How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Beautiful writing and clever conceits

Would you listen to How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia again? Why?

This is an amazing book from an incredible writer. Beautiful imagery. Hamid captures in a subtle reference what other writers spend pages trying to say. I loved this book.

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The title is misleading, I loved this quick read.

I loved this book, which has a sensationalist misleading title. You'd think it was a business book. Really, it's a well crafted "first person" fiction book.

It's the human story of a boy starting in a slum in India, struggling with the challenges of achievement, love, conflict and death.

The author writes the book as if you are the lead character, giving it a very unique quality that I've never experienced in a book before.

This book evoked an emotional response from me on more than one occasion, by the end I was tearing up...not out of sadness though.

It made me laugh out loud a few times.

Highly recommend it. You can finish it in a weekend.

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Just Didn't Grab Me

As its title suggests, this book works within the frame of a self help or "how to" book. Each chapter is headed with a rule (e.g., "Don't Fall in Love"), and the narrator uses imperatives, addressed to "you," as is typical of the genre. One of the effects of addressing the reader in this manner is to deliberately distance the speaker from the subject of his story, but this is clearly a very personal story of a man rising from abject poverty to wealth and of a woman (known only as "the pretty girl" well into her fifties) whose life intersects with his. So how does one become filthy rich in rising Asia? Through one form of corruption or another: hustling, stealing, prostituting, threatening, payback, demeaning, disloyalty, submission to those even more corrupt than oneself, etc. It's a life shadowed by sadness and anxiety, even when one's efforts succeed. Hamid gives us keen insights into life in "rising Asia" (no exact location or even a country is ever named), a view that contrasts with recent western paranoia about those nations supposedly poised to take over the world's economy. It's a story about the lengths to which desperation drives human beings in an increasingly materialistic world, and about the discovery, in the end, of what is most important to our lives.

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Nothing here to capture attention

I listened to this book after Tim Ferris recommended it on his podcast. The story is bland with no real substance to it. There is no emotional attachment to be had with the characters and no plot to follow. Thankfully it is a short book.

The narration matched the story... bland. The author/narrator just drones on with no emotion. I'm sure this was the intended method, trying to say something about the bland story through the bland narration style. This, however, left me bored and unengaged.

AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

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Recommended

Concentrated goodness. A uncommon and sublime combination of vagueness and clarity in a convenient morsel.

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Blown away

Blown away by where the author took me and all the while injecting the true grit of life in the most elegant way.

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I REALLY wanted to love this

I REALLY wanted to love this book and at times I really did ... but other times, not so much.
The characters were interesting, to a point and then I would get bored hearing about ‘the boss’ or ‘the pretty girl’ and I’d want the characters developed more.
The narration was very good and the premise ... meh. First he tells you self-help books really help the author more than anyone else, so I thought about stopping right there. If it wasn’t for my book club I probably would have. I’m never getting rich is Rising Asia. And I’m really not sure he did either.

Can't get it out of my head

I listened to this book while travelling in Southern Asia. The characters and feelings are spot on. It was occasionally uncomfortable to listen to, but I can't get it out of my head three weeks after finishing. I love the length as well. Well worth a listen.

Another spectacular novel

One of my favorite authors uses the format to not only tell a story, but to transport us along a lifetime

A Unique Story Elevated by the Audiobook Medium

Really enjoyed how the second person narrative told in audiobook format brought me into a deeper level of empathy to the protagonist.