V DRozario | Shantaram, The 4-Hour Workweek and Vagabonding

If you don’t know my next guest, then I’d like to introduce you to my wife V, short for V DRozario.

v drozario loves books

V liked to read books as a kid. Now she really enjoys listening to audio books.

In this episode V shares with us her 5 favorite books because well, she got really excited and wanted to share with us two more of her favorites.  Of course I couldn’t say no.  I hope you enjoy this episode.

It really impacted the way I was living, it changed my life, it taught me a number of many great lessons.” – V D’Rozario

V DRozario’s Three Favorite Books

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

“It was an amazing book. I couldn’t put it down.

It all started in Australia, and I’m Australian, then it ended in India, and I’m part Indian. I still haven’t visited India so this made me want to go to India even more. There’s so many great things about this book. I loved it.”

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

“He’s such a super geek and he changed my thoughts and a lot of misconceptions and myths I had about a number of things.

It really impacted the way I was living, it changed my life, it taught me a number of many great lessons.”

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

“I think it’s very close to how I live, my lifestyle. It’s all about living a life of long term travel. It distinguishes the difference between being a tourist and a traveller and so many other great little facts, tips, travelling stories and quotes from other long term travellers.

It’s a really really inspirational book.”

Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson

“He’s such a badass, he’s fearless and he lives a life of adventure and love.

I just want to swim to Necker Island to have a pina colada with him. 

One day.”

The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun

“The whole book is so powerful, the message and the way he’s thinking.

He’s just a confident guy with big dreams and he did everything in his power to get what he wanted. I’m all about non-profits and it inspired me to think big and do what I want to do.”

I Hope These Notes on Shantaram, The 4-Hour Workweek, Vagabonding, Losing my Virginity and The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by signing up as a new member with Audible through this link.

v drozario loves water too

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

  2. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

  3. Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

  4. Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson

  5. The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun

Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
V DRozario | Shantaram, The 4-Hour Workweek and Vagabonding
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Jonah Luke | Rework, A Fraction of the Whole and Calvin and Hobbes

Jonah Luke loves summer in Portland, Oregon. He’s a talented musician and a podcast producer for Freedom Podcasting.

Jonah Luke Loves Books

Jonah’s 3 favourite books were a great combination. They go from a really detailed orientated business type book to adventure to a comic series.

“They’re all completely different books.” – Jonah Luke

Jonah Luke’s Three Favorite Books

Rework by Jason Fried

“The founders of 37 signals and they started as a web design company and they basically created these products for there internal use that they ended up selling to the public.

It’s a quick read on changing the way that you work or you start up a business, lots of little awesome tips.

One of my favorites is the stand up meetings. Everybody hates meetings so you do a meeting where nobody gets to sit down. You do the meeting with everyone standing up and you can get a lot done pretty fast.”

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

“It’s kind of an awesome adventure family story. It’s about a father and son in a cronical through there lives so it has a big span of time and it takes you through Europe and Australia.

It’s just a really really good novel.”

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

“They have a lot of collections now. They’re amazing as a kid but there also amazing as an adult.

They’re just profound the comics, they’re always of course really funny.

I feel like I can always just go back to a Calvin and Hobbs book and have a great time and come away thinking about how I want to live my life. Bill Waterson’s a genius.”

I Hope These Notes on Rework, A Fraction of the Whole and Calvin and Hobbes Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by signing up as a new member with Audible through this link.

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. Rework by Jason Fried

  2. A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

  3. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
Jonah Luke | Rework, A Fraction of the Whole and Calvin and Hobbes
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Ian Robinson | Shantaram, Anything you Want and Losing my Virginity

Hi. I’m Ian Robinson. Today, I’ve decided to do a solo round and share with you my very own Three Favorite Books.

ian robinson loves books

I thoroughly enjoy reading books and listening to audio books on Audible. I can’t get enough.

If you’re like me and are always looking for a great new book, join my monthly book list which I send out on the 22nd.

“It’s one of those great books where even when it’s all over you’re just like argh, you turn that page on that 700th page and you’re like, man, I wish this book wasn’t over.” – Ian Robinson

Ian Robinson’s Three Favorite Books

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

“I love this book. It’s about an Australian guy who gets addicted to heroin, gets thrown in prison , escapes prison through this really fantastic story and he goes off to India and many, many more adventures ensue after that.

The book has some really incredible insights, it’s really adventurous and it’s really really well written.”

The character development is awesome and if you get it on Audible, the person who does the voice acting on it is fantastic. It really adds sort of a level to it because there’s so many characters and there in Mombay and there’s a very diverse character collection. When I was reading the book I got confused, but the character actor in the Audible book makes it really really clear and vivid.”

Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

“It’s basically a business book where he talks about his companies, founding a company called CD Baby. He talked about the incremental growth of starting off just distributing his own cd to doing it for a few friends.

How the company grew and all the trials and tribulations that took him to having a 30 million dollar exit but the whole time he did it his own way which was really inspirational.”

Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson

“I think this book is fascinating.

It’s a lot of this tale about how Branson grew the Virgin company and the British airlines story was really fascinating.

It also goes into a lot of the really bizarre, crazy things that he did. Like his crossing oceans with hot air balloons. That is an amazing story. He’s did a lot of these things. It’s a really well written book, it’s fun to read and it also gives a lot of insights to leadership and the things that it took for him to get there.”

I Hope These Notes on Shantaram, Anything you Want and Losing my Virginity Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by signing up as a new member with Audible through this link.

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

  2. Anything you Want by Derek Sivers

  3. Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson

Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
Ian Robinson | Shantaram, Anything you Want and Losing my Virginity
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Lauren Robinson | Phantoms in the Brain, Jitterbug Perfume & Lovely Bones

Lauren Robinson is my big, little sister, she’s a superstar and a fantastic second grade teacher. As you can imagine she is a student of learning and reads alot of books.

“Tom Robbins is always a surprise when you read him, but the very first book I think is the craziest of all exposures.” – Lauren Robinson

Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran

“It’s a non-fiction by a really fantastic scientist. He writes about all these really interesting scientific papers researched by neuroscientists, that are helping us understand the human brain at a whole new level.

It combines storytelling but sounded like ghost stories and really adventurous journeys into the brain, with the science behind it and kind of neurological evidence of what is actually happening.”

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

“It was perfume and it followed love stories of different people across time, ages and travelling and forever youth and it just had this really great and powerful story.”

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

“I read it when we were in Costa Rica and I couldn’t even look around because I had to know the end of the story.

It just grabbed me. It was a murder story.

She’s just a brilliant writer who’s taken these personal struggles and really turned them into great literature.”

I Hope These Notes on Phantoms in the Brain, Jitterbug Perfume and Lovely Bones Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by singing up as a new member with Audible  through this link.

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V.S Ramachandran

  2. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

  3. Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
Lauren Robinson | Phantoms in the Brain, Jitterbug Perfume & Lovely Bones
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Leslie Robinson | East of Eden, The Crossing and Still Life with Woodpecker

Leslie Robinson is my other little sister who loves to read fiction. Among many other rockstar qualities she is a very well read and an insightful young lady.

Leslie Robinson Loves Books

Welcome to episode 3 of the Three Favorite Books podcast with Leslie Robinson.

“A whole bunch of books came to mind at first, but I narrowed it down to three.” – Leslie Robinson

Leslie Robinson’s Favorite Books

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

“It’s just a literary masterpiece. It’s about these two families and all these peoples relationships with each other aswell as themselves.

It’s set in California and it kind of gives you a good idea of different things that happened probably from the early 1900s to the mid 1900s.

It kind of mirrored the story of Caine and Able in the bible in some ways which was really interesting. It was just very layered and it had some of the best characters that I’ve ever read about.”

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

“The Crossing is part of a trilogy that weren’t originally written to all go together, but have similar themes.

“I started off reading All the Pretty Horses which I would easily include in my list of three favourite books.

I absolutely loved it. I loved the relationship between the United States and Mexico and just being able to cross these borders and all the differences but all the similarities.

So after that I decided to read The Crossing due to that because I knew that it was going to be similar. This one just had a very interesting story that I couldn’t pass up. ”

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

“It was a great example of amazing writing which Tom Robbins does. It was really entertaining and funny and usually I don’t like funny books, but this one was always making me laugh and always had these outrageous things going on, and I just couldn’t put it down.”

I Hope These Notes on East of Eden, The Crossing and Still Life with Woodpecker Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by signing up as a new member with Audible through this link.

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

  2. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

  3. Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
Leslie Robinson | East of Eden, The Crossing and Still Life with Woodpecker
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John Blomquist | 1Q84, Shantaram & The Complete Cosmicoms

As a student of writing and literature, John Blomquist has a unique perspective on books which might surprise you…

Not only is he passionate about exploring the world which the author creates, but also in understanding the world of the author. His interest in the art of literature drives him to pursue a greater understanding of books and suggest some some titles that you may not be accustomed to.

So thank you for joining me on the first episode of the Three Favorite Books podcast with a long time great friend of mine, John Blomquist.

“I sat there looking at all my books on the shelf trying to figure out what the best answer would be.” – John Blomquist

John Blomquist Favorite Books:

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

“His books border in this realm of reality and a fictional place. It shows the strangeness of the world we live in. They operate in a dream state.

You know when you’re in a dream, it feels normal when strange things happen?

When you wake up, you realize, “That was the weirdest thing ever?”

When you’re reading it, everything feels like it’s happening in the reality of the story.”

 Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

“The fact that, parts of this might be true. Whatever the case, the whole book can get your heart pumping at any moment.

I haven’t heard of anyone who hasn’t read the book who hasn’t loved the book.

It’s amazing. I fully recommend it.”

The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

“It’s not so much the book itself as much as it is the author…

His Cosmicomics are short stories. They are amazing surrealism. He sets these stories before the Big Bang. The names of the characters are names that you can’t pronounce. You could never read one of these stories aloud without sounding like a fool.

These characters don’t actually exist. They’re just celestial bodies in the ether watching the cosmos come together and planets form.

It’s really all about good science fiction. It touches on human nature and being fantastical and imaginative.”

I Hope These Notes on 1Q84, Shantaram and The Complete Cosmicoms Helped You in a Useful Way

You can get a free copy of this book by signing up as a new member with Audible through this link.

Purchase these books on Amazon:

  1. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
  2. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
  3. The Complete Cosmicoms by Italo Calvino
Three Favorite Books Podcast
Three Favorite Books Podcast
John Blomquist | 1Q84, Shantaram & The Complete Cosmicoms
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