Prince Harry- Sex Lives of Queens/Kings

Normally the British appetite for scandals are so depressing that I always feel sick when I hear them. It is my strong opinion is that the Paparazzi were indirectly responsible for this tragic death of Princess Diana. This is something which will not happen to a celebrity of any other country. Somehow the country which gave endless great writers from the likes of Shakespeare to likes of Bill Bryson  pays to read the about real life of celebrities. Suddenly I find myself also enjoying reading about the private life of celebrities. I just finished reading Eleanor Herman´s Sex with the Queen http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Queen-Virile-Passionate-Politics/dp/0061171360/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194908098&sr=8-1. I would recommend this book to all who read Hello, Sun and that like of magazines and otherstoo. This book seems to be well researched and put in a very delightful form. At first glance I thought some sort of a soft porn. For some reason I had glance at the back and saw that it was something more. Intrigued by the words “900 years of Virile Kings…” I decided to read this book. I was totally surprised by an entertaining book on whole the social scene was through the years in the European court. Though Ms.Hermann repeats most of the stories of the Queens and the other principal characters of history  on whom she  has researched, it is does not really hurt. in fact sometimes she just gives a very tiny description in the beginning and I find it is so intriguing that I go looking around in the Internet and in the wikipedia only to find out that she explains in more detail later. After reading this,I felt good when she more or less indicated that she could find much to scandalise Queen Victoria, but felt let down when she wrote a whole lot  about Catherine the Great of Russia. All that is mentioned is only the scandal part and nothing on the greatness of Catherine.

In any case a thoroughly enjoyable book. (I even took keen interest in looking up at the allegations of Chelsy Davy about Prince Harry being a playboy and so separating). I have already started looking for Eleanor Herman´s earlier book “Sex with the King” http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Kings-Adultery-Rivalry-Revenge/dp/0060585447/ref=pd_sim_b?ie=UTF8&qid=1194908098&sr=8-1 . Hope it has the same amount of sensationalism and realism combined in the same proportions.

Sivakami´s Vow & Tamil Literature

I found this http://sivagamiyin-sabadham.blogspot.com/ blogspot by chance. Looks like Pavithra Srinivasan has been translating this magnificent book called sivagamiyin sabadham which means Sivagmi ´s Vow.This book was written by the famous Tamil author R.Krishnamurthi  pen named Kalki was written in 1944 and arguably one of the best historical novels written. But it is not just the exceptional one, there were great epics written before and great novels written after. Of those the best historical ones are by Sandiliyan. I feel iftheywere translated they would rival and could probably beat most of the top historical novels ever written like (Collen McClough´s Novels of the Roman Punic Wars and later). Also there alot of epics in Tamil from the very ages ago (Silapathikaram,Manimekalai).  Tamil Literary history does not just contian these fictions, but a lot of other books also. The Tholkappiyam waswritten in 900BC but it is still taught in Tamil grammar classes for school students of age 15 or 16.  

But all Tamil Literary Treasures  have stayed within the Tamil group. Nobody outside this group know about any of these great works.  Contrast this with the Bengalis,they had Tagore who wrote in great Bengali and in English also and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee and a small handful ones. They are well known outside the Benagli group. The Chinese also have their share of epics and anybody who goes into the Chinese culture immediately are aware of their epics likes Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, Journey to the West and  Dream of the Red Chamber (all wonderful epics…if you get a hand on them just don´t let them go unread if you are a book lover). 

Why have the Tamils not been able to “sell” this literary history to the world? Some may argue that Malaysia Singapore are places where Tamil sells a lot. But even here it is to Tamils only.  Maybe one of the good Tamil movie makers should try to make a good movie based on oneof these Tamil stories in various languages and sell it across the world. Get it to win a Oscar or even a nomination. And at this time we have a lot of the works translated and put up on stall, it would generate of interest on the Tamil literature. 

Alexander The Great´s- Art of Strategy

I finished reading the book Alexander The Great´s Art of Strategy. Few years ago (probably 2004) BBC had a program called Total War. A game played by a team consisting of 4 members. They played a battle scenario with computer simulation based on the PC game called Total War. 2 members were made the leaders and the other 2 would execute the orders. Their opponents were simulated based on a combination of actual events and some variations to counter the strategy of the team. There was also 2 military historians who would analyse the team from the back ground and then also after the game was over. They also informed them later on what really happened. There were many interesting episodes. One of them was of Alexander and the Battle of Guagmela. The team was consisting of 4 guys who were very experienced in playing war games and they managed to play the part of the Greeks close to what happened in reality and though Alexander was ”killed” in their version they won. It was then I realised how great Alexander was. These guys were playing the game on big computer monitors with full view of the battle field. They could move back and forth see well beyond what a human general could see. Yet Alexander who was also leading the attack from the front had a total overview of the battle and was able to effectivel control a whole battle of against 300,000 men and win it his way. Watching this series, I got interested in battle strategies and strategist. Alxeander was best among them. Each war was executed to perfection. I started reading articles and books on Alexander. Of these, I enjoyed the triology of Valerio Massimo Manfredi as it was written more like a fiction but stayed close to actual facts regarding the wars and now this book by Parth Bose. What makes this book very different from the others Partha Bose has concentrated on the strategy of Alexander and then related it to the modern managements techniques and startegies. I would say he is very successful in this. He uses examples from the real business world to emphasis his points. I would expect that this book would be in one of the best seller list or well known. But I never heard about and would not picked it if I was not really interested in Alexander. But I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in reading business books too. Or anbody interested in reading about history.