Skip to main content

Extraordinary Ordinary People – A Memoir of Family – Condoleezza Rice


In this book, Condoleezza Rice talks about her childhood, education and work life as a girl and as a young woman. For a woman who has accomplished so much in her life and who went on to become the first ever black woman to become US Secretary of State, she comes across as humble, hardworking and down to earth. She follows a simple narrative style. My one gripe is that her intelligence, above-average talent and skills don’t come through in her stories. On the positive side, after reading her memoir, some of my negativity towards a political career and politicians has reduced. I haven’t followed her career closely and I am now curious to read and get to know more about her and her achievements and get an outsider's perspective on her career and her political life to see if this corroborates her image I have formed in my mind.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Believe in Yourself – Joseph Murphy

I have read a sizable number of books in the genre of self-empowerment and positive thinking over the last couple of years and I have come to realize that each author has a perspective on how to achieve the same based on what has worked for him or her. Joseph Murphy specialized in Religious Science and has an interesting take on how conscious thoughts and strong belief influence achievement of one’s life goals. The author’s message is crisp and the biggest plus point of this book is that it is short and concise. His premise is that conscious and continuous thoughts of a goal will trigger the subconscious to come up with ways and means to achieving the goal and humans are wired this way for survival.   The stories, he quotes, of achievers and why and how they were able to achieve their dreams and reach lofty heights help in driving home the author’s point. One story among them was however counter to this premise – a lady consciously and continuously imagines tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Watership Down – Richard Adams

This book came as a recommendation from a colleague. It is a children’s story of a group of rabbits and touches upon cruelty of man towards animals, procreation and looks at the world from animals’ point of view. I read the book summary and reviews online before starting the book and it had rave reviews extolling it as more than a children’s story where a lot of the stories and events in the book are metaphorical. For me, it did not live up to all the hype and it was like any other decently written book and nowhere close to a masterpiece or a classic. An author writes a book to give a certain message and this book is no different. Granted, the idea to present an animal view of the world is different and stands out as a unique and interesting theme but nothing else about it appealed to me. I have this habit of finishing a book once I begin and also, I am aiming at reading 36 books this year. So, I toiled and pursued. After 17.5 hours of sometimes grueling listening,...
Post a Comment
Read more

21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Yuval Noah Harari

The book raises a lot of relevant questions on what next after liberalism with information & bio technology advances happening in leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, most questions remain unanswered. Some of the topics that the author talks about have also already been discussed in his previous books giving a sense of deja-vu. The author talks about a myriad topics such as political structures, impact of AI on work/careers, war, terrorism, education, health & medical services, importance of information etc. The book gives a lot of food for thought and gives a sneak peek into how the 21 st Century could look like – what education and skills we should possess to continue to be relevant, how AI systems could start ruling our mind and free thinking would be just a myth, how national level politics and interests conflict in solving global problems like climate change and global economic chain-collapse, how fear and overreaction to terrorism means we are playing ri...
Post a Comment
Read more