Dear Reader,
I started telling my brother stories when he was about five. He was a picky eater, and as the eldest girl in the family, I was sometimes assigned the job of feeding him lunch or dinner. I soon discovered that the job became much easier if I told him a story he liked.
This was my first training in pleasing an audience, and it would stand me in good stead decades later, when I stood before MBA classes
Dear Reader,
I started telling my brother stories when he was about five. He was a picky eater, and as the eldest girl in the family, I was sometimes assigned the job of feeding him lunch or dinner. I soon discovered that the job became much easier if I told him a story he liked.
This was my first training in pleasing an audience, and it would stand me in good stead decades later, when I stood before MBA classes teaching Storytelling in Business and Persuasive Communications.
The winning stories were always about the Second World War. If I could spin a yarn about a German Messerschmitt getting into a dogfight with a Spitfire, ducking anti-aircraft guns, spoonfuls of dal, rice and bhindi would be rapidly consumed. And since, in those days, I was reading stories like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill and The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean, it all worked out quite happily.
The storytelling tradition has since morphed into buying books as birthday presents, and I am always on the lookout for something he will like. Mostly, I manage it, presenting him with books like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, both entertaining and informative and also relevant to the world of business.
This year, I decided to celebrate Rakhi by not just tying a rakhi and accepting a gift in exchange. I would give my brother a gift too.
But it’s been strangely challenging.
I realized how much our lives have diverged when I began going through my favourite books of the year. Which of them would he like?
Would my brother like The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley, this immersive story about a young boy invited to the home of a posh classmate? The boy is completely out of his comfort zone, and it’s not just the social niceties. As the summer heat builds, he gets pulled into playing a part in the illicit romance unfolding before him.
No. He would not be in the mood for this book. It is fiction, for starters. “I don’t have the time to read all this fiction,” he’s often said. It is too far removed from his work life of investing. I know, I know, dear Reader, this is exactly why we read books: to move away from our lives. But something tells me this book would not work for him.
My other favourite, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, a novel about relationships and mental illness told in such a funny, witty way, would not work either.
We siblings grew up reading murder mysteries and thrillers, Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Jack Higgins, but nowadays my brother seems to have moved away from the genre. So my favourites for this year, the witty The Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley and the literary Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum, are out too.
Everywhere there is talk of the flash floods in Nepal, of the fragility of the mountains and rivers, of ecological damage. So what about my favourite book on rivers by Robert Macfarlane? Is a River Alive? tells the story of three different rivers on three different continents. I wish he would read this slow, meditative book, full of lyrical descriptions, stories and people fighting for nature.
Only, I am sure he will not be in the mood for it.
It’s a weekday morning, and I am replacing the books scattered around the house when I realize what I must do: I must set aside my books and restart my search with The Other Reader’s books.
From his bedside pile, I pick up a softcover, open it to a random page and am hooked:
“As grateful as I am to Harvard for all it made possible for me, I survived it more than I enjoyed it and would never have the validation of feeling ‘of it,’ as opposed to someone who made his way through. When asked, I tell people that, depending on the kid, Harvard may or may not be the best place to go, but for the doors it opens, it is always the best place to have gone.”
I want to know more. I sit down in the midst of the mess and keep reading.
Half an hour later, I know: Streetwise by Lloyd Blankfein is the book I will gift my brother this year.
I’ve seen it on a few business-book prize shortlists. It is set in the world of banking and investing. And best of all, it has the grit of a story that might even get a picky boy to finish his dinner. No fighter planes in sight. But he’ll likely finish it.
If you are stuck with life or literature, send your questions to Sonya Dutta Choudhury, Mumbai-based journalist and Founder, Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Email sonyasbookbox@gmail.com.
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