I am a big mind map fan. I have tried using it in my work as well as personal tasks and it works exceptionally well in all cases. Especially, for making meeting notes, registering and elaborating an idea, sending a status update, making a trip plan, researching for an article and so on., Whether you use paper / pen or computer / software, mind maps are great tools that make sure all corners of you brain are activated when thinking about something in a focussed manner.

Mind maps were the cration of Tony Buzan, world famous thinker, writer and speaker. Recently I read a book by Dilip Mukerjea, Director of Buzan Centre, Singapore, which covered the art and science of Mind mapping very well. This book is titled ‘Building Brain Power: Turning Grey Matter into Gold‘ (Published By Westland, 320 Pages, Price: Rs 750/-)

Even tho’ the book title talks about brain power, it mainly focuses on Mind Mapping (after all, Author Dilip Mukerjea is supposed to be one of the TOP Mind mappers in the world!) and the good news is, it starts in the very basics, start with a central theme picture, draw a single branch, write a keyword, use colors etc., It can be used by anyone (as another book by Dilip Mukerjea says “Age 5 to 105″).

In addition to mind mapping, this book also covers various aspects about brain, starting from the anatomy, to history, to techniques and more. Every section has colorful pictures (Hence, the high price and wonderful puzzles / games for us to relax, so that it doesn’t become a boring text book read.

My favorite section in this book is the chapter of lists. Author picks important topics on Brain power (Memory, Creativity, Rading etc.,) and gives 10 action points on each. These act as a good check list for us to use what we have learnt from this book.

Now, for the negatives. This book is very well produced with amazing layout, you will never be tired of reading boring text page after page. But at the same time, the text sometimes gets very long, very very long. So I had to skip few parts to get to the portion I was interested in.

Means, this is not a book you can read from page 1 to last. Instead, it is like a mix of a reference book, an instructiin manual and a workbook. depending on what you are looking for, you may want to jump chapters and extract best value out of it.

Most important, don’t miss out on the Mind Maps the author has provided, for each chapter / subtitle, they cover the concepts neatly in a single page and can act as a quick cheat sheet when you want to review that particular portion alone. I expected a list of all mind maps in the front or back of the book for quick reference, but that was missing.

Overall, a good book, but slightly expensive for Indian market. Would be great if the publisher releases a condensed version (slimmer, easy to hold / read for children, easy to afford for parents) for students, who will benefit the most from this book.

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N. Chokkan …

08 12 2011

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