Posted: February 20th, 2007 | Author: Alex | Filed under: book | No Comments »
Peter B. Kyne‘s The Go-Getter has the subtitle The Classic Story That Tells You How to Be One. The hardcover version has less than 100 pages, is fairly straightforward and can be read in a single sitting, say during a plane flight.
Highly motivational, the story harbors valuable success lessons. The full text is available at project Guttenberg.
By way of storytelling it is shown, how an individual with strong convictions and a Go-Getter attitude manages to solve situations that are deliberately constrained by outside forces. The afterword of the book provides a brief analysis of the story to show lessons and describe what it takes – according to the author – to be a Go-Getter.
Short, sweet, lots of good advice.
Posted: February 16th, 2007 | Author: Alex | Filed under: book | 2 Comments »
Orscon Scott Card. Classic, fantastically, entertaining science fiction page turner. Childhood angst. The potential end of the world. Destruction of an aliean race. Politics. The power of focus. Battle games. Psychology. Bullies. Friendship.
Again: Power of focus and dedication to a single purpose. That was the part that impressed me most of the story. Turning a child (Ender) into a millitary leader, by removing any and all distractions and having him concentrate on only his ultimate goal and nothing else.
Studies and practice.
Notably: Not necessarily happiness (most characters in the book are likely not happy at all during most of the story), but definitely dedication to a goal. The story is not a happy one, albeit a (mostly) happy ending.
Definitely a good read. Though maybe not really a friend of sequels, I am curious if the followups are at least comparably entertaining…
Posted: January 14th, 2007 | Author: Alex | Filed under: book | No Comments »
Letter to a Christian Nation is Sam Harris‘ followup to his first book The End of Faith.
In it, he formulates an open response to feedback he received by readers of the first book. Written as a letter to a Christian (but you can to some degree substitute other forms of dogma or faith), he once more takes away the taboo of voicing critical questions against religious beliefs.
Once more, he asks strong questions.
I wonder if he is predominantly preaching to the choir here though. To some degree, probably. No doubt, there will be other readers, who will once again take offense. Some of them will likely once again let him know how much or little they appreciate his attitude.
The greater potential lies somewhere else though. People discovering new and important questions for themselves. Deeper looks at behavioral patterns. Increased awareness of intellectual honesty. Maybe a new openness for discussion.
The willingness to discussing or even just listening to opposing opinion is an absolute requirement for a religious person reading this book. You might find this offensive, comparable to The End of Faith or Dawkins’ The God Delusion.
Posted: January 6th, 2007 | Author: Alex | Filed under: book | No Comments »
I recently finished Daniel Gilbert‘s Stumbling on Happiness.
Much less about giving answers on how to be happy and more about understanding our methods of making decisions and predicting how we will enjoy today’s decisions in the future, this really is as much popular psychology as it shows applications of critical thinking.
Happiness is likely something that most people strive for, consciously or not. It appears then that understanding of oneself and understanding (and actively questioning) how to achieve happiness (or really other goals, for that matter) should be high on people’s agenda.
Surely, everyone will sit down in introspection at some point to think about what it is that they need to provide them with happiness. More often than not, of course this pursuit of happiness happens much more on the fly, too. This books presents interesting thoughts on how we make our decisions in this regard – and how we tend to be wrong about them.
Highly recommended.