Future Shock

What an intriguing title :) I mean..not for this post. But in general. The one who coined the phrase must have been a genius. And so began my introduction to the book by that name - Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. I have never been a big fan of self-improvement books. Pannandu varusham iskoola padichi onnum kizhikkala. Oray oru book apdiye lifea thala keezha porati potrumnulaam advertise panni ethachum book vantha i simply avoid them. Rather than reading the success stories of people to follow ditto, i guess one should prefer to read the failures life history to avoid repetition or even better, take up what was unfinished and try to complete it too!!  Coming back to the title. This book, to describe in one word is just WOW. And an amazing thing is that, i checked with most of my book reading friends. Surprisingly, none of them had read this one!!! Felt like Columbus introducing his America to them when i sent them the soft copy (Be it Magellan or Amerigo Vespucci or whoever it was the original founder..aana famousaana name Columbus thaana :D )

My reading patter goes like this. First read - skimming the pages, stopping only at paras which sound interesting and directly going to the end to see how it finished. If impressed, second read would go bit slow to cover the missing sections. Third read would be the slow savouring one..goign through the minutest of word plays and marking the quotes. This book, Future shock, is around 280 pages long and even after 2 months since i began reading it, i am still at page 80. Not that its that boring a one or i was super busy. But i simply dont want this one to end. Gaali aaidum sollitu konjam konjama saapdra chocolate bar mathiri..i just read a few paras, get stunned with the content and close it off. Overa hype panra mathiri teriuthu. But still..this how i feel when i read the book. Not necessarily it might have an exact impact on others for they might've experienced the situations mentioned in it and might even be self aware of them. From all those adventure/thriller novels i read usually, this was a major major deviation and first ever attempt at something of this genre. So that could basically be the reason behind my awe. Anyways..

After all those bittu in previous para atleast onnu rendu vaarthaiyaachum book enna solluthunu solanumla :)
This book is from the 1970's or an even early period. But the content is so relevant even after half a century from its publication. It talks about the single most important concept, ever - CHANGE. How change invades everywhere and the domino effect it has on every single thing around. The examples he had used and the situations he talks about, some are outdated and some doesnt even make sense in current day's world. Which i guess adds more credibility to the what the book tries to convey - ACCEPTANCE. There are many interesting anecdotes/view points on the book (in the first 80 odd pages i have read so far) and it was simply amazing to note the way the author conjures them up into such a logical sequence. I've always romanticized the 70's as the best decade in human history. There were lot many 'firsts' which came in from that decade which are common things in today's world. This book adds more fuel to that thought.

I would love to hear from you folks as to what do you feel about this book. Let me warn you again. The content is a bit dry subject and unless you are in the mood to grasp it, might feel a let down. But definitely worth a try is what i feel so far.