Ladies and gentlemen. (Mostly for the latter... I don't expect too many members of the fairer sex visiting my blog anyways) Thanks for sparing your otherwise valuable time and giving this upcoming blogger a share of it. But let me tell you something, my english isn't all that great. So you wouldn't find too many heavy sounding multisyllabic words in my posts. Also, I didn't put up this blog to showcase my literary skills ( or the lack of them...), but to share my views about some of things I have an opinion about.
I just happened to go through Richard Branson's autobiography "Losing my virginity". The book isn't the kind that is going to win nominations to a Booker or something. The book won't even win a "bad sex nominatiom ala Shobha De". Despite the oh-so suggestive title, the book has hardly any sex.
The book is all about believing in your self.. having faith in your abilities .. and making your dreams come true.
Love him or loathe him, you've got to admit it, Richard Branson has drive. And guts. And enough ambition to sink a battleship--or perhaps that should be a jumbo jet--or even a whole company of jumbos if the Virgin Atlantic/British Airways debacle (which takes up a huge chunk of this already huge tome) is anything to go by.
Branson's autobiography makes immensely fascinating reading. Whatever you think of Britain's most famous entrepreneur, the odds are that you will enjoy reading his autobiography. You may snort at descriptions of his "poor" childhood--spent eating bread and dripping while living in a house the majority of us visit on Bank Holidays and attending a "minor" public school. You may groan at memories of early initiative tests: how about being ejected from the family car and told by his mother to find his way home--at the age of four? You may flinch at accounts of his early business days as an unwashed, unshod, hippy magazine publisher living en famille with his staff in the crypt of a West London church. But, all in all, you'll get to understand where the guy's coming from--man.
And, like the man himself, there's no holds barred here. Richard bares his soul, from childhood, school days (cheating at exams), loves and losses (lost one wife when a spot of wife-swapping went drastically wrong--for him), death-defying adventures (yes, the balloons are all there), to the rise and rise of the Virgin empire. His interviews for Student magazine and the early days of Virgin Music read like a chronicle of popular music and culture in the late 20th century. Famous names bounce off every page. Prepare to be enthralled by the life and times of a walking publicity machine.
