Negotiate Smart

I recently picked up a book from the library titled Negotiate Smart by Nicholas Reid Schaffzin. The 'About the Author' gives the credentials like this - "He (Nicholas) loves negotiating. He recently traded an old rag and a bag of dirt for a large island off the coast of Malta". He is also a Stanford and Columbia University graduate.

The book is about practical smartness - all deals we make in life (jobs, business, buying house or car, renting apartments) involve negotiation and if you are smart you can definitely get more bang for your buck. In a chapter titled "Prepare or Beware" it is mentioned that usually the person who has thoroughly thought through all the possible outcomes of deal and his reactions to them, is more likely to come out grinning.

On Reading

What I have been reading the past couple of months?

I. Books which I read completely:

1. Khalid Hosseini - The Kite Runner
2. V S Naipaul - In a Free State

II. Books which I picked up but left in between

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Memories of My Melancholy Whores
2. James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3. Joseph Conrad - The Heart of Darkness

III. Books which I am currently reading

1. Milan Kundera - Life is Elsewhere

IV. Books which I picked up but did not get time to go through

1. Mark Twain - The Diaries of Adam and Eve
2. Eva Hoffman - Lost in Translation