Monkey Business and the Da Vinci Code

My thoughts on two of the books I recently read.

I started reading this straightforward, funny, and vulgar account of life as an investment banker just because it was conveniently laying around the apartment, but it turned out to be an entertaining read. Enjoy learning about the misery of others? Want justification why the big shots on wall street were paid exorbitant amounts of money? Need insights on how to get the big payday straight out of B school? Then this book is for you. After a quick read, you will get the answers to all those questions and much much more. Warning: if you're an aspiring banker, the visceral dose of reality will probably make you reconsider.


"World best seller", "griping thriller", after hearing all the accolades, I had to read this. The Milpitas library generously provided me with 13 CD's worth of listening fun to supplement my otherwise mundane daily commute, and I delved in to the action packed novel. Surprisingly, I wasn't as intrigued by the action as I thought I would be. But as I got deeper and deeper into the book, Dan Brown piqued my interests with stories of Jesus and the Bible, etymology of many Christian terms, and biography of numerous historical figures. By the later chapters, I couldn't wait for the narrator and actually finished book with the print version. The book was meticulously researched, carefully plotted, and stimulatingly relevant. However, the romance in the novel was poorly and cheesily portrayed and the voice of the French women Sophie Neveu should not have been read by an American man.