Book Reviews

Takeaway: Right Brained creative thinking is the basis for the new economy (and you are less likely to have your job off-shored).

I like Daniel Pink.  His book Drive (Bookwi.se review) on how to motivate employees was very good.  I have watched videos of him speaking and in general like his style of Business Psychology books.

But I was not excited about this book. I almost stopped listening several times (and it is only just over 6 hours on audio).  I actually missed the last 30 minutes because of a problem with my audiobook player and I did not feel like downloading the file again.

Pink’s point I think is basically right.  In the past, left brain analytical thinking has been dominant in the business world.  But increasingly as the economy moves toward a knowledge economy, right brain thinking is more valued.  His first chapter summarizes the problem as Abundance, Automation and Asia.  We are no longer in an economy where we are after the basics to sustain life.  So we value creativity and design (abundance).  Computers are good at left brain thinking, so automation is increasingly able to do many of the routine or rule based work that was a staple of our work force.  Those activities that are more advanced that what computers can do, but  still able to be done from afar, are being shipped off to cheaper labor markets like India and China (Asia).

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Takeaway: There are pleasures and value in physical labor that should not be degraded.

The best line in Shop Class as Soulcraft is “Work is toilsome and necessarily serves someone else’s interest.  That’s why you get paid.”  That bit is wisdom is important.  Work is not designed to be the great fulfillment in life.  But work can be fulfilling.

This book as a whole has a very interesting point.  An the author, using his own very interesting work history, is a great example.  Crawford has worked as a mechanic (and currently works as a mechanic in his own shop), an electrician, the head of a Washington think tank, and a ‘knowledge worker’.  He has a PhD from University of Chicago but learn mechanics from the apprenticeship that is common of the physical trades.

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Note: This is an adult book. Discretion advised.

Primarily I read and review non-fiction books.  While I like to read fiction, fiction tells a story and its strength is its ability to allow you to see life through someone else’s eyes.

Radically different lives give you a view of a different world.  Several studies have shown that reading fiction helps to build empathy and actually by itself, helps to build interpersonal skills.

Fiction in the Christian world often has a couple problems.  One, it often is oriented toward ‘nice’ stories that end well, that show people that are too easily changed by the message of Christ or where there is not actually any real conflict in the book. So I rarely read fiction published by Christian publishing houses.  But second, there is a distrust of fiction in the Christian world that I find problematic.  That distrust seems to be rooted in the fiction of the tale.  There are Christians that are uncomfortable with stories as a means of conveying truth.

Kushiel’s Dart will not be mistaken for a Christian novel.  It is about a girl, sold into indentured servitude by her mother as a young child, raised to become a prostitute.  She becomes a courtesan to the wealthy, one that specializes in the darker sexual appetites.  This book is fairly explicit.  The sex is throughout the book.  Bi-sexuality, bondage and torture are described, the main character views her job as what might be called a temple prostitute, a way for others to reach out to their god.

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Takeaway: Explores the idea of whether a person can really change, and what it takes to motivate them if they can change.

I first heard about this book, as I do so many, from Books and Culture magazine. John Wilson, the editor, named it one of his personal books of the year and it was also discussed on the B&C podcast.

I was pushed into buying it when it dropped to just over $2.00 in kindle format (back up to normal price now).  What actually moved me to read it was a malaise with my standard non-fiction fare.  I just needed something different.

Once I started, I was hooked.  I finished the book in three days (pretty unusual for me since I usually read a half dozen books at a time.)

Identity Man is an anti-hero book.  I like the concept of anti-heros.  Or at least this version of anti-heros.  Those that are on the wrong side of the law most of the time, but have a real sense of honor, pride and understanding of the lines that they will not cross.  Usually I see this in spy fiction or in fantasy or superhero fiction.

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Summary: The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a wildly popular French novel in 2007 and was translated into English in 2008.  

The story takes place entirely in a well-to-do French apartment building in the center of Paris.  Told fromthe point of view of two main characters we meet Renee, the building’s concierge. Renee is a widow and a lover of Art. She’s an avid reader, loves films, paintings, music and Japanese culture.  But she takes great pains to keep her true self hidden from the rest of the world. To the residents of the apartment building, she’s the grumpy old lady who’s addicted to soap operas and her cat, Leo. Renee and her friend Manuela, a housekeeper, spend an hour every afternoon enjoying their tea and critiquing the apartment residents who are truly their inferiors in every way, except in material wealth.

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As I have enjoyed many books about dogs in the past such as The Art of Racing in the Rain, One Good Dog, and A Dog’s Purpose, I picked up this novel because I was ready for an easy listening experience after two marathon listens that I had just finished. At first, I was disappointed to find that this novel had the same narrator as another book that I did not enjoy, Merle’s Door. I had blamed the failure of the book in part to the narrator who seemed to be much like a know-it-all or something that was hard for me to put my finger on. I found, however, that the narrator suited this story much better and that perhaps I had been unfair in my review of Merle’s Door.

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I am way behind in my 2012 reading goals.  I am reading about the Trinity this year.  I started out with this book to read with some friends in a little informal email reading group.  Because we all graduated from Wheaton College and Ryken is the current president of Wheaton we though we would read this book together.

After 3 months we are only half way through (and probably won’t really finish).

This not a bad book, but there are several theological and editorial decisions that I disagree with and make it so that I would recommend this only as a supplemental book on the Trinity.  On the good side, it is only $1.99 for Kindle.

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