Specific Communication Skills
Vocabulary
Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis (https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B077QND5YK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0)
This is a good book to improve your vocabulary, one chapter at a time.
Grammar, Reading, and Written English
Better English by Norman Lewis (https://www.amazon.in/Better-English-Norman-Lewis/dp/8183072526/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Better+english&qid=1600782661&sr=8-1)
Grammar books are boring. The above is an exception.
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (https://www.amazon.in/s?k=How+to+read+a+book&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 )
The Lively Art of Writing: Words, Sentences, Style and Technique — an Essential Guide to One of Today’s Most Necessary Skills by Lucile Vaughan Payne
Presentation Skills
Here is a great video on YouTube by the famous AI pioneer, Henry Patrick Winston. It contains timeless tips on making clear and impactful presentations
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY)
Reading for Pleasure
Reading is the best way of improving your English skills. Here are a few short stories and classic novels that you can enjoy.
Short Stories
Three short stories as appetizers:
1) The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Ursula LeGuin
Short story with a beautiful description of a utopian society and the dark secret that lies beneath.
Available online at: https://sites.asiasociety.org/asia21summit/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/3.-Le-Guin-Ursula-The-Ones-Who-Walk-Away-From-Omelas.pdf
If you like it, read LeGuin’s sci-fi novels “The Dispossessed” and/or “The Left Hand of Darkness”
2) The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A difficult to categorize story, but a beautiful example of the work of a world-class writer.
Available online at: https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/CreativeWriting/423/MarquezHandsomestDrownedMan.htm
3) The Landlady – Roald Dahl
A macabre murder mystery by the writer of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”
Available online at: https://www.npsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib04/NJ01001216/Centricity/Domain/564/Landlady.pdf
You can access other short stories from here.
https://americanliterature.com/short-stories
Books
A dozen classic novels, in order of publication date. Novels become classics with good reason. They are timeless and well worth your effort. If you want to be “well-read”, you must check out a few of these.
1) Emma by Jane Austen (1816)
A bright and fun read. Remains popular 200 years later.
2) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
The gothic masterpiece of Victorian England
3) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
A brilliant and complex story. Since you are engineers, you might want to read “The Annotated Alice” by Martin Gardner (who used to write the column “Mathematical Games” in the Scientific American). Gardner’s footnotes open up an entirely different layer of the book.
4) Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)
A comic tour de force.
If you like it, pick up some books by P.G. Wodehouse. They are lol.
5) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
A brilliant moral tale. Would you make a pact with the devil if it kept you forever young?
If you want something less heavy, read Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. Funny and full of one-line zingers.
6) The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)
A story of a pet dog’s return to nature. Great storytelling.
7) The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
A story of excess set in the Roaring Twenties in the U.S. Considered by many to be one of the greatest novels ever written.
8) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1929)
A thriller with a classic hard-boiled detective.
If you enjoy this, check out Raymond Chandler’s books. If you like mysteries, try Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie writes very well too.
9) Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)
A compelling story about near-term dystopia that gave us the famous phrase “Big Brother is Watching You”. Incredibly prescient.
10) The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)
The classic story of teenage rebellion
11) Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
One reviewer describes it as suchL “Beloved is one of the greatest novels ever written – in any language or culture, any genre or generation, any time or clime.”
12) Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishuguro (1989)
A beautiful and sensitive upstairs-downstairs story.
Three books by Indian (or Indian-origin) writers:
1) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993)
A huge tome, but every page is a delight to read. You will enjoy it enormously and get a good history lesson in the process.
2) A Fine Balance by Rohington Mistry (1995)
A beautifully written, achingly painful story that will resonate deeply.
3) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997)
There are good reasons why the book was such a sensation when it was published.
Everyday Reading
It is important to read newspapers to be aware of what is happening in the world and to be able to speak meaningfully about important events and issues. Here is a list of websites that could be useful.
Newspapers and Other Influential Websites
New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/)
The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/)
The Indian Express (https://indianexpress.com/)
The Telegraph Online (https://www.telegraphindia.com/)
The Caravan (https://caravanmagazine.in/)
MIT Technology Review (https://www.technologyreview.com/)
Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/)