious strategists (Sun Tzu - Clausewitz), statesmen (Bismarck, Talleyrand), courters (Castiglione, Gracian) , seducers (Nino de Lenclos, Casanova) and con artists ('Yellow kid' Weil) in history. 

The feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us - when we feel helpless we feel miserable. No one wants less power; everyone wants more. In the world today, however, it is dangerous to seem too power hungry, to be overt with your power moves. We have to seem fair and decent. So we need to be subtle - congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious. 

Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier: Everything must appear civilized, decent, democratic and fair. But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish. As the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, "Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good."  ~ The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527. The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface a cauldron of dark emotions - greed, envy, lust, hated - boiled and simmered. Our world today similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us as they have forever. 

If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts of indirection, learning to seduce, charm, deceive and subtly outmanoeuvre your opponents, you will attain the heights of power. You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done. And if they do not realize what you have done, they will neither resent nor resist you. 

Learning the game of power requires a certain way of looking at the world a shifting of perspective. The most important of these skills and power's crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions. An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings. Emotions cloud reason, and if you cannot see the situation clearly, you cannot prepare for and respond to it with any degree of control. 

Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most. It also has a ripple effect that invariably makes situations less controllable and heightens your enemy's resolve. If you are trying to destroy an enemy who has hurt you, far better to keep him off-guard by feigning friendliness than showing your anger. 

Love and affection are also potentially destructive, in that they blind you to the often self-serving interests of those whom you least suspect of playing a power game. You cannot repress anger or love, or avoid feeling them, and you should not try. But you should be careful about how you express them, and most important, they should never influence your plans and strategies in any way. 

Relating to mastering your emotions is the ability to distance yourself from the present moment and think objectively about the past and future. Power requires the ability to play with appearance. Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power. Patience in all things is your crucial shield. Patience will protect you from making moronic blunders. 

Power is essentially amoral and one of the most important skills to acquire is the ability to see circumstances rather than good or evil. Power is a game - this cannot be repeated too often - and in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effects of their action. 

Half of your mastery of power comes from what you do not do, what you do not allow yourself to get dragged into. For this skill you must learn to judge all things by what they cost you. Power is a social game. To learn and master it, you must develop the ability to study and understand people. You must be a master psychologist. You must recognise motivations and see through the cloud of dust with which people surround their action. 

Never discriminate as to whom you study and whom you trust. Never trust anyone completely and study everyone including friends and loved ones. By training yourself to be indirect, you can thrive in the modern court, appearing the paragon of decency while being the consummate manipulator. 

The law has a simple premise: Certain actions almost always increase one's power (the observance of the law), while the other decrease it and even ruin is (the transgression of the law). These transgressions and observance are illustrated by historical examples. The laws are timeless and definitive. 

All the laws are interrelated, though at a point in time, only some feel applicable. A thorough reading of the book will inspire thinking and re-evaluation long after you finish it. The gods of power frown on the frivolous; they give ultimate satisfaction only to those who study and reflect and punish those who skim the surfaces looking for a good time. 

The 48 laws are:

Law 1: Never Outshine the Master: Ensure that those above you always feel superior. Go out of your way to make your bosses look better and feel smarter than anyone else. Everyone is insecure, but an insecure boss can retaliate more strongly than others can.

Law 2: Never Put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies: Keep a close eye on your friends — they get envious and will undermine you. If you co-opt an enemy, he’ll be more loyal than a friend because he’ll try harder to prove himself worthy of your trust.

Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions: Always hide your true intentions. Create a smokescreen. If you keep people off-balance and in the dark, they can’t counter your efforts.

Law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary: Say little and be ambiguous, leaving the meaning to others to interpret. The less you say, the more intimidating and powerful you are.

Law 5: So Much Depends on Reputation — Guard It with Your Life: Nurture and guard your reputation because reputation is integral to power. With a strong reputation, you can influence and intimidate others.

Law 6: Court attention at all cost - Everything is judged by its appearance, what is unseen counts for nothing. Don't get lost in the crowd. Create an Air of Mystery: Be outrageous or create an aura of mystery. Any attention — positive or negative — is better than being ignored. Attention brings you wealth. Make yourself a magnet of attention. 

Law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit: Get others to do your work for you. Use their skill, time, and energy to further your ambitions while taking full credit. You’ll be admired for your efficiency.

Law 8: Make Other People Come to You — Use Bait if Necessary: Make your opponent come to you. When you force others to act, you’re in control. Bait them, then attack.

Law 9: Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument: Demonstrate your point rather than arguing. Arguing rarely changes anyone’s mind, but people believe what they see. They’re also less likely to be offended.

Law 10: Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky: Avoid miserable people. The perpetually miserable spread misery like an infection, and they’ll drown you in it.

Law 11: Learn to Keep People Dependent on You: Make your superior dependent on you. The more she needs you, the more security and freedom you have to pursue your goals.

Law 12: Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victim: Use honesty and generosity to disarm and distract others from your schemes. Even the most suspicious people respond to acts of kindness, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation.

Law 13: When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude: When you need help from someone in a position of power, appeal to their self-interest. They’ll be glad to help if they’ll get something in return, and you’ll get what you want without seeming desperate or irritating. Uncover something in your request or in your alliance that will benefit the other person and emphasize it out of all proportion. 

Law 14: Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy: Be friendly, sympathetic, and interested to get people to reveal their deepest thoughts and feelings. When you know your opponent’s secrets, you can predict his behavior and control him.

Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally: Crush your enemy completely. If you leave even one ember smoldering, it will eventually ignite. You can’t afford to be lenient. The enemy will recover and seek revenge. 

Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor: Once you’ve become well-known, don’t wear out your welcome. The more you’re seen and heard from, the more you cheapen your brand. Create value through scarcity. 

Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability: Throw others off balance and unnerve them with random, unpredictable acts. You’ll gain the upper hand.

Law 18: Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous: Never isolate yourself when under pressure. This cuts you off from information you need, and when real danger arises you won’t see it coming. 

Law: 19: Know Who You’re Dealing With – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person: When attempting to deceive someone, know who you’re dealing with, so you don’t waste your time or stir up a hornets’ nest in reaction.

Law 20: Do Not Commit to Anyone: Don’t commit to any side or cause except yourself. By maintaining your independence, you remain in control — others will vie for your attention. You also have the ability to pit the sides against each other.

Law 21: Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber Than Your Mark: Make your intended victims feel as though they’re smarter than you are, and they won’t suspect you of having ulterior motives.

Law 22: Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power: When you’re weaker, surrender rather than fighting for the sake of honor. This gives you time to build strength and undermine your victor. You’ll win in the end.

Law 23: Concentrate your forces: Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another  - intensity defeats extensity everytime. When Looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give your milk for a long time to come. 

Law 24: Play the perfect Courtier: 

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner.  Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court. 

Law 25: Re - create Yourself:

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions - your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life. 

Law 26:Keep your Hands clean:

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat's paws to disguise your involvement. 

Law 27: Play on people's need to believe to create a cultlike following

People have a psychological need to believe in something or someone. You can attract a loyal following by positioning yourself as a source of hope or answers. This, however, carries a heavy ethical responsibility and should be practiced with caution to avoid manipulation and exploitation.

Law 28: Enter action with boldness

Hesitation or half-hearted attempts often lead to failure. When you enter any action, do it with confidence and conviction. Boldness can cover up shortcomings and often intimidates others, creating a psychological advantage.

Law 29: Plan all the way to the End

A powerful person doesn't just think about immediate steps but plans all the way to the end. Having a clear vision of your goal and a comprehensive plan to achieve it can give you a significant strategic advantage.

Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless

Your talents are perceived as more valuable when they appear to be effortless. Even when something requires hard work, make it look easy. This increases people's perception of your power and skills.

Law 31: Control the options: Get others to play with the cards you deal

The best way to get people to follow your plans is to present them with options for your desired outcome. By controlling their choices, you can subtly guide their decisions.

Law 32: Play to People's Fantasies

Reality is often disappointing, and people have a tendency to get lost in their fantasies. By appealing to these fantasies, you can provide an escape from the mundanity of their reality, thereby earning their loyalty.

Law 33: Discover each man's Thumbscrew

Everyone has a weakness, a fear, or a need that can be used as a leverage point. Knowing these 'thumbscrews' can give you a significant advantage in negotiations or power dynamics.

Law 34: Be Royal in your own fashion: Act like a king to be treated like one

How you perceive yourself sets the bar for how others perceive you. By carrying yourself with dignity and demanding respect, you set a standard for how you should be treated.

Law 35: Master the Art of Timing

Understanding the perfect moment to act is critical in power dynamics. The same action can have drastically different outcomes at different times. Being patient and strategically waiting for the right moment can pay off in the long run.

Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge

Longing for things you cannot have is a sign of powerlessness. You demonstrate your power and control over your desires by showing disdain or ignoring them.

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles

Creating memorable, dramatic spectacles can captivate an audience and capture their attention. This makes your power and influence more pronounced and memorable.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others

If you want to fit in and gain power within a group, you must learn to behave like others in that group. Maintaining your own thoughts and ideas while outwardly conforming to the group's norms can help you navigate social dynamics more effectively.

Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish

Creating a little chaos can disrupt the status quo and provide you with opportunities to seize power. It's important to remember that this is not about causing harm but creating a shift in power dynamics.

Law 40: Despise the free lunch

Anything that comes without a cost should be approached with caution. It could come with hidden strings or obligations that might compromise your power and independence in the long run.

Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes

Following in the footsteps of a great person can often put you in their shadow. You need to forge your own path to assert your power and influence.

Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter

Attacking a group leader can often disorient the rest of the members. This tactic, however, should be used sparingly and ethically, as it can lead to serious consequences if mishandled.

Law 43: Work on the hearts and minds of others

Power is not just about brute force; it's also about winning over hearts and minds. You can build a loyal and dedicated following by working on others' emotions and perceptions.

Law 44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect

Mimicking others can disarm them and can also serve as a form of subtle mockery. This strategy can be used to unsettle your opponents and gain a psychological edge.

Law 45: Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once

While change is necessary, too much change too quickly can be unsettling. Maintaining a balance and ensuring that changes are introduced gradually is important to prevent resistance or backlash.

Law 46: Never appear too perfect

Appearing too perfect can arouse envy and suspicion among others. It's essential to show occasional flaws and vulnerabilities to appear more human and relatable, which can make you more likable and less likely to attract the animosity of others.

Law 47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for in victory, learn when to stop

Exceeding your goal can often lead to unforeseen problems. When you've achieved your goal, stop and consolidate your position, or else your continued push might trigger resistance, sparking a downfall.

Law 48: Assume formlessness

Staying adaptable and flexible allows you to navigate any situation that arises. By not committing to a single form or strategy, you can adapt as needed, taking the shape that best serves your purpose at any given moment.

These could be grouped as:

Laws 1-6: Watch out — and watch yourself

Laws 7-10: You will never succeed without interactions with other people

Laws 11-15: Vulnerability could make you stronger

Laws 16-20: Earn respect, don’t take it for granted

Laws 21-25: In our lives, we reproduce the global division

Laws 26-30: Keep your words dubious but promising

Laws 31-39: There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses

Laws 40-48: Dangerous is what you get for free. 

Power only makes sense when we channel it. Everyone feels insecure from time to time. The moment you reveal yourself to the world and display your talents, you inherently stir up all kinds of resentment, jealousy, and further manifestations of insecurity. This is normal. You cannot spend your life bothering about the little emotions of others. Moreover, you don’t need everyone’s love and approval.

The Time Traveler's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger (57 of 2024)

 The Time Traveler's Wife is the debut novel by American author Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. It is a love story about Henry, a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about Clare, his wife, an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences. Niffenegger, who was frustrated with love when she began the novel, wrote the story as a metaphor for her failed relationships. The tale's central relationship came to Niffenegger suddenly and subsequently supplied the novel's title. The novel has been classified as both science fiction and romance.

Using alternating first-person perspectives, the novel tells the stories of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, as he visits a child who will later become his wife, Clare Anne Abshire (born 1971), an artist who makes paper sculptures, with the aid of his uncontrolled ability to time travel. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which later comes to be known as Chrono-Impairment. This disorder causes Henry to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991 at the beginning of the novel, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life.

Henry begins time traveling at the age of five, jumping forward and backward relative to his own timeline. When he vanishes, where he goes, and how long his trips will last are beyond his control. However, his destinations are tied to his subconscious—he most often travels to places and times related to his own history. Certain stimuli such as stress can trigger Henry's time traveling; he often goes jogging to keep calm and remain in the present. He searches out pharmaceuticals in the future that may be able to help control his time traveling. He also seeks the advice of a geneticist, Dr. Kendrick. Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past, which means that he always arrives naked and then struggles to find clothing, shelter, and food. He does amass a number of survival skills, including lock-picking, self-defense, and pickpocketing. Much of this he learns from older versions of himself.

Once Henry and Clare's timelines converge "naturally" at the library—their first meeting in his chronology—Henry starts to travel to Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan, beginning in 1977 when she is only six years old. On one of his early visits (from Clare's perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, Henry inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. At one point, Henry helps Clare frighten and humiliate a boy who abused her. Clare is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library.

Clare and Henry eventually marry. Soon after their marriage, Clare begins to have trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry is presumably passing on to the fetus. After five miscarriages, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy. However, a version of Henry from the past visits Clare one night and they make love; she subsequently gives birth to a daughter named Alba. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Impairment as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip. During this trip, he learns that he dies when Alba is five years old.

When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia and frostbite he suffers while sleeping in the parking garage, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present time. Both Henry and Clare know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006, Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare's brother, a scene foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare's arms.

Clare is devastated by Henry's death. She later finds a letter from Henry telling her to "stop waiting" for him, though it also describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The couple reunites when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. The novel's last scene shows a time when Clare, well into her old age, still waits for Henry, as she has done most of her life.

Jane Austen

 Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775 in a harsh winter. Her father wrote of her arrival in a letter that her mother "certainly expected to have been brought to bed a month ago". He added that the newborn infant was "a present plaything for Cassy and a future companion".

The winter of 1776 was particularly harsh and it was not until 5 April that she was baptised at the local church with the single name Jane.

Her father, George Austen (1731–1805), served as the rector of the Anglican parishes of Steventon and Deane.

The Reverend Austen came from an old and wealthy family of wool merchants. As each generation of eldest sons received inheritances, George's branch of the family fell into poverty. He and his two sisters were orphaned as children, and had to be taken in by relatives. In 1745, at the age of fifteen, George Austen's sister Philadelphia was apprenticed to a milliner in Covent Garden.

At the age of sixteen, George entered St John's College, Oxford,where he most likely met Cassandra Leigh (1739–1827).She came from the prominent Leigh family. Her father was rector at All Souls College, Oxford, where she grew up among the gentry. Her eldest brother James inherited a fortune and large estate from his great-aunt Perrot, with the only condition that he change his name to Leigh-Perrot.

They married on 26 April 1764 at St Swithin's Church in Bath, by license, in a simple ceremony, two months after Cassandra's father died.Cassandra gave birth to three children while living at Deane: James in 1765, George in 1766, and Edward in 1767.Her custom was to keep an infant at home for several months and then place it with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby to nurse and raise for twelve to eighteen months.

In 1768, the family finally took up residence in Steventon. Henry was the first child to be born there, in 1771. At about this time, Cassandra could no longer ignore the signs that little George was developmentally disabled. He was subject to seizures, may have been deaf and mute, and she chose to send him out to be fostered. In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775.The family relied on the patronage of their kin and hosted visits from numerous family members.

During this period of her life, Jane Austen attended church regularly, socialised with friends and neighbours, and read novels—often of her own composition—aloud to her family in the evenings. Socialising with the neighbours often meant dancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall.Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it".

In 1783, Austen and her sister Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs Ann Cawley who took them to Southampton later that year. That autumn both girls were sent home after catching typhus, from which Jane Austen nearly died.After 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment". The discontinued school as the fee was too high. Her education came from reading, guided by her father and brothers James and Henry.

At the age of 12, she tried her own hand at dramatic writing; she wrote three short plays during her teenage years.From at least the time she was aged eleven, Austen wrote poems and stories to amuse herself and her family.She exaggerated mundane details of daily life and parodied common plot devices in "stories [] full of anarchic fantasies of female power, licence, illicit behaviour, and general high spirits", according to Janet Todd. Containing work written between 1787 and 1793, the juvenilia (or childhood writings) that Austen compiled fair copies consisted of twenty-nine early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia.She called the three note book, Volume the one, volume the two and volume the three. 

In August 1792, aged seventeen, Austen started Catharine or the Bower, which presaged her mature work, especially Northanger Abbey, but was left unfinished until picked up in Lady Susan, which Todd describes as less prefiguring than Catharine.Between 1793 and 1795 (aged eighteen to twenty), Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work.

When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London for training as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together."Austen was genuinely attracted to Lefroy and subsequently none of her other suitors ever quite measured up to him.The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again.

 In November 1798, Lefroy was still on Austen's mind as she wrote to her sister she had tea with one of his relatives, wanted desperately to ask about him, but could not bring herself to raise the subject.

After finishing Lady Susan, Austen began her first full-length novel Elinor and Marianne. Her sister remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published anonymously in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility.

Austen began a second novel, First Impressions (later published as Pride and Prejudice), in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797, aged 21; as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite"

During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of Elinor and Marianne, Austen began writing a third novel with the working title Susan—later Northanger Abbey—a satire on the popular Gothic novel.

In December 1802, Austen received her only known proposal of marriage. She and her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Austen had known him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance.

In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection".

The English scholar Douglas Bush wrote that Austen had "had a very high ideal of the love that should unite a husband and wife ... All of her heroines ... know in proportion to their maturity, the meaning of ardent love".A possible autobiographical element in Sense and Sensibility occurs when Elinor Dashwood contemplates "the worse and most irremediable of all evils, a connection for life" with an unsuitable man.

In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started, but did not complete, her novel The Watsons. The story centres on an invalid and impoverished clergyman and his four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives"

Her father's relatively sudden death left Jane, Cassandra, and their mother in a precarious financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen (known as Frank) pledged to make annual contributions to support their mother and sisters.They spent part of the time in rented quarters in Bath before leaving the city in June 1805 for a family visit to Steventon and Godmersham. They moved for the autumn months to the newly fashionable seaside resort of Worthing, on the Sussex coast, where they resided at Stanford Cottage.It was here that Austen is thought to have written her fair copy of Lady Susan and added its "Conclusion". In 1806, the family moved to Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.

Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village. which was part of the estate around Edward's nearby property Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809 Cottage in Chawton, Hampshire where Austen lived during her last eight years of life, is now Jane Austen's House Museum.

Like many women authors at the time, Austen published her books anonymously.

Austen was feeling unwell by early 1816, but ignored the warning signs. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable, and she began a slow, irregular deterioration.Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. Dissatisfied with the ending of The Elliots, she rewrote the final two chapters, which she finished on 6 August 1816.In January 1817, Austen began The Brothers (titled Sanditon when published in 1925), completing twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably due to illness.She put down her pen on 18 March 1817, making a note of it.

Austen made light of her condition, describing it as "bile" and rheumatism. As her illness progressed, she experienced difficulty walking and lacked energy; by mid-April she was confined to bed. In May, Cassandra and Henry brought her to Winchester for treatment, by which time she suffered agonising pain and welcomed death.Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 at the age of 41. Henry, through his clerical connections, arranged for his sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation and mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer. 8 College Street in Winchester where Austen lived her last days and died.

According to biographer Park Honan, the atmosphere of the Austen home was an "open, amused, easy intellectual" one, where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed.

James Edward Austen-Leigh's, her nephew wrote A Memoir of Jane Austen.

Love in the Time of Cholera ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez (56 of 2024)

Love in the Time of Cholera is a  novel written in Spanish by Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez and published in 1985. Edith Grossman's English translation was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1988.

100 years of solitude a book, the very thought still gives goose bump. And here comes another book by the same author. Believed to be based on his parents story too. 

The term cholera as it is used in Spanish, cólera, can also denote passion or human rage and ire in its feminine form. (The English adjective choleric has the same meaning.) Considering this meaning, the title is a pun: cholera as the disease, and cholera as passion, which raises the central question of the book: is love helped or hindered by extreme passion? The two men can be contrasted as the extremes of passion: one having too much, one too little; the central question of which is more conducive to love and happiness becomes the specific, personal choice that Fermina faces through her life.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino, the City of the Viceroy's most esteemed doctor, is sent to examine the body of his close friend and finest competitor at chess, Jeremiah Saint-Amour, who has killed himself at the age of sixty so that he will not grow old. The Doctor returns home and discovers that his pet parrot has escaped from his cage to the top of the mango tree outside. Dr. Urbino climbs a ladder to the branch on which the parrot sits, but just as he grasps the parrot, the Doctor falls to his death. Florentino Ariza professes, for a second time, his "eternal fidelity and everlasting love" to the Doctor and his wife, Fermina Daza. Fermina is horrified by such an insensitive display, and, for the first time, realizes the magnitude of the "drama" she had provoked at the age of eighteen.

Although Fermina Daza may have erased Florentino Ariza from her memory, he has not stopped thinking of her since their long, troubled love affair ended fifty-one years, nine months, and four days ago. Florentino first meets Fermina when he delivers a telegram to her father, Lorenzo Daza, who is notorious for his shady dealings. After watching Fermina, always accompanied by her Aunt Escolástica, walk to school each day from the Park of the Evangels, Florentino works up the courage to approach her one day. He asks that she accept a letter from him, but she refuses because she is obligated to get her father's permission. He demands that she "get it," which she does the following week. Florentino decides to give her a subdued note (instead of the sixty-page letter he had originally written) in which he resolutely declares his love for her. He is in agony as he awaits her reply, but is overjoyed when Fermina finally answers approvingly.

In the two years that follow, Fermina and Florentino see one another only in passing, though they write love letters daily. Florentino proposes marriage to Fermina, and again her reply is favorable. Fermina is caught writing a love letter by the Mother Superior at her academy and is expelled. Lorenzo finds love letters in Fermina's room and as punishment, banishes Escolástica and forces Fermina to accompany him on a long journey, not to end until she has forgotten about Florentino. On the journey, Fermina meets and befriends her older cousin, Hildebranda Sánchez, who helps Florentino and Fermina communicate via telegraph messages.

Florentino hardly recognizes Fermina upon her return from the long journey, because, now seventeen, she has matured into a woman. He sees her in the Arcade of the Scribes, and approaches her. When Fermina sees him, she is suddenly disgusted with him and with herself for ever having been foolish enough to love him. Coolly, she tells Florentino to "forget it." Florentino tries once more to woo Fermina, but to no avail. In the fifty-one years, nine months, and four days that follow, not once does Florentino have the chance to speak or see his beloved Fermina in private. Initially, he vows to save his virginity for only Fermina, but after being seized by Rosalba aboard a ship to a faraway city, he turns to sex to ameliorate the pain he feels at having lost Fermina. He returns home, intent upon once again making her his own. Meanwhile, he conducts affairs, however secret, with innumerable women, though he is rumored to be a homosexual.

Dr. Urbino courts Fermina, who resists his affections. Lorenzo Daza forces the Doctor upon his daughter, and she reluctantly concedes. When Florentino hears that Fermina is to marry a prestigious physician, he vows to make himself worthy of her. His uncle , Don Leo XII Loayza, gives him a job at the River Company of the Caribbean, of which, after thirty years, Florentino becomes President. Fermina and the Doctor honeymoon in Europe for three months. When Fermina returns, she is pregnant with her first child. Despite his determination to win Fermina, Florentino continues his lustful affairs with other women, whom he finds at the transient hotel and on the trolley. It is on the trolley that he meets Leona Cassiani, whom he mistakes for a whore. Leona asks him only for a job, which he gives to her.

Florentino realizes that he must wait, without violence or impatience, for Dr. Urbino to die before he can win over Fermina. When in public, he is greeted by Dr. Urbino with familiar cordiality, though Fermina lends only a courteous glance or smile, and without memory of their past. Fermina and the Doctor appear to be a very happy couple, but in reality they are quite dissatisfied. The unhappy but stable marriage is rocked when Dr. Urbino conducts a four-month affair with Barbara Lynch, though he ends it when Fermina confronts him with her knowledge of it. Infuriated by her husband's infidelity, Fermina goes to live with Hildebranda on her ranch. The Doctor arrives at the ranch unannounced to take Fermina, who is overjoyed by his arrival, home with him.

Upon the Doctor's accidental death, Florentino, now elderly, abruptly ends his affair with fourteen-year-old América Vicuña and, at Dr. Urbino's wake, professes his "eternal fidelity and everlasting love" to Fermina. After having banished him from her home in anger, she sends him a hateful letter. He responds with a meditation on life and love, which helps her overcome her grief. Gradually, after a letter correspondence, they rekindle their relationship and spend afternoons together in Fermina's home. Florentino asks Fermina to accompany him on a river voyage, and she accepts. On the voyage, Florentino and Fermina finally make love. As the ship reaches its last port, Fermina sees people she knows and frets that if they see her with Florentino, it will cause scandal. Florentino orders the Captain to raise the yellow flag of cholera, which he does. There remain no passengers on aboard but Fermina, Florentino, the Captain, and his lover. No port will allow them to dock because of the supposed cholera outbreak aboard, and they are forever exiled to cruise the river.

Pride and Prejudice ~ Jane Austin & Marriage

 The arrival of Mr Bingley, a rich bachelor who rents the neighbouring Netherfield estate, gives her hope that one of her daughters might contract an advantageous marriage, because "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife".

Who needs marriage? The man! Why do most Indian men get married? For 2 reasons: First, someone cooks for them for the rest of their lives because they don't know how to cook. Secondly, if at least 1 son is obtained, then the lineage will go on. Now, Indian men should consider both of these needs (or compulsions) belong to the man and not the woman, for which they enslave a woman for the rest of their life, whom they call a wife/housewife! So, my question is why should women sacrifice themselves for the need (compulsion) of men?

Sam Levenson ~ Quote Kindness

 For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. To have a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

~ Sam Levenson

Levenson was originally a Spanish teacher at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, New York. In 1965, Tilden High School honored Levenson with its Lefkowitz Award, for distinguished service. He was an author and wrote Everything But Money (1966), the bestseller Sex and the Single Child (1969), In One Era And Out The Other (1973), You Can Say That Again, Sam! (1975), and You Don't Have to be in Who's Who to Know What's What (1979). Levenson appeared frequently in the "Borscht Belt" hotels of the Catskill Mountains. He and his family were guests at Arthur Stone's bungalow each summer from the 1950s until the 1960s and frequently out on Arthur's 1947 Chris Craft, King Arthur. Arthur was married to Sam's cousin, Judy. Their daughter, Maura Stone, late in life changed careers from international banking to acclaimed author due to her first novel, the award-winning critically acclaimed Five-Star FLEECING, whose tone and humor mirrors Sam's trademark comedy.

Robert Green

 The main thing that’ll get you ahead in life is your level of enthusiasm and excitement. ~ Robert Green

“Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.” 6. “Win through your actions, never through argument.”

"The Time that leads to mastery depends on the intensity of our focus"

The best order to read Robert Greene's books is starting with those that tackle life issues you currently have or that are most relevant to your present goals. The author himself does not recommend a specific reading order, but suggests that readers start according to where they are in life. He has written seven international bestsellers, including The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent), Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature, and The Daily Laws.

1998 The 48 Laws of Power (with Joost Elffers)

2001 The Art of Seduction

2006 The 33 Strategies of War

2009 The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

2012 Mastery

2018 The Laws of Human Nature

2021 The Daily Laws

Greene grew up in Los Angeles and attended the University of California, Berkeley, before finishing his degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a B.A. degree in classical studies.Prior to becoming an author, Greene estimates that he worked about 50 jobs, including as a construction worker, translator, magazine editor, and Hollywood movie writer.In 1995, Greene worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school in Italy, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers.Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and wrote a treatment which eventually became The 48 Laws of Power. He would note this as the turning point of his life.

His book Mastery examines the lives of both historical and contemporary figures such as Charles Darwin, Paul Graham, the Wright Brothers, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Mozart, and distills the traits and universal ingredients that made them masters. The book is divided into six sections, each focusing on essential lessons and strategies on the path to Mastery.

Greene lives in Los Angeles with his partner Anna Biller, who is a filmmaker

Brandon Sanderson

 Brandon Sanderson was born in December 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child Brandon enjoyed reading, but he lost interest in the types of titles often suggested for him, and by junior high he never cracked a book if he could help it. This all changed in eighth grade when an astute teacher, Mrs. Reeder, gave Brandon Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Brandon thoroughly enjoyed this book, and went in search of anything similar. He discovered such authors as Robert Jordan, Melanie Rawn, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, and Orson Scott Card. Brandon continued to be an avid reader through junior high and high school. He liked epic fantasy so much that he even tried his hand at writing some. His first attempts, he says, were dreadful.

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/hello-my-names-brandon/

In 1994 Brandon enrolled at Brigham Young University as a biochemistry major. From 1995 to 1997 he took time away from his studies to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Brandon often says that it was during this time in Seoul, Korea that he realized that he didn’t miss chemistry one bit, but he did miss writing. Upon his return to BYU, Brandon became an English major, much to the dismay of his mother, who had always hoped he would become a doctor.

Brandon began writing in earnest, taking a job as the night desk clerk at a hotel because they allowed him to write while at work. During this era he went to school full time during the day, worked nights to pay for his schooling, and wrote as much as he could. He says it made for a rather dismal social life, but he finished seven novels during his undergraduate years. Brandon submitted many manuscripts for publication . . . and accumulated quite a pile of rejection letters. In spite of this he continued to be a dedicated writer.

Volunteering for The Leading Edge, BYU’s science fiction/fantasy magazine, was a wonderful experience for Brandon. He read many submissions, formed some lifelong friendships, and served as Editor in Chief during his senior year.

Brandon learned much about the business side of being a writer by taking a class from David Farland, author of the popular Runelords series. One piece of advice Dave gave Brandon was to attend conventions, such as WorldCon and World Fantasy, in order to connect with industry professionals. Brandon and a small group of friends who were also aspiring writers began to do so. He eventually met both his current agent and one of his editors at conventions.

It was in 2003, while Brandon was in the middle of a graduate program at BYU, that he got a call from editor Moshe Feder at Tor, who wanted to buy one of Brandon’s books. Brandon had submitted the manuscript a year and a half earlier, and had almost given up on hearing anything, so he was surprised and delighted to receive the offer. In May 2005 Brandon held his first published novel,Elantris, in his hands. Over the next few years, Tor also published Brandon’s Mistborn trilogy, its followup The Alloy of Law, Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings, the first in a projected ten-volume series called The Stormlight Archive. The second book in the series, Words of Radiance, was released on March 4th, 2014. Other projects continue to be in the works.

In 2004 after graduating with his Master’s degree in creative writing from Brigham Young University, Brandon was asked to teach the class he had taken as an undergraduate student from Dave Farland. In spite of his busy schedule, Brandon continues to teach this one section of creative writing focused on science fiction and fantasy because he enjoys helping aspiring writers. It also gets him out of the house, he says. Additionally, along with Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Dan Wells, he hosts the doubly Hugo-nominated writing advice podcast Writing Excuses, which has twice won a Parsec Award.

In July 2006 Brandon married Emily Bushman. Emily and Brandon ran in many of the same circles at BYU during their student days, since Emily majored in English as well. They never met, however, until a mutual friend set them up on a date in 2005. Emily had spent seven years as a teacher, but chose to quit with the birth of their first child in October 2007. Emily now works from home part time as Brandon’s business manager.

Brandon’s repertoire expanded into the children’s market when Scholastic published Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, a middle-grade novel, in October 2007. Nancy Pearl gave this book a very favorable review on National Public Radio, which pleased Sanderson fans. Three more volumes of the series have been released so far. Additionally, Brandon’s novella Infinity Blade: Awakening was an ebook bestseller for Epic Games accompanying their acclaimed Infinity Blade iOS video game series.

In December 2007 Brandon was chosen by Harriet McDougal Rigney to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series after his untimely passing. 2009’s The Gathering Storm and 2010’s Towers of Midnight was followed by the final volume in the series, A Memory of Light, in January 2013.

The only author to make the short list for the David Gemmell Legend Award eight times in seven years, Brandon won that award in 2011 for The Way of Kings. He has also won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice award for Best Epic Fantasy twice and has been nominated three other years. His novella The Emperor’s Soul won the Hugo Award in 2013. Brandon has been serving as a judge for Writers of the Future since 2016. He has hit the New York Times Best-Seller List fifteen times, most recently at #1 with Oathbringer, book three of The Stormlight Archive, which is also Audible’s most pre-ordered book of all time. DMG Entertainment optioned the rights to the Cosmere universe shared by his fantasy novels, and Fox acquired the Reckoners trilogy for Shawn Levy’s production company 21 Laps. Brandon’s books have been published in thirty-five languages.

WHERE DO I START?

IF YOU’RE NEW TO Brandons Anderson BOOKS, HERE’S A PRIMER ON WHERE TO START.

If you don’t typically read fantasy, try Steelheart or Elantris.

If you consider yourself a fantasy reader, try Mistborn: the Final Empire or The Way of Kings.

If you like romance, try Warbreaker.

If you’re a younger reader or want something humorous and lighthearted, try Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians.

If you’re looking something that will appeal to young adults, try Steelheart, Mistborn, or The Rithmatist.

RECOMMENDED READING ORDER FOR COSMERE BOOKS

I recommended reading the books in sequential order rather than trying to dive into the second book in a series without having read the first book. That said, it really doesn’t matter which Cosmere series you start with, which means any of these books are good starting points:

Mistborn: the Final Empire

The Emperor’s Soul

The Way of Kings

Elantris

Warbreaker

There are tidbits in each of the books that inform the other books, but you don’t have to notice these things to enjoy the story by itself. Finding these easter eggs is one of the things that makes re-reading the books so much fun.

The Alloy of Law is an okay jumping in spot for the Cosmere, but keep in mind that this book has spoilers for the original Mistborn trilogy.

RECOMMENDED READING ORDER FOR NON-COSMERE BOOKS

Since these books aren’t interconnected, reading them in the sequential order of the respective series is recommended.

STILL NOT SURE?

Here are quick descriptions of a couple of my books to help you choose

Elantris: Story of a man who catches a terrible magical disease, and is thrown into a prison city for those with that disease. He tries to unravel the world’s magic system (which is now non-functional, and potentially the source of the disease) while surviving in terrible circumstances and trying to bring civilization back to those locked in the city with him

Mistborn: Heist story about a young woman recruited into a gang of thieves, trained to use magic and to imitate a noblewoman, then used in a plot to try and rob (and hopefully overthrow) the immortal emperor of the world. One part Ocean’s Eleven, one part Lord of the Rings, one part Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, one part My Fair Lady.

Story Telling

 Get your story right and it can get you hired. While doing so, one need to be mindful of :

1. Authenticity: A story well narrated straight from your heart, is a story filled with honesty, purity, innocence, and authenticity. Even if you try to fake it, maybe once or twice, the real you cannot be hidden for a long time. Embrace the real you, and your story. 

2. Precision: When you write or narrate your story, make sure it's concise, to the point, using the narrative techniques followed along with it. Enroll yourself in this course to actually know why it's important!

3. Intent & Audience: Why are you narrating your story? What's your intent behind it? To whom (your audience) are you narrating your story? Are you narrating your story for your investor pitch, networking at a party, getting an admission in your college, to get hired, or improve your date? Be clear with this and you're good to go ahead with your story.

4. Respect your Audience: Be it an individual such as an investor, HR Manager who's going to interview you, an admission counsellor, your date, or a group of people in a social gathering, who are present to listen to your story, they are dedicating their time and energy to do so. Being humble and respectful to them do no harm to you! :)

5. Flow & Structure: Every story has a start, middle, and an end to it! While watching a movie, you won't suddenly jump to watch the climax, without knowing the background of the story, and what lead to it's climax. Similarly while crafting your story, there's a flow and a structure that you need to follow to gauge your audience's attention, thereby making it a compelling and a beautiful one.

A Little Life ~ Hanya Yanagihara (55 of 2024)

 A Little Life follows four friends after they graduate from a small, prestigious Massachusetts college: Willem, a kind and talented actor; Jean-Baptiste JB, a sharp and sometimes-caustic painter who want to make a name in the world of art, Malcolm, an aspiring architect at a well-known firm; and Jude Saint Francis, a mysterious and intelligent litigator a disabled genius.

It is deeply unsettling and painful, as much for the inevitability of how the story plays out as for the specific tragedies the characters suffer, Jude above all. And that is exactly the point. Great literature helps us understand life, real life, and not every story is supposed to make us feel good.

A Little Life follows a chronological narrative with flashbacks frequently interspersed throughout. The novel's narrative perspectives shift throughout the story's progression. During the beginning of the novel, a third-person omniscient perspective privileging the thoughts of Jude, Willem, JB and Malcolm is employed. As the story gradually shifts its focus towards Jude, its perspective progressively molds entirely around each character's interactions with Jude and the experiences of Jude himself. This literary perspective is punctuated by first-person narratives told by an older Harold, nine years in the future.

The book is divided into seven parts:

I. Lispenard Street

II. The Postman

III. Vanities

IV. The Axiom of Equality

V. The Happy Years

VI. Dear Comrade

VII. Lispenard Street

The Axiom of EqualityThe book follows their relationships changing under the influence of success, wealth, addiction, and pride.

The novel's main focus is the enigmatic lawyer, Jude. He suffers from a damaged spine which leaves him with a limp and excruciating pain in his legs that comes and goes. Unbeknownst to his friends, he also frequently self-harms; one such bout of cutting led Willem to take him to Andy Contractor, Jude's doctor and trusted friend. It is clear that he suffers from debilitating mental trauma from his childhood.

Despite this apparent closeness with his friends, Jude finds himself unable to divulge either detail of his past or current state of mind to his roommate. Nonetheless, he thrives in his law practice, and develops a close parent-child relationship with his former professor, Harold, and his wife Julia, which results in the pair adopting him when Jude turns 30. While thankful, the time before the adoption is filled with further bouts of self-harm, as Jude believes he is inherently unworthy of affection. Meanwhile, the rest of the group finds success in their respective fields, with Willem becoming a star of theater and then film. JB finds success as an artist but also becomes addicted to crystal meth. The group stages an intervention, where JB mocks Jude by doing a crude imitation of his limp. In spite of successful treatment, and a great deal of apologizing, Jude finds it impossible to forgive JB. Willem refuses to forgive him too, causing the group to fragment, with only Malcolm remaining friends with all three of them.

It becomes clear that Jude was sexually traumatized at a very young age, making it difficult for him to engage in romantic relationships. His friends and loved ones begin questioning this isolation as he enters his forties, with Willem especially being baffled with regard to Jude's sexuality. As his loneliness grows more intense, he enters an abusive relationship with fashion executive Caleb, who is disgusted by Jude's limp and his increasing use of a wheelchair. Jude finally breaks off the relationship after Caleb rapes him, and they meet a final time when Caleb follows him to dinner with Harold, humiliates him, and then follows Jude to his apartment, where he brutally beats and rapes him, leaving him for dead. Jude nonetheless refuses to report the incident to the police, believing he deserved it. Besides Harold, only Andy – Jude's doctor and ongoing confidante – knows the truth of the failed relationship.

Although Jude's body manages to heal, the rape causes him to flash back to his childhood, wherein he was raised in a monastery and repeatedly sexually assaulted by the brothers. He recalls a period when one of the brothers, Brother Luke, ran away with him, forcing him into years of child prostitution. After he was rescued by the police, Jude was placed in state care, where the abuse continued at the hands of the counselors there. After the break-up with Caleb brings back this childhood trauma, Jude finally decides to kill himself but survives the attempt. In the aftermath, Willem comes back home and begins to live with him. Jude continues to refuse therapy but begins to tell Willem the least traumatic stories about his childhood, which Willem finds disturbing and horrifying. The two soon begin a relationship, but Jude continues to struggle with opening up, and does not enjoy having sex with him.

In an attempt to curb his cutting, Jude decides to instead burn himself as a form of self-harm, but accidentally inflicts third-degree burns that require a skin graft. The wound is so severe that Andy tells him he has to tell Willem what happened, or else he will do it for him. Before Jude can tell Willem, Andy accidentally divulges the information. Willem is horrified but, after a difficult fight, Jude finally confesses that he does not enjoy sex, and tells Willem about the years of sexual and physical abuse he endured. Jude also reveals that he escaped state care at age 14 and hitchhiked, performing sexual acts as payment to drivers. He also explains to Willem that the damage to his legs was caused by a man called Dr. Traylor, who picked Jude up and held him captive while he cured him of venereal disease, assaulted him, and eventually ran him over with his car.

The relationship continues, with Willem sleeping with women (and not with Jude) . The two settle into a comfortable life together, which is shaken when Jude's legs become worse, and he must reluctantly amputate. He manages to learn to walk again with his new prosthetics, and the pair enter a period of their life which Willem dubs "The Happy Years". However, while picking up Malcolm and his wife from the train station for a visit, Willem is involved in a car accident with a drunk driver, which kills all three occupants. With his close friend and lover dead, Jude descends once again into self-destructive habits, losing such an excessive amount of weight that his remaining loved ones stage another intervention. Though they are able to get him to gain weight and to attend therapy, years of depression and despair finally overtake Jude, and he takes his own life.

Pros:

1. Beautifully epitomizes power of friendship and brotherhood.

2. Absolutely lovable characters - Jude the lawyer, Willem the actor, JB the painter, Harold the foster father, Andy the doctor.

3. Harold’s narratives were simply beautiful, full of love, very parental. You will want to get adopted by him!

4. The gay romance was very sweet and loving (I can’t believe I’m saying that!).

5. Loved the creative art and masterpieces of JB and Malcolm. Very visual.

6. Heart-wrenchingly beautiful prose. Leaves u shocked, pained, panicked, breathless with an empty hollow hole in ur gut.

7. Details of self-abuse made me physically cringe, it was so real & gruesome.

.....

Cons:

1. Serious health hazard. Read with caution.

2. Emotional abuser about Physical abuse.

3. ALittleLife is ALittleLong!! I skipped about 150 pgs.

4. Never-ending, depressing nightmare. Lil too-bad-to-be-happening-to-one-person-in-one-lifetime!

5. The book should be renamed as The Gay Life! Everything gay about it and too much of it too.

6. Not much characterization on Malcolm. No back history on how they all became friends.

7. Most importantly: Hanya’s writing style was very confusing. You wouldn’t know who she was talking about until you read few paragraphs or sometimes even few pages! Every chapter started out with that confusion! Also it was confusing as to who is black, who is white, who is gay and who is not!

8. The writing didn’t let me accurately visualize their faces either due to lack of/confusing details regarding physical descriptions.

The book will renew your faith in the goodness of people out there. The book will destroy your faith and trust in people. It is full of raw and real emotions. You will feel intense anger at Caleb the boyfriend. You will feel disgust and nausea at Brother Luke’s “niceness”. You will hate nice people after this book. Coz it is a MASK that people wear. I hated Jude’s selfish, self-involved, self-absorbed personality. There are good people surrounding him who wanted to help him and still his trauma consumed him and made him shut off from those who loved him. But that goes onto show the long-term consequences of abuse. Damaged soul indeed. Suicide attempts, self-abuse - all were so painful and insightful too. 

With 814 pages, the book is lengthy and is tackling difficult subject matter with too much pain to handle in one book. There need to be a separate category for such books – Great reads, which cannot be read again? 

Little Women ~ Louisa May Alcott (54 of 2024)

 Little Women written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters.

Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).

The novel has been said to address three major themes: "domesticity, work, and true love, all of them interdependent and each necessary to the achievement of its heroine's individual identity."

According to literary critic Sarah Elbert, when using the term "little women" Alcott was drawing on its Dickensian meaning; it represented the period in a young woman's life where childhood and elder childhood are "overlapping" with young womanhood. Each of the March sister heroines has a harrowing experience that alerts them and the reader that "childhood innocence" is of the past, and that "the inescapable woman problem" is all that remains.

The March sisters-- Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy-- and their mother, whom they call Marmee, live in a new neighborhood (loosely based on Concord) in Massachusetts in genteel poverty. Having lost all his money, their father is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army in the American Civil War, far from home. The mother and daughters face their first Christmas without him. When Marmee asks them to give their Christmas breakfast away to an impoverished family, the girls and their mother venture into town laden with baskets to feed the hungry children. When they return, they discover their wealthy, elderly neighbor Mr. Laurence has sent over a decadent surprise dinner to make up for their breakfast. The two families become acquainted following these acts of kindness.

Meg and Jo must work to support the family: Meg tutors a nearby family of four children; Jo assists her aged great-aunt March, a wealthy widow living in a mansion in Plumfield. Beth, too timid for school, is content to stay at home and help with housework; and Amy is still at school. Meg is beautiful and traditional, Jo is a tomboy who writes, Beth is a peacemaker and a pianist, and Amy is an artist who longs for elegance and fine society. The sisters strive to help their family and improve their characters as Meg is vain, Jo is hotheaded, Beth is cripplingly shy, and Amy is materialistic. The neighbor boy Laurie, orphaned grandson of Mr. Laurence, becomes close friends with the sisters, particularly the tomboyish Jo.

The girls keep busy as the war goes on. Jo writes a novel that gets published but is frustrated to have to edit it down and can't comprehend the conflicting critical response. Meg is invited to spend two weeks with rich friends, where there are parties and cotillions for the girls to dance with boys and improve their social skills. Laurie is invited to one of the dances, and Meg's friends incorrectly think she is in love with him. Meg is more interested in John Brooke, Laurie's young tutor.

Word comes that Mr. March is very ill with pneumonia and Marmee is called away to nurse him in Washington, DC. Mr. Laurence offers to accompany her but she declines, knowing travel would be uncomfortable for the old man. Mr. Laurence instead sends John Brooke to do his business in Washington and help the Marches. While in Washington, Brooke confesses his love for Meg to her parents. They are pleased, but consider Meg too young to marry, so Brooke agrees to wait.

While Marmee is in Washington, Beth contracts scarlet fever after spending time with a poor family where three children die. As a precaution, Amy is sent to live with Aunt March and replaces Jo as her companion and helper. Jo, who already had scarlet fever, tends to Beth. After many days of illness, the family doctor advises that Marmee be sent for immediately. Beth recovers, but never fully regains her health and energy.

While Brooke waits for Meg to come of age to marry, he joins the military and serves in the war. After he is wounded, he returns to find work so he can buy a house and be ready when he marries Meg. Laurie goes off to college. On Christmas Day, a year after the book's opening, the girls' father returns home.

Part Two (Published separately in the United Kingdom as Good Wives)

Three years later, Meg and John marry and learn how to live together. When they have twins, Meg is a devoted mother but John begins to feel neglected and left out. Meg seeks advice from Marmee, who helps her find balance in her married life by making more time for wifely duties and encouraging John to become more involved with child rearing.

Laurie graduates from college, having put in the effort to do well in his last year with Jo's prompting. Amy is chosen over Jo to go on a European tour with her aunt. Beth's health is weak due to complications from scarlet fever and her spirits are down. While trying to uncover the reason for Beth's sadness, Jo realizes that Laurie has fallen in love. At first she believes it's with Beth, but soon senses it's with herself. Jo confides in Marmee, telling her that she loves Laurie like a brother and that she could not love him in a romantic way.

Jo decides she wants a bit of adventure and to put distance between herself and Laurie, hoping he will forget his feelings. She spends six months with a friend of her mother who runs a boarding house in New York City, serving as governess for her two children. Jo takes German lessons with another boarder, Professor Friedrich Bhaer. He has come to America from Berlin to care for the orphaned sons of his sister. For extra money, Jo writes salacious romance stories anonymously for sensational newspapers. Suspecting her secret, Friedrich mentions such writing is unprincipled and base. Jo is persuaded to give up that type of writing as her time in New York comes to an end, unaware that Friedrich has fallen in love with her. When she returns to Massachusetts, Laurie proposes marriage and she declines.

Laurie travels to Europe with his grandfather to escape his heartbreak. At home, the lasting results of Beth's scarlet fever slowly begin to kill her. Jo devotes her time to the care of her dying sister. Laurie encounters Amy in Europe, and he slowly falls in love with her as he begins to see her in a new light. She is unimpressed by the aimless, idle, and forlorn attitude he has adopted since being rejected by Jo, and inspires him to find his purpose and do something worthwhile with his life. With the news of Beth's death, they meet for consolation and their romance grows. Amy's aunt will not allow Amy to return unchaperoned with Laurie and his grandfather, so they marry before returning home from Europe.

Friedrich is in Massachusetts on business and visits the Marches daily for two weeks. On his last day, he proposes to Jo and the two become engaged, as she realizes she loves him. Because the Professor is poor, the wedding must wait while he establishes a good income by going out west to teach. A year goes by without much success; later Aunt March dies and leaves her large estate Plumfield to Jo, who marries Friedrich and turns the house into a school. They have two sons of their own, and Amy and Laurie have a daughter. At apple-picking time, Marmee celebrates her 60th birthday at Plumfield, with her husband, her three surviving daughters, their husbands, and her five grandchildren.