Learn this Value Investing Approach as given in "The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham"

Hi,

This is the second book after Rich Dad and Poor Dad, which talks about something very much real about investing. 'Rich Dad and Poor Dad' teaches about the general way of using your money to make it work for you that is to acquire assets, and this book is specifically designed to teach you about investing in the stock market, bonds and funds.

(this is the Amazon link to buy this book)

The money invested in the stocks and bonds or funds is not very much different from the money invested in assets, because if you follow the value investing approach given by the Graham in this book, you will understand that it is same as buying the assets. A value investment is done after a thorough analysis of the stock, and then be assured that you will not lose your principal amount, and the price you pay is less than what you will gain from it. Of course, no one can be 100% sure of the future, but with this approach, you can maximise your gains.

 The Graham & Newman fund run by the partners earned more than 20% per anum on average and beat the S & P 500 index. The author followed the same approach which he described in the book.

 So it is very important to understand the value investing approach. Well, it is based upon a simple mathematical approach to finding the value of the price per share that you pay per unit of earnings of that share. For example, a share is priced at $100, and the net earning per share is $5, then the Price to Earnings Ratio (P/E ratio) would be 100/5 = 20.

As per Graham's approach, this ratio should not exceed 20-25, and if it exceeds, then the stock would be over-priced. If is below it, then it is a good opportunity to buy. So we call those shares a bargain which has a P/E ratio lower than 10. This is a very simple technique of finding the value stocks in the market. Also, give a look to the past record of the company. That is the nutshell summary of the value investing taught in this book. For the in-depth knowledge please buy this book and read it for yourself. You can go to the buy link by clicking here. 

Thank you!

"And then there were None" A book Review

Hi,

Perhaps the most thrilling and interesting novel I have ever read. If you are a fan of the crime and suspense novels,  then this novel contains the best recipe for you. This novel by the novel queen Agatha Christie is considered her best novel ever. Till today this novel has sold more copies than any other thriller novel.

Buy it from Amazon

 Until the end one would wonder about the criminal, who kills the only nine people other than him/her, that resided on the same small island.

The island is not connected to the other world. The ten people who were invited to the island by its mysterious owner, do not find the owner but starts getting killed one by one. It is written in such a beautiful manner, that once you pick it up, you won't keep it down until you read it to the end.

Thanks!

'In search of a Secret India' by Paul Brunton

Hi,

Perhaps it was the time when the west didn't know the meaning of the word 'Yoga,' and that is why this book has so much importance. 'In search of a secret India,' narrates the quest of a early 20th century's  European for search of the real yogis of India.

The author i.e., Paul Brunton 's desire to visit India was fueled by his mysterious meeting with few sacred souls in Europe during his ages to manhood.  Although the book is published in 1934, still in 2016, it held my attention like no other book I have ever read.  It's a wonderful book with rich vocabulary, and a lot to tell about India of the last century.

Author describes his meeting with a magician from Egypt at the hotel Majestic(now perhaps converted to a govt. building) at Bombay(now Mumbai), then an escape to Nashik to meet Mehar baba, then some very fruitful learnings from a Yogi from Madras at the bank of Adyar river... and so on and on.

 Chapters are small and concise in every details of the story. There are many other places and renown people that you would know in this book. For travellers and spiritual heads, both should read this book at least once.

Thanks!

Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank (A book review)

Originally titled as 'Het Achterhuis' and published in June 25, 1947, the content of this Dutch manuscript was created by Anne Frank in a diary, which was offered to her as a gift on her 13th birthday on 12 June 1942. They had moved to Amsterdam after losing the German citizenship. After Nazis took the control of Germany, Netherlands was attacked constantly and many Jews were murdered while other were taken to the concentration camps.

Anne Frank (image source: Wikipedia)

Being a Jewish family, her father decides to conceal his family in a secret annexe of a building, where he worked earlier. In the period from 14 June 1942 to 1 August 1944, Anne wrote about her daily activities, describing details of the others' as well, who include her mother-father a sister and another married couple Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan with a son named as Peter.

They are joined by a doctor named as Dussel, and are visited by the office manager and few others, to provide them with the latest news and ration, and other basic commodities for living. They could not put their feet outside for a single moment, could not make a noise that goes outside, could not uncurtain their windows and could not enjoy the sunshine etc. What a pity!

 In despair, they had to limit their activities and suppress many desires. Anne being a child of mere 13 years old age, starts to put her feelings on a diary. In the span of two years she had been writing for at least one day per week. They have a radio, to which they listen hopefully to get the news of English sweeping the Nazis from the Netherlands.
But, unfortunately that news does not take place, so Anne had nothing much to write about, other than her feelings for her mother father and sister and her irritation with Mr. Van Daan, her husband and Mr. Dussel. In between that period she gets infatuated with Peter, and thinks it to be love, but then again gets confused.

According to the internet source 'annefrank.org', some parts of the manuscript were eliminated, because Anne was too liberal to write about her sexuality. In her diary she writes about her desire to get her diary published, after reading this Mr. Otto frank, her father and the lone survivor of the whole group gets it published.

Anne and her sister Margot, after they were taken to concentration camp, died probably from Typhus in March 1945. Her father said, if she had been alive to watch her diary get published, she would be very much proud. She wanted to become a journalist or writer. Her diary was published in English in 1952. I read the English version of the book, of course!

World war 2 is the biggest historical event in the history of the world, because it changed the way our world run. It has human feelings attached to it, and this sole reason makes this book special in itself. The book is rich in English vocabulary, and therefore is a help for my literary skills altogether. Being a chronology, book has no chapters, it appears to be a true diary of a young girl.

Thank you!

For my previous post visit: What I learned from 'I am Malala'

What I learned from "I am Malala"

Hello,

In one line, this autobiography is an awesome read. Once started, I never put it down, until I finished it.  Along with the lives of the people of Pakistan, I came to know the face of 'Terrorism'. This post covers the story of Malala in brief and the way it is told in this book.
Book is about this real story of the innocence, bravery, desire for education and glory of a Muslim girl, who lived(later moved to Birmingham) in swat district of 'Khyber Pakhtunkhwa' province of Pakistan, a place that was and still is haunted by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The demon of terrorism, in the name of Jihad, had taken many lives and now it had started to attack the school and innocent children.

Malala Yousafzai (courtesy - The tribune)

It wanted the muslim girls to stay inside their homes, forbidding education and schools for them by the imposition of so called ' the Laws of Islam'. I am sure that my last line doesn't qualify me to be litigated in the case of blasphemy, because again, I am sure that humanism is the greatest religion, and every other religion comes later. Malala choose the right thing, she refused to accept such nonsense laws, and became an activist to fight for the right of education of female.

This child of a brave father, who run a school of his own for the boys and girls alike, was brave enough to start writing the stories of the suffering of the people of the swat district. She started to post her message on an online BBC website, with a pseudonym 'Gul Makai'. Her articles became famous and world came to know about the suffering of the people, but within few months, everybody knew about the real Gul Makai.

Taliban, didn't hesitate to attack this mere15 years old aged girl and two other girls, with the firearms on 9th Oct 2012. Two men, stopped their school bus on the way back home, shot her near to her left eye from a point blank range. She got the help of two doctors from England, because the real God had planned something else. This girl didn't die, but endured the pain and won a Nobel Peace Prize at the mere age of 17, and became the youngest person ever to do so.

This book depicts the real Malala, her true character, that she loved to tease her younger brothers and indulge in sweet fights with her best friend. She loved to watch "Shaka Laka Boom-Boom", and keenly wanted to have a magic pencil to erase all the sorrows and pains of her people. She used to compete for taking the first position in her class, and loved her teachers. She is proud of her proud father, and loved him most in the whole world.

I can't describe it the way she has described herself, it makes me emotional to write about her. I think everyone must read this book, specially the children lovers. It is hard to imagine the children being raised at a place where the days and nights are echoed with the bomb blasts. The recent Peshawar massacre of  132 children at the Peshawar Army school, by the Taliban is the result of the toleration of these people, who call themselves Jihadis but don't know the real meaning of God.

Thank You. 

Understanding the 'Power of your Subconscious Mind' by 'Joseph Murphy'

Hello there,

This is the 10th book review that I am about to write in the year 2014. Last review was about the book "Night Train at Deoli" by Ruskin Bond. I read "Power of Subconscious mind earlier than the latter, but somehow forgot to write a review for it. Well, before I tell you anything about the book, I suggest you to go through the list of the reviews of the books that I have wrote here earlier, and chose to read the one about the book that you already have read.

If my review matches with yours, I suppose you will enjoy this one too. As the name of the book itself suggests, it is about our subconscious mind, a mystery to most of the people. Reason is that the most difficult thing to do is to read and control your own mind. There are people, which do lot of meditation and take a big time of their life to understand the working of our mind. Joseph Murphy has done a lot of research to come out with the facts, which support his professing that there is a mind called 'Subconscious Mind', that can perform the miracles, if demanded so.

Jesus knew this secret and he was able to do the miracles, so was Buddha, and many other people do it for themselves. He explains why some people get their eyesight back, some get huge amount of wealth and some get peace, and so many other miraculous things, which happen when people visit the temples, churches, monasteries and mosques. Is there really a power named as 'God', who listens to and fulfills their demand?

You really don't have to answer that question for me, because its a matter of belief to me. People believe, that is why the 'God' exist. Beliefs are the children of our mind, therefore the mind becomes the real creator of God, or I should say that mind is the God.
More precisely, they call it the 'Subconscious Mind', a part of the brain, which controls most of our body functions such as dreams, digestion(almost all the internal body organs), blinking of our eyes, breathing, courage and Phobias etc.

The healing of any of our damaged cells and bounds takes place more faster at night, when we are asleep, is also a function of our subconscious mind. The reason it works more effectively at night is because it is undisturbed by your conscious mind. Consciously we don't even know that there exist such a thing called, sub-conscious Mind, but our logical mind can't deny it.

There are so many other books, which talks about the subconscious mind and its workings, to name a few "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill; "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne and many others, which makes it a beautiful collection of the books on the Subconscious Mind. I simply enjoyed reading it.
Final words, but not the least, if you have anything to share related to the books on the Subconscious Mind, please leave a comment.

Thank you and all the best. 

"Night Train at Deoli" - Amazing read.

Greetings!

For the first time, I read a story book authored by Ruskin Bond. "Night Train at Deoli and other Stories" is a colorful collection of the tragedy, happiness, horror, glory, romance and innocence filled characters. I think most of the characters in the stories have a tragic end, but make you forget your own grieves, because what the characters go through is more painful than your own pain.

Ruskin Bond ( Image source - wikipedia)

For example, the story of 'Pehlwan' wrestler who once was respected by everyone in the village, meets a tragic end to his life. Turning into a beggar from a wrestler in itself is quite painful to imagine. Then there is the story of the river island girl, who survives the flood of the river, which takes everything that she had on that island, including the Peepul tree whose branches were the only hope for her own life survival.

The way of writing is very much vivid, it is quite easy to imagine small details of the plot and character. There is a romantic tragic story towards the end of the book, in which the author writes a letter to his past love named "Sushila", a girl of mere 16 years of age, with whom this 30 years old man(author), once fell in love.

It was painful to know that the girl was having two other affairs at the time, and therefore the letter was a goodbye letter to her. The story contains some adult scenes, but they are the essence of the story and the characters.  I don't prefer the tragic stories, but the way of the writing and the immense vocabulary, which I don't have, kept me tied till the end.

Thank you :)