booknewb

TL;DR: A mythical genie/life coach appears when six magical chopsticks are broken; Johnny learns six lessons about career and work Chanced upon this at a Book Sale. I know Dan Pink usually writes Business Books, and I've seen this listed as one of his works. So my eyes lit up a small bit when I saw this displayed at one of the bookstore's shelves. This was... strange. Manga and Business Books have not really been done. The idea is intriguing. I imagine, had this tipped, it would have invented its own category. But it's probably not its time yet.

TL;DR: 12 Rules to improve life based on mythologies, philosophy, psychology, science and religion. Jordan Peterson is a controversial figure. Maybe because of the rhetoric different groups are interpreting as attacks. And maybe that's simply the purpose of a discussion. It seems he's become a voice, where none used to be around. Like a forest with burnt wood, and the first spark creates a ripple that lights up the area.  This book is a good read. Stripped of all the arguments, it's basically like a self-help/personal development book. What makes it different from what one can usually read is it pulls from different sources, The Bible, Fairy Tales, Greek Mythology, Lessons from World War II, essentially from Myths, History, Psychology, Religion etc.

TL;DR: Chuck Palahniuk compiles a collection of true stories.  In one of the last stories, Chuck Palahniuk writes:  I'm sorry if this all seems a little rushed and desperate.  It is. While this book doesn't seem desperate. It does feel a little rushed; like stories were cramped in folders and bounded as one material. 

TL;DR: Our tendencies that blind us from seeing the world as it is. Developing a Fact-based worldview allows us to see and think more clearly.  Trying not to be over-dramatic but this book is beautiful. Awesome is not the term. Beautiful. This is the kind of book I wish had written or have been part of in writing it. Anything that teaches me how to think clearly, how to see the world and know more of it while straying from being too academic sounding is beautiful.  Moving beyond the medium and to the content, It's probably my most eye-opening read this year. It seems common now in this genre that left to our own circuitry we default to our basic instincts. But it's unusual to hear that the world is not imploding. Bad things are still happening, but many  things have been or is getting better.

TL;DR: Seiji Ozawa and Haruki Murakami talk about music and writing. A book may be the wrong medium for this. I wish this was a podcast or a series of podcast episodes.  The times when they were talking about rhythm and tones, and the subtle differences in performances;  I feel like those would be better represented in audio. Nevertheless,   It is great to even be able to read the two master's conversations. 

TL;DR: You make snap decisions all the time. It can be biased so learn how to affect it. It begins with what Gladwell calls a "thin slice". It is a small sample size of a moment or moments. It is often indirect or emotional. ie. viewing a person's room or his bookshelf, a couple's 15 minute talk about mundane things, a doctor's interaction and not necessarily his diagnosis. 

TL;DR: To stay in Power as a Prince, you must be sly defensively, and offer fear offensively. You must play a certain way, have the right army and allies, and have the right character and behavior. It is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares, and a lion to terrify the wolves. This is terrible. Terrible in a stomach churning way. Hence, the term "Machiavellian".

Antifragile, is like if the stoics had a 21st century background in risk, volatility and randomness.

Person A rose to success because he/she was really good. The best. The basic premise of success seems straightforward. It is not. It may seem like a person had an innate ability that’s why he/she stood out. It isn’t. Circumstances, when and where, culture, what the parents did for a living mattered to the story of Person A’s success. Gladwell splits this book into Opportunity and Legacy. I guess he split this in the message that success came from circumstances and from the environment one came from. It is more non-fiction than a self-help book. It doesn’t tell you directly how to be successful. It tells you how some of the prominent people now became successful. It appears more anecdotal than scientific. It is the perspective of a writer/storyteller first. It will almost be a decade upon release of this book. Much has been made in the science of hard work since then. Works like Angela Duckworth, K. Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck etc. Some of which would have related to what Glad...

It is hard to understand and absorb. Let alone mentally process it, for an amateur like myself, with very little idea of the topic.  What I got is our current models of predicting and making sense of randomness needs an upgrade: We underestimate Black Swans. A Black Swan is an event with three properties. It is unpredictable, of very high consequence and can be rationalized afterwards. In the book, Taleb writes of two worlds: Mediocristan and Extremistan. One land of Averages and one of Extremes. Black Swans are produced in Extremistan. He goes on to argue the over-reliance on the Gaussian Bell Curve, which functions well on Mediocristan. However reality is much closer to Extremistan and more Mandelbrotian. Again, very hard to process, especially on the nitty gritty details of the topics. Some of the much easier to absorb texts. Taleb advises. "Be a fool in the right places. Avoid unnecessary dependence on large scale harmful predictions. Avoid the big subject...

David and Goliath is about how the seemingly disadvantaged, small people or underdogs, triumph over big enemies.  A couple items: Sometimes the disadvantages are not what they seem, they are what makes the game different and strategic. And inversely, sometimes what seems like an advantage can become a stumbling block. Sometimes, the things that are out of our control, that which makes us different are the ones that push us to grow through it. Like dyslexia, a torn family and/or race issues. The last is that power is not what it seems. Power can be miscalculated.  One that stood out and was excruciatingly painful to read, was the story of the doctor who treated leukemia. ________________________________________________________________________ Tipping Point.  I've forgotten a lot about Tipping Point since I've read it last year. I only thought of including it since I read a Malcolm Gladwell book again. From what I remember it's a collection...