How We Decide

Even though there were many instances in reading where I felt I was re-reading something I learned from Psychology 101, or from the books "Blink" or "Paradox of Choice", I really enjoyed this book. It deals with goes on inside the brain in a simple and cutting edge sort of way. Mostly a collection of case studies delivered rather well by Jonah Lehrer, a Rhodes Scholar, this book should further convince most people of the relevance to the field of neuroscience.

Some of the stories go through the step by step process of the brains thinking patterns and how it plays out in everyday choices. It helps to explain a lot of the different impulses we experience when seeing something cool to buy like a nice car, house or a pair of shoes. The rush of euphoria we feel when we see something we want is usually negated with with a counteracting feeling of rationality when we cannot afford it. However, credit cards, peer influence, flashing lights, the idea of something being 'on sale' all serve to mask these feelings of control, and we end up making the purchase...

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

I try not to make boring entries of each book I have read recently, but its still fun to self indulge in a bit of that. This book fascinated me almost instantaneously due at least in part to my University BYU-Idaho (almost anyone reading this blog already knows this of course) recieving Dean of Harvard Business School Kim Clark as University President in 2005. I was increasingly fascinated by the school (Business school and every other school attached to the Harvard name) and materialized itself more and more as a real institution as I saw the personification of the qualities it represented in Kim Clark during many meetings and events I attended on campus.

The concept the title is demonstrative enough--- HBS students are at the top end of the curve, so even the lowest performers (bottom 25th percentile) are far ahead of nearly all students at other business schools. The book is focused on what its like for a non-business/journalist to go struggle through 2 years of rigourous business training in classes with image crazed over achievers.

finally finished it

I got a book called Team of Rivals-- about the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln- for Christmas. I just barely finished it. Written for more of a broad audience (ex: no footnotes on the pages) in a very comprehendable voice. It focused on the inside story of Washington D.C and more specifically the inner workings of Lincoln's cabinet during the Civil War.

Nearly everyone in Lincoln's cabinet was very intelligent, had studied law and had experienced tremendous amount of loss during their lifetime. The author paints Lincoln almost as a miracle worker in getting the most out of the people he appointed to assist him in cabinet positions.

On the final page it summarized Lincoln's ambition to achieve based on his disbelief in an afterlife and his desire to accomplish something his fellow men could remember him by.

Although it generally doesn't go very deep, there is a lot of information there to really digest and internalize to understand the timeframe and thought process of the President and Cabinet. It really makes life in Washington seem pretty swell.

Some books I read last year (featuring mini reviews!)

These are some of the best books I read last year. I didn't get to nearly all the books I wanted to. But I did get to read several especially good books. (note: I have blogged previously about some of these, so I keep it brief here).

Perhaps since we are still sort of in the season I could rate these books as library card or amazon card worthy?

Freakonomics- Read it mostly on the subway. Easy to grasp and a fast read. It includes quite a bit of economic and social commentary that is good fuel for thought and conversation. I conversed with I think 5+ people about what the books states about the relationship between Roe V. Wade and crime. The book seems to be part of modern econ-political mantra these days.

Rats- Like the first book its a freaky title, but if you've lived in New York (or many other cities) you have probably experienced what led this author to write this book, seeing rats in all over alleys and subways. In interesting fashion this book describes the history of the struggle and clash cities have fought with our crawling fury little foes. Its mostly interesting, occacionally gross and like good non-fiction good come away with some off the wall facts that come in handy when you are talking about, say poison gasses used in Korea in World War II, seriously it happened to me.

P.S--I lived in NY less than a short block from where the author observed rats for a year as part of his research, crazy huh.

The Brother Karamazov- This is 900 pages of some of the deepest stuff I have ever touched. First 100 pages were not too captivating but it really had me soon after. It follows a pattern of story-philosophy-story-more philosophy/social commentary-story. The author explores some of the deepest human struggles with questions about religion, government, law and social mores. Very deep, very fascinating and worth the unending paragraphs and words that fill up the entire page.

Icon- This books takes you through the ride that is the life of Steve Jobs. Intertwined heavily is his life with the respective lives of the companies he helped build (Apple, Next, Pixar) and later reinvent. Not too techie and written so anybody interested in Apple, Business, Entreprenuerism or even just entertainment would really enjoy it. Insightful and motivating

The Innovator's Dilemma- This book is just over 10 years old now, and is still higihly regarded as an authority on why most companies (not just tech companies) succeed for a time and then fail. Not all of the companies discussed (in Harvard Business School's very Case Study Method style of course!) are equally interesting, but the business insights reading this gave me were invaluable. It seems like my few years of business study and experience were sort of pieced together as I read this (Hooray now I can strategize with the corporate Big Whigs), and it just might for you too... Maybe thats a sappy endorsement.

Benefits of Contrarianism--Reading?

There are major disadvantages of constantly going against the grain. It may just be a reluctance to accept the outcomes of decisions others have made if you don't feel personally involved in the decision or recognized/respected by those who made the decision.
Or maybe you just want to go explore where other have not or will not go. You can miss out on a lot by venturing off, working in the small startup opposed to the fortune 500 company.
But really, I love how when I am around people who don't read, I read more. When I am around other people read, a read a little less, because I just end up talking to the people. Interesting books probably make interesting people-- So if you like being the contrarian and want to read more-- surround yourself with people who hardly read, lonely- but interesting--

How much do we really read?

Fascinating short article on a survey of how much we read. One fourth of the people hadn't read a book in the past year, wow. Over the past 12 months I have only read 6-7 books, which puts me in the average of people who had read something (avg. 7). The demographics were interesting as also was placement of fault for people not reading; T.V, internet and movies. Plus last year there were 3.1 Billion books sold, just enough for all of us on the planet to share with a friend, chuckle.

A Biography of Presidential Repore

Interestingly enough none of Thedore Roosevelt's close friends and associates actually called him "T.R" mainly the public and other associations of this nature. And also the toy dolls called "Teddy Bear" grew out of a cartoonists impressions of T.R on a bear hunting trip, with the bear given a smily friendly face, which sooner thereafter inspired a toy maker. Amazing huh?

The author Edmund Morris wrote this book (he also did the authorized biography of Ronald Reagan, "Dutch). He is a gifted scholar born in Nairobi with a precise skill with language and vocabulary (a great book to improve your vocab and thinking skills).


Here are some highlights and lessons I picked up:

Arguably the Best Political Mind to sit in the White House: Whether it was carefully convincing certain cabinet members to stay, avoiding a near war with Germany in absolute secrecy from the public, arbitrating between the mine owners and miners in an economy crippling strike, orchestrating the political and military pieces for Panama to secede from Columbia and in turn purchase the land for the Canal-- T.R consistently astonished even his harshesed critics and kept most of the people quite pleased with the outcomes of major initiatives. He read the public as well as individuals accurately and knew how to influence (& occasionally manipulate) the parties to achieve the desired results.

Renewal through Vacations: It seemed like every few weeks or months Teddy needed to get out of Washington to hunt some bears in Colorado or head to his summer home on Long Island or take a horse ride in the countryside around DC. It appears that while being President he still made ample time to get out of Washington and into the woods for hunting or to visit people small towns on the western frontier where he was hugely popular. He found a gifted and famous scientist to accompany him in Yosemite Valley for four days. His love for the outdoors was fuel to expand much of the then existing national park system closer to what we have today.

Read Read Read: After he had been President for about a year the President of Columbia University asked for a list of some of the books he had read during his presidency. He sent back about a page worth of titles of European and World History, Greek Philosophy, various works of poetry contemporary and old, and many other titles on a variety of subjects with an apparent focus on history, philosphy and literature. How he made time to for all this as President is mystery to myself, maybe the vacationing and time in the rail cars helped.

These are just a few lessons I gleaned. The book never really gets too dry, Teddy is so focused on power and always on the go that his presidency never really gets boring. All the inside information and inner working of the White house with regards to International policy may cause a reader to 're-think' some of our country's involvement with other countries.

Only 405 pages to go!

Just finished the prologue of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It's about essentially why some societies conquered others- very summarized that is. I still am not sure what it will be like. But so far it has got me thinking, about a lot of things derived from his main thesis.

Freakonomics

I am just over half way through the Book Freakonomics, I read in on the subway trains mostly now. It's at times very interesting, mainly from the story telling with real numbers and statistics to back up what you observe and could really only just speculate beyond, such as teachers cheating and the financial structure a crack dealing gang. If you're in to informationally rich stories and particularly like the subversive nature of getting the real facts, then you would enjoy this book.