Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Summer Project: Pattanaik's Business Sutra

I'm excited about starting a summer note-taking project for Devdutt Pattanaik's wonderful book Business Sutra. I'm sure that quite a few students would be interested in reading this book for class, but it is a big book, so I want to write up notes, section by section, in order to help students have a good sense of momentum as they read the book for perhaps as many as 6 weeks.


In fact, this book really would make a perfect book choice for the second half of the semester: during weeks 2-7 everybody is getting an introduction to the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and then for the free choice reading in weeks 9-14, Pattanaik's book could provide a wonderfully modern perspective on ancient stories from those two epics along with other stories from Indian mythology.

So, I've written up a 6-week outline of the book which can be used to navigate the Kindle edition of the book and/or the Audible.com audiobook. Both are very affordable: around $10 for the Kindle, and around $10 for the audiobook. That's a pretty good deal for 6 weeks' worth of reading! I'll be filling in the outline with notes and links as the summer goes along; my goal is to spread my reading out over 6 weeks, just like students would be doing for class, so that I can get a sense of what that pace is like. Here is the outline: Overview: Pattanaik. Business Sutra.

If you are reading the audiobook, I'd strongly suggest getting the Kindle too so that you can enjoy Devdutt Pattanaik's marvelous illustrations. The book is full of his drawings, and they really add to the experience of reading the book.


So, this will be my "Week 1" for the book, Week 2 starting June 20, Week 3 June 27, Week 4 July 4, Week 5 July 11, and then Week 6 starting on July 18, so I'll finish the book by July 25. Perfect timing since I'll be out of town again in early August.

Would anybody else like to join in? I'll use #SummerBizSutra at Twitter to share my blog posts with notes and ideas about how to use the book for my class. :-)

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