Book Title: The Accidental Engineers: Toppers Excuse
Author: Pradeep Chhabra
Format: Kindle

Book Title:
The title of the book ‘ The Accidental Engineers: Toppers Excuse ‘ is fascinating and thoughtful

Book Cover:
The cover image of the book is a technical drawing of a room that usually the Engineers draw with some figurines. The cover image aptly suits the title!

Inside the book:
This book is a collection of many memories but also teaches many important life lessons that are to be tasted, experienced, and enjoyed.

 My review:
Generally in the non-fiction genre, some books make you think. Sometimes there will be books that make you experience human feelings. But, books like this are not so common which tickle your nostalgia, make you re-live the memories, laugh, sigh, grin and finally thank everything and everyone that made you what you are now. The 42 chapters are just beautifully presented.

This book, ‘ The Accidental Engineers: Toppers Excuse ‘ is such which made me re-live the yesteryears of my Engineering college and work life. Every chapter was a memory that I embraced with lots of affection and emotion. There are some layers in our minds that are never unveiled and when we plan to do it later in life, we tend to forget it in the busy hustle-bustle. Books like this help us unveil, think, and implement the procrastinated things whatever maybe with more poise and grace.

This book is as entertaining and funny as serious it is. On one side it explains the difficulties on the same page it gives us witty liners. It is so uncommon that I underline sentences in every chapter. This book made me do the task of underlining many sentences. Few lines that I loved, laughed and thought is:

*How domesticated our knowledge of the world was, is just a pity.
* We dated without Tinder. We took rides without UBER. We got jobs without LinkedIn. We found places without Google Maps. We found answers without Google. Wt took photos without Instagram. We made friends without Facebook. We were always face to face and not on Face Time.
*Choosing a Chinese meal in a Biryani restaurant and that too in Hyderabad!!!
*We are yet to locate the best use of any of Pythagoras, hypotenuse, and matrices on which we spent hours together.
* Front benchers were always …………………..something exceedingly well is happening in the class.

and many more lines like this.

What I like:
1. The language, the font, and the indentation of every chapter.
2. An opening quote to the chapter gives an insight into the details in the chapter and a title to every chapter gives a gist. An ending ‘keynote’ to every chapter is moral that the author wants to convey through the book. This is a very unique and attractive feature of the book.

What I didn’t like:
Some books are meant to be read at a pace and absorb it into the mind. These books will definitely have a lasting impression. This is one of the books and hence here is nothing to dislike.

The only concern was the usage of the word ‘thru’ instead of through.

Narration:
Every chapter starts with the phrase ‘ We belong to the ‘ which is a very intelligently used phrase. Here, I could sense the author is pointing towards a set of people who will instantly relate themselves to the details in every paragraph, and at the same time, it is also like explaining the new generation people the things of past!

Be it about a telephone or a letter or TV or anything in life back when the author was in his prime age of learning and experimenting. When the chapter was talking about Engineering life and early days of employment in a Corporate company I was able to see myself in the narrator’s shoes. And, when the author was explaining things that belong to my childhood and teenage, I was seeing my father who belongs to the same age group as the author. It was indeed a delightful experience.

Language & Grammar:
A very simple language with carefully used vocabulary is observed in the book. Every sentence is very neatly presented. The syntax and semantics of the language construct in every chapter is suitable to the reader of all ages. Because it is a non-fiction that is based on reality, there is a huge scope to take literary liberty and use Gen-X’s jargon to make the book look more attractive. But, I thank Author Pradeep Chhabra for not having to take the liberty.

My Final Verdict:
Accidentally nostalgic and incidentally interesting!

Book Title: 4/5
Book Cover: 4/5
Inside the book: 4/5
Narration: 4/5
Language & Grammar: 4/5
Final Rating: 4/5