Next by Michael Crichton

I have read nearly all of Michael Crichton's books except those in his early days, such as Terminal Man and The Great Train Robbery(something like that). Actually, I did got hold of these 2 books but after reading a few pages, I skipped these 2 books as I don't find them as interesting as his later stories.

This is a pretty thick book of >400 pages. As usual, I find Michael Crichton's stories fascinating, yet conceptually realistic.

In this book, he wove his story web around genetic engineering : a genetic company desperate in genetic breakthroughs, a young researcher accidentally gave a "mature" gene to his brother and cured his drug addiction, a talking parrot, a talking orang utan, turtles that glow to keep away their predators. There are many commercially viable use of genetic engineering, though most of them are viewed by many as unethical. One brilliant use is to genetically alter the genes of fishes, such that they have company's advertisement displayed on their bodies. It is something like what they have done to Glo-Fish. The Glo-Fishes were given the luminous genes of jellyfishes.

One thing I did not like was that there are too many parties in the stories and the stories come in and out. Each party usually only occupied 2-5 pages and the scene will switch to another unrelated party. And in the end, somehow or rather, all the parties seemed to know each other or got to know each other. Some scenes were not rational, such as why was the famous Dr Bel... at the theme park and was so coincidentally killed by Brad Gordon.

I must say that the starting of the book was written very well, slowly taking the reader in to the world of genetic engineering. But as you go deeper(mid of book), one might get confused as to how these different people or animals fit in the story. They seemed to be a story by themselves. As the story comes to an end, the "bad" guys were too conveniently jailed, killed or dead by some mysterious illness.

Overall, I think the idea of this story is good. Michael Crichton's books, such as Jurrasic Park, Timeline, Congo and Sphere were terrific and spell-binding. This book, Next, as compared, is a bit rusty. The ending seems like a rush job.

Something to Smile About by Zig Ziglar

This book is about encouragement and inspirations for life's ups and downs. It is very similar to the Chicken Soup series. There are many short stories which are only 2 pages long . Each story has a small quote and at the end, there is usually a small joke which I enjoyed.

There are many powerful and interesting stories and many lessons to learn from. One of the better books I have read. Very inspirational, yet also providing some humour.

A New Religion? H+ by Edward De Bono

Edward de Bono is a well renowned author in the field of creative thinking and is the best selling author of Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats. I have attended a Six Thinking Hats course and found it to be very intriging and interesting. So when I saw this book on sale, I bought it without any hestitation.

In this book, Edward de Bono aims to create a culture in the world to have positive thinking and to do good deeds. H+ stands for Human, Happiness, Humour, Help, Hope and Health. In each section, these 6 elements are elaborated.

It is emphasized that most religions focus on the negative aspects, ie avoiding sins and what we should not do. In H+, the emphasis is entirely on the positive actions. It is a way of life and he termed it as "woligion" to cover "a way of life religion". He also coins the term "pons" which are positive actions.


He has set up a "HQ" on this project and hopes to have similar like-minded people forming groups to help others and have a positive impact to the world. He has also set up helpdesks, recommending fines for those who do not do enough pons, signals which indicate that you are within this H+ community.

This book is one of the easiest book to read. Only 93 pages and each page has only about 100words. Edward de Bono goes straight to the point and his intention is really good for the world. The only minor concern I see is that some people will feel that he is indeed trying to form some sort of a cult globally through this book. Overall, I feel good reading this book.