What Exactly Has Salinger Been Writing for the Last 45 Years?

"Finding Forrester" is one of my all-time favorite films. I'm intrigued by the hermetic Salinger-esque William Forrester played by Sean Connery, from the tweed coats with elbow patches right down to references to stories published in the New Yorker, Pulitzers and prep schools with Hogwarth-like storied tradition. However, what really did it for me was the urban element and for lack of a better descriptor, the hip-hoppization of the movie, through the character of Jamal Wallace, a kid from the projects, who's got game, all kinds of game, know what I'm saying! I wish I were that cool, but 'nuff said! Anyway, what I is saying is that hip-hop did to this movie, what "Save the Last Dance" did to ballet.

But that is not the subject of this post. And, I'm not saying that I find beauty in the misguided youth and mental anguish of Holden Caulfield, I'm just saying that Salinger is an institution. Today's Slate.com posted about what Salinger himself has been up to for the past few years, since last publishing "Hapworth 16, 1924." in The New Yorker.

Save the Salinger Archives! Even if we have to save them from Salinger himself.

By Ron Rosenbaum, Posted Friday, June 5, 2009, at 6:01 PM ET

Do you know about this new J.D. Salinger lawsuit? True: The number of people who lose sleep over Salinger's strange saga may no longer be enormous, but he still has a cult following, and there are also those of us who—without being cultists—think he's an important figure in American literature whose work (and whose subsequent 45-year-long nonpublishing silence) are both worth paying attention to.

And the new suit focuses on the three great Salinger mysteries: 1) Has he been writing? 2) What will become of what he's written after his death? (He doesn't seem inclined to publish anything before then.) And, finally: 3) If it exists, how good is it?

(How do we know he hasn't just been writing "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY" all this time in his snowbound New Hampshire digs?)

In the suit, the 90-year-old author seeks the "recall and destruction" (subtly oxymoronic?) of a novel that had been set to be published in the United Kingdom this summer and in the U.S. this fall. The book is 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye by a pseudonymous writer who calls himself John David California.

Rest of the article here…

Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

London Business School Art Exhibition and a white paper on educational reform…..

I've been MIA for a while. Speaking on MIA, if you like her music, check out Santogold. I've been flying under the radar, having spent a fantastic weekend in Boston, organized the London Business School Crossroads Art Exhibition, taken a macroeconomics exams and finished my organizational behavior audit with MyBnk (a non-profit). BTW If you are into pro-bono for non-profits, I highly recommend these articles:

• The new landscape for nonprofits. By: Ryan, William P.. Harvard Business Review, Jan/Feb99, Vol. 77 Issue 1, p127-136
  
• Organizational lessons for nonprofits. By: Hauser, Jerry. McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 Special Edition Issue 4, p60-69

The art exhibition (sponsored by my summer sugar-daddy, Nomura) was well-attended and the open-air concerts (violin, viola, harp, flute) performed by students from the Royal Academy of Music were simply mind-blowing. We had rented a grand piano, and it was great to hear the quad fill with notes from Rachmaninoff, quite different from the usual corporate buzz-buzz. Dean Andrew Likierman inaugurated the exhibition. This was the best two months that I've spent organizing an extracurricular event. My role was Veep of Sponsorship, and Senior Veep of Jack-of-all-Tradery and Event-managery. Incidentally, I'm doing the same role for the London Business School Healthcare Club, in preparation for the 2009 Healthcare Conference. GSK chief, Andrew Witty will deliver the keynote.

So you may wonder if I ever study, given all my travels and extracurricular involvement. The simple answer is "No". And does that mean that there is a mad scramble and all-nighters before exams? The answer is "Yes". The truth is that, this is what works best for me. And no matter what your study style in B-school, it is relatively easy to get an A, curve notwithstanding. And then again, with grade non-disclosure, often people don't care enough. I just don't agree with most of what is being taught in my Operations and Strategy classes anyways – it is outdated and impractical in the real world. As for Macroeconomics – spend 2 days quality time with a good text book, read the Economist and read whatever Goldman Sachs and McKinsey's chief economists put out, and you're golden.

McKinsey Managing Director Ian Davis on "What society expects from business"

The B-school experience, coupled with the Macroeconomics class, and McKinsey chief Ian Davis's talk, and a question I was asked in a consulting interview "What reform is needed in the educational system, globally?" (I had to spin tales for 45 minutes) prompted some deep thought which I intend to convert to a white paper at some point. But here are the salient points (below). I'd love to hear your opinion on it (email me at sbuxespresso@gmail.com)

1) Professional degrees must be shortened in order to return high-GDP producing individuals to the workforce ASAP. Case in point, doctors, lawyers, MBAs and PhDs. The advanced professional degree educational system is outdated and programs are too long. A combination of self-study, online courses and modular/block weeks, with a greater emphasis on internship time is what's required. Think of your own MBA experience. Wouldn't you rather be out making the big bucks, ahem!, increasing GDP earlier. And, especially for PhDs and doctors, with the internet, data-mining, rapid technology upgrades and better predictive/computational/hypothesis defining/problem-solving tools, it should be easier to get done in 3 years, no more. People entering these degrees are arguably smarter and better informed today than their peers 20-30 years ago, and we aren't futzing around with Bunsen burners and conceptual quarks and anti-quarks as in years gone by. Besides, not only is there an opportunity cost associated with keeping people out of the workforce, there is actual value-destruction, as people lose motivation towards the latter stage of their advanced degrees. Ask any fifth year Theoretical Physics PhD or third year medical resident about regressing motivation. And, think of this point and the next one, especially in the light of women, child-bearing years and glass ceilings. Wouldn't this actually make things easier, or at least give them the option? Would it? I'm asking.

2) Ditto for four-year colleges. Split the four years into modular elements so that students can intersperse longer internship spells in between to really understand what they want to do vocationally. Imagine a four year program, where freshman year is when you are 18 and senior year ends when you turn 25! I started off as an engineer, then biotech startup researcher/product developer, only to find that I wanted to be a strategy consultant, and now I'm going into investment banking. And I'm not atypical. More than 75% of my MBA classmates are career changers, onto career number three. How many of us started wanting to study choral music only to find that we really wanted to do few years later was law or underwater basket-weaving? In the meanwhile we futzed around in school or meandered from job-to-job. In other words don't put the horse before the cart.

3) Instead of useless subjects, teach people the following early on in their educational experience

1. How to leverage their brains fully? How to deal with failure? How to find happiness? How to deal with metal pressures? There is a huge body of recent research that suggests that we as humans do not fully understand how and why we think a certain way (nature + nurture). Hence books like 'Stumbling on Happiness' and 'The Paradox of Choice'! After all isn't it about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Our mental and emotional map is still very primitive, and lags behind the pressures and pace of post-post-modern lifestyle. The solutions this new research suggests are not your grandma's Freudian lying-on-your-shrinks-couch bullshit, but solutions grounded real facts based on fool-proof experiments, double-blinds, cross-referenced with MRI/CT scan data. Don't we want everyone to live richer, fuller lives? And bonus - from a capitalistic perspective this understanding helps sell stuff and from a welfare perspective it helps solve problems (Read 'The Tipping Point', 'Freakonomics', 'Supercrunchers', 'Fooled by Randomness' for evidence).
2. How to interact with people, empathize, connect and collaborate. Friction between humans and the inability to snap together like LEGOs and work cohesively are will be the most significant value-destroyers in upcoming years within any organization. See Ian Davis's view on this. How many times do you wish you had insight into a difficult co-worker's mind? Why should good interpersonal skills only be the forte of salespeople and schmoozers? How much does this affect the potential of people who are unable to overcome their social awkwardness? What, are we living in the stone-age, where lousy interpersonal skills impact both individuals and corporate/citizenry well-being? (Read 'Extraordinary Relationships', 'Fierce Conversations').
3. How to find the right mate? Even as it is, one could argue that divorce is a welfare value-destroyer. It is as welcome as a root-canal. And it is definitely an economic value destroyer. Think of alimony or child-support as transfer payments (most feminists and child-advocates would love to scourge me for this). And, not being able to understand what a potential partner would want, defers the mating process (not sex, but confluence), potentially reducing individual happiness (not the happiness associated with a stable partnership, but not being able to fully focus on what makes the individual happy regardless of the relationship). And, ask any joint-tax-return-filing married couple. Less tax equals more savings or consumption which equals more growth of national capital stock which equals more GDP and welfare growth.
4. Teach people how to learn, think and evolve vocationally. This is especially important for developed countries with offshoring and outsourcing. Case in point, Adam Smith vs. theory of comparative advantage. Help people learn to evolve and develop new vocational skills. I have been lucky to have "learned to learn" and to evolve from engineer to researcher to consultant to banker. But this should not be the privilege of a few. Teach the masses to fish…..
5. Teach people to learn to become efficient and drive local Leaness. Everyone on this planet simply needs to learn to live Lean. Lean is not just for making cars, but as the population grows and people in emerging countries learn to consume more, we need to understand how to eliminate waste and conserve resources. Plus, one of the biggest reasons that jobs flow out rapidly from one country to another is loss of productivity. And the reasons why companies like GM go bankrupt is because people aren't thinking daily "How can I make my environment more efficient and less wasteful?" (Read 'Lean Thinking' by Womack and Jones). Also training is passé. Its important for both managers and leaders to be able to coach their reports. (Read 'The Coaching Revolution').
6. Similarly teach people fiscal and personal finance concepts much earlier in life. The reasons are self-evident.
7. Obviously, none of this can be forced down the citizenry's collective throat, given the personal nature of issues at hand, the issue of free will, and given that no government or educational system should be as totalitarian. I suggest a gentler kinder approach where the people are made aware of what they are missing out on and why this is important. Most rational human beings will see the value in this.
   

Well, that's enough pontificating for now. I need to get cracking on my Corporate Markets and Finance final. And then on to reading, 'Damodaran on Valuation' in preparation for my Nomura summer internship. More later!

Excerpt from McKinsey's Ian Davis: Maximizing Shareholder Value Doesn't Cut It Anymore Published : November 01, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton

……..Fourth on executives' minds is organizational capability. Talent is only one component of capability. "If talent is not trained or relevant to the task at hand," it won't have an impact, he said. Capability comes in many forms: emotional, psychological and intellectual. Sometimes even physical capability is important in business. "Intellectual can be dominant, but often human capability, like the emotional stability to deal with stress, can, in certain circumstances, be crucial."

In most companies, talent is misdirected close to 70% of the time, according to Davis. Often the mismatch between an employee's capabilities and his or her assignment is most obvious from the CEO's vantage point. One CEO told Davis that his main job -- his definition of strategy -- is matching managers' capabilities to the work that needs to be done.

Davis was asked how companies should balance matching individual capabilities with specific tasks, and still be able to develop management talent when new challenges arise that might be beyond an employee's capabilities. He said it is possible to do if top executives have a clear strategic view of what they need and a sense of the people who could ultimately fill senior leadership roles. Then top management should be prepared to invest in those people and tolerate some mistakes.

Business today, he said, is unwilling to accept any degree of failure, even small mistakes that might help future leaders avoid catastrophes in the long run. "We're in a culture that says, 'If you fail, you're gone.'" He argued that most people learn more from their mistakes than their successes. Often CEOs are fired for a mistake, just as they are becoming strong and wise executives. "It's tragic," said Davis. "My general experience is that if you have highly capable, motivated people in the right place, most other problems go away."

The "Usual Suspects"

How do these themes bear on leadership?

Davis said one word captures what is necessary: diplomacy. He defined diplomacy in the business context as "the ability to influence events through the force of personal and moral character.... I think business, NGOs (non-government organizations) and public sector leaders are all going to have to learn the useful skills of diplomacy to explain in a positive way what they do and why they do it."

……..Davis stressed that the issues he focused on in his speech go beyond the "usual suspects" of CEO concerns -- such as costs, corporate structure, customer relationships and strategy. "These subjects matter a lot, but they're starters. You've got to get them right." Even companies that do get the "usual suspects" right don't necessarily thrive, he said. To differentiate themselves in the future, companies will need to build strategies taking into account the larger themes of society and government.

In Requiem

Gosh, all this pimpin' myself out to i-banks and consulting firms (during the LBS Milkround) has me wondering, why the f**k am I doing this! This took me back to an assignment from my UGM (Understanding General Management) Class. First we had to write an essay on "How would a recruiter describe you to a potential employer 5 years hence?". Then for our second assignment we had to write out own eulogy (depressing). Then we had to compare the two and find out if we were really doing what we wanted to do in life. A few of my friends and classmates suggested that I post my eulogy, so here goes!

Assignment 2: The year is 2064, the occasion your funeral. Imagine your best friend gives your eulogy. Write down on a single sheet of paper what that person would say.

Dear friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Tiny Tim (staying anonymous) This is a time not for sorrow, but to remember what he added to this world and to look to his life for inspiration. Most us remember Tim as a warm, caring and kind person. In spite of his busy life, he always had time for us, his friends and family. For him people were a passion and he invested heavily in them. He surrounded himself with his friends and family and often joked about how this was his true wealth.

Tim accomplished much in his lifetime, but we remember him today because of how he used his accomplishments to benefit others. Many of you worked alongside Tim in a professional context at Elevation Partners (Private Equity firm) and benefited from the successes of the companies that he led. Others worked alongside him on changing the face of healthcare in India. A few of you also collaborated with him in founding non-profit organizations that brought relief to rural India. I am sure that you will agree with me that not only did Tim directly impact the causes he championed, be they business or charitable, but he also influenced your lives, leaving you a legacy and a model to follow. One could not interact with him and not be impacted by him.

Tim's dynamism and charisma inspired us all. His tireless work ethic moved us to action. His mentorship of others and kindness towards his friends and colleagues challenged us to be richer, warmer and more caring human beings. For this we will remember him.

Tim was in his lifetime a devoted husband and a loving father. While his family will miss him sorely, they will be comforted by the myriad memories that he left them. Tim often remarked how he did not spend as much time with his family as he would have liked to. However, his wife and children have many stories about how even the little time that they spent together and the vacations that they took together were always significant, fun and memorable. In spite of the demands on his time, he was a towering figure in their lives and his children never felt as if they did not know their father.

Finally Tim contributed immensely to this world through his church. He was always there to help guide its direction, to counsel the staff on initiatives and to demonstrate what it meant to enable others to live impossibly great lives. He demonstrated by example, what it meant to love one's neighbor like oneself, and for this we remember him.

I encourage you all today to reflect on the brief time that Tim spent with us, to cherish the memories of your interactions with him and to gain insights from his life which will enable you to live an impossibly great life and make an impact on the world around you. Take care of each other, be kind and God bless. Thank you!

A couple of B-school essays

It seems that my last posting of a B-school essay was well received and "advice" was sought by some future applicants. The only "advice" I can give is a) be yourself, b) make your examples short, pithy and colorful, c) tell a story that stands out, d) strongly link your past experiences with your future goals, e) avoid vagueness at all cost f) don't assume the reader's ability to read between the lines, and above all f) answer the question clearly. And yes, have someone else who knows you and has a command of the language, read and critique your essays. I could go on, but posting a few of my essays might just be more helpful. Here are two essays I wrote for Columbia GSB and London Business School.

Essay 4 (b): If you were given a free day and could spend it anywhere, in any way you choose, what would you do?

I love art, history and education through travel. I visited Florence last year and couldn’t get enough of the city. I’d spend my free day on the streets of the city of the Medici. I’d be woken early by the pealing of church bells. I’d stop by a neighborhood trattoria and jostle with the locals for pastries and a steaming cappuccino. I’d strike up a conversation with friendly faces and find out what the day held for them.

I’d hurry to stand in the line snaking outside the Uffizi so I could see Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’. I’d stroll through the sculpture garden in the Piazza della Signoria and make charcoal rubbings off Ghiberti’s doors at the Baptistery. I’d climb the 414 steps of the Campanile for breath-taking views of the city and the Tuscan countryside, much of which hasn’t changed in centuries. I’d spend time crawling through the vaults of Brunelleschi’s Dome of the Basilica del Fiore, an engineering marvel to this day with the world’s largest masonry span. When the church was built to be the largest house of worship, the neighboring streets and houses were actually lowered so that the Basilica would look more imposing that it actually was. I’d revisit Michelangelo’s David and take sneaky photos of it. I’d have to take in a pistachio gelato as I walked the cobbled stone streets of Santa Croce, which reeks of tanneries. I’d make my way to the piazza where Savonarola’s ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ blazed. I’d spend a moment in silence mourning all the works of art that civilization lost, thanks to the mad monk.

As dusk draws near, I’d avoid the ‘Menu Turistico’ for dinner. I’d buy cichetti and some homemade wine - bottled in used plastic bottles. I’d hike up one of the hills, south of the Arno river and watch the setting sun glint off the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

LBS Essay 1: In what role do you see yourself working immediately after graduation? Why? How will your past and present experiences help you achieve this? How will the London Business School MBA Programme contribute to this goal?

My post-MBA goal is to work for the Private Equity (PE) consulting practice of a tier one strategy consulting firm and to specialize in Merger and Acquisition (M&A) due diligence studies in the Indian pharmaceutical sector. Very specifically, Bain’s global reach, its strong focus on PE and pharmaceuticals and its collegial culture would provide the best career fit, enabling my long-term goals. Having relished the intellectual stimulation of tackling a variety of business problems in diverse industries in my four years of management consulting, I know that Bain would provide an exciting opportunity to further expand my ability to devise creative solutions and lead organizational change.

At Advion, a biosystems startup, I collaborated with pharmaceutical scientists to develop analytical devices which expedite drug discovery by accurately analyzing drug candidates in 1/100^th the time that other techniques require. While learning the science behind drug discovery, I also observed how Advion’s PE backers used their business consulting backgrounds and financial expertise to guide Advion’s executives on innovation and growth strategies. This foundational exposure to key aspects of the pharmaceutical industry would help me address industry-specific issues at Bain.

Following Advion, through a business strategy and operations consulting role at Stroud, I learned to facilitate operational turnarounds at multi-billion dollar corporations in sectors from food and beverage to electronics to consumer goods. Recently, I worked on the exciting transformation of a PE-owned packaging products company, leading 5-10 person teams at each of nine plants to identify a total of $40MM in profitability losses through a financial analysis and deep operational assessment. The subsequent 6-month pilot program which I led focused on improving operations efficiency, product quality, logistics and inventory management, resulting in a $7M profitability increase. I gained extensive finance and supply chain knowledge and a practical understanding of organizational change management, preparing me to lead consulting teams to solve clients’ strategic and operational problems.

After growing through two promotions, in order to gain expertise in post-merger strategy (an issue prevalent in PE,) I eventually accepted an advanced role at Accenture. I started acquiring expertise by leading two eight person case teams (client VP’s, directors, consultants) to integrate two global supply chains and realize merger synergies at a Top 3 computer manufacturer, initiatives which improved cash flow by $30MM and profits by $20MM.

The London Business School (LBS) MBA is the next logical step in refining my leadership skills, acquiring a general management aptitude and developing the financial acumen necessary for M&A due diligence in a post-MBA role at Bain. My conversations with N. Mehta (’08) and N. Patel (’06) have convinced me that LBS’s flexible curriculum would allow me to integrate the knowledge I acquire from electives in Finance, Strategy and International Management and Private Equity. Through a semester at Wharton’s healthcare program and through UCL courses such as ‘Business Enterprise Training in the Life Sciences,’ I would build my financial knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry. LBS’s global reach and its diverse community would teach me to leverage the cultural diversity inherent to consulting firms.

Having grown up in Bombay, India’s commerce hub, I understand the unparalleled benefits of being at the heart of a cosmopolitan capital. LBS, with its proximity to 70% of the FTSE 100 and 75% of the Fortune 500, would give me an unbeatable edge in achieving my professional goals.

On B-school essays

I think back to the Fall of 2007 and the B-school app process. I'm elated that I won't ever have to write another B-school essay again. Although, the one essay that I did enjoy writing was NYU Stern's Essay #3. I created a mini-blog and submitted it as my essay. In the interest of filling chronological gaps for my family and friends, I've decided to post it.

NYU Essay #3 - Personal Expression: Please describe yourself to your MBA classmates. You may use any method to convey your message (e.g. words, illustrations). Feel free to be creative. If you submit a written essay, it should be 2 pages maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font

If I had maintained a blog for the past three years, these would be some of the entries:

January 2005: I am passionate about travel and art. I have discovered a unique dynamic interrelationship between them that lets me explore the world around me and better relate to people. Whenever I am in a new city, I visit its art museums. The art I see, in addition to my travel experiences provides the subject matter and inspiration for the canvases I paint on returning home. I finished my new “masterpiece”(right)! It conveys that as humans, we share a unifying theme and blend into each other seamlessly, even though we may look different.


March 2005: I deconstruct what I see around me and then reassemble it using a vivid palette. (A) is a mosaic of a person’s face, (B) is a butterfly,(D) is a building on the Chicago skyline (‘The Corn Cob’ Marina Towers), (E) is a night-time view of traffic in Bombay’s congested streets and (F) is a tree. My memories of a lighthouse in the fog in Nova Scotia inspired me to paint an abstract representation of this seascape (C). My (ethnically diverse) group of friends came over for wine and cheese and panned my new paintings. The best part was listening to their interpretations. Their differing worldviews affect their experience of art and I discover so much about them by listening to their interpretations.


May 2005: Exciting news! I helped Mark, my client, present results from a four month program we co-led – the program improved his site’s operational performance by over 25%. Our audience (the executive team of his Fortune 300 company) was impressed, and now the CEO wants the program to be replicated across the division.

October 2005: Venice was exciting. My girlfriend and I discovered this fantastic home-made wine sold at little shops all over the city (in used Pepsi bottles). We enjoyed our “to-go wine” as we took in the sights.


December 2005: Business is booming out East. My father is on a whirlwind business trip to N. Africa and the Middle East after which he will ‘stop by’ his Malaysia office before returning home to Bombay. Finished reading ‘Freakanomics" by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and ‘The World is Flat’ by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The latter made me think about how the West and East have perceptions of each other that differ so much from reality. A huge gap exists. I renewed my desire to use my multi-cultural lifestyle to bridge this gap.

April 2006: I ran workshops on basic consulting skills for seven new recruits at a company retreat at Cambridge University. We simulated business cases, data analysis and delivering Powerpoint presentations. Visited Stonehenge and St. Paul’s cathedral (London). I have now seen the world’s four largest churches (Rome, Florence, Milan and London).


June 2006: Returned from Bombay! I could barely recognize the city I grew up in and last visited two years ago. Sam R. (one of my mentees) called to inform me of his promotion. He thanked me for the daily coaching I gave him during his first project.


April 2007: I helped my friend, Kathy organize a Forsyth summit, where scientists from Forsyth, Harvard and MIT presented latest research in combating oral and dental conditions to Forsyth donors.

May 2007: My friend Lauren and I participated in Project Bread’s ‘Walk for Hunger’, a 20 mile pledge walk in Boston that raises funds for Massachusetts food pantries and soup kitchens. Sore after five and half hours, we renewed our determination to spend more time at the gym. However, we were glad to have raised money for a worthy cause.


July 2006: Lauren, who works at a US investment bank was having trouble motivating her counterparts in India to meet project deadlines. She turned to me for insight into differences in communication styles, upon which I suggested being more formal when communicating deadlines and expectations to her Indian counterparts than she would with her US colleagues. She used my suggestion and saw a dramatic improvement in their response. I am glad that my dual cultural background helps me explain Indian business culture to my non-Indian friends and vice-versa, a skill which I would bring with me to business school.

July 2007: Love living in downtown Boston! Love my new job! My Friday commute involves an elevator ride down 10 stories, a 30-second walk through a mall and an elevator ride up 23 stories.


August 2007: I was at a presentation to the client CEO (at a multi-billion dollar PC company). Halfway through, he asked for my assessment of the performance of manufacturing operations currently outsourced to China. I had my response prepared. My recommendations will be implemented, saving over $10M for the company.

October 2007: Visited a client site in S. Dakota, which leaves N. Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii as the three states I need to see to have visited all 50. I have seen world-famous buildings like the Guggenheim and The Louvre, but nothing prepared me for this. My client site is an enormous white building surrounded by cornfields and painted with black spots – like a gigantic Jersey cow.


December 2007: I find that talking about what people are interested in is the best way to bond with them. I often go out to lunch and dinner with my clients, giving me opportunities to get to know them personally. I am always pleasantly surprised by what I learn about them – one of my clients is related to Amartya Sen, an economics Nobel Prize winner. He gave me a signed copy of Sen’s book of essays titled ‘The Argumentative Indian’. That makes for three books in my library signed by a Nobel Prize winner.