Brian's 2013 Book Log

[Brian.]

I've added a load of books to my swap list including Hotel K, The Black Path and The Blood Spilt.

 

Take a look if you fancy anything

 

http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/9216-brians-book-swap-shop/?p=336053

[Brian.]

The Procrastination Equation by Dr Piers Steel




Synopsis
For those who surf the Web instead of finishing overdue assignments, who always say diets start tomorrow, who stay up late watching TV to put off going to sleep, The Procrastination Equation explains why we do what we do — or in this case don't — and why in Western societies we're in the midst of an escalating procrastination epidemic.

Dr. Piers Steel takes on the myths and misunderstandings behind procrastination and motivation — showing us how procrastination affects our lives, health, careers and happiness and what we can do about it. With accessible prose and the benefits of new scientific research, he provides insight into why we procrastinate even though the result is that we are less happy, healthy, even wealthy. Who procrastinates and why? How many ways, big and small, do we procrastinate? How can we stop doing it? The reasons are part cultural, part psychological, part biological. And, with a million new ways to distract ourselves in the digitized world — all of which feed on our built-in impulsiveness — more of us are potentially damaging ourselves by putting things off. But Steel not only analyzes the factors that weigh us down but the things that motivate us — including understanding the value of procrastination.
(Taken from Goodreads)


My Thoughts

I seem to be struggling to get into any fiction at the moment so I have found myself dipping into bit of non-fiction on various subjects. Whilst waiting for an Opticians appointment the other day I went into the library to use up an hour and this book caught my eye. I thought that I would give it 30 minutes and if it interested me I would take it out. Well, it caught my attention and so I borrowed it with the hope that it would help improve my procrastination levels a bit.

 

Initially I found the book fascinating. This is down to that fact that the first sections of the book deal with the psychology behind why we procrastinate. It turns out that to some extent we are hard-wired to and that our ancestors were also guilty of it. The not so good news is that modern life makes it so much easier to procrastinate due to the myriad of distractions available to us

 

Dr Steel then introduces 3 characters who are different types of procrastinators and says that most of us will have traits of all 3 but will find 1 of these characters is more like us than the others. By carrying out a simple question and answer task a score indicates which one we fit most with. I turned out to a very time specific procrastinator (unless a task needs doing immediately I tend to put it off). This seems about right to me but I read all the information on all 3 types out of interest.

 

This is where the book starts to slide a bit in my opinion. A lot of the advice is duplicated and ranges from being fairly useful to really unhelpful. One of the things that he says is that people who procrastinate heavily have lower levels of fitness than those who don't. I could have told you that before reading the book. His solution to this is telling you to exercise more and eat a healthier diet. Procrastinators in general know what they should be doing but its getting the motivation to do it which is the hard part so this piece of advice is wasted.

 

There is some great advice however, and there are loads and loads of different pointers which I guess you could mix and match to suit your individual case. One piece of advice that I know works for me is to just start a task by agreeing to do the first part of it. For example if I knew I should go for a run but I didn't feel like it I would put my running gear on. By doing that first step the next step feels much more agreeable and I always ended up outside running.

 

A lot of the book is based on the assumption that you work in an office environment (9-5) and what to improve your career prospects. This is a particular bugbear of mine. Almost every book that I have read that could fall under the umbrella of 'self-help' or 'self-improvement' makes this assumption. Health and fitness books also tend to make the same assumption and as a result those who don't fit into this criteria can find the advice ill fitting.

 

From a personal stand point, there are 2 things which help kick my ass into action. Both are covered in this book but not in much depth and neither is developed upon. If you are still reading up to this point I will share my wisdom (or lack of) with you. For an entire week make a note of what you spend your time doing. I accounted for my time in 15 minute chunks and at the end of the week I ended up with 7 sheets of paper covered in data. Then I assigned everything I did into 1 of 3 categories; Essential (sleep, hygiene, etc), Useful (work, studying, etc) and Wasted (watching TV, Internet time, etc). Once I had added all the time spent doing these things up I was embarrassed by the amount of time I spent in the Wasted category. I am not a new person as a result of this experiment but it has made me far more aware if time I am wasting and revealed a few time leaks that I was unaware of.

 

The second of these is that to make changes in your life you need to change them gradually. If you want to eat healthily for example, there is little point in going from bad eating to perfect diet in an instant. Statistics show that you will keep this up for 3-5 days and then slip back into your old ways. A better approach is to slowly change your habits. It takes about 21 days for a habit to start forming so making very small changes one a week or fortnight is a much better approach. This makes the whole thing seem much more effortless and is an approach advocated by many high level sports coaches.

 

All in all I would say that this is a very interesting book but I doubt that many people will take the advice on board to the extent that this book thinks you will.

 

I hope my waffling hasn't sent anyone to sleep

 

2/5 (It was OK).

[Athena]

This book sounds interesting. I know quite a few people who procrastinate (in Dutch we call this a 'sog', 'studie ontwijkend gedrag', at the very least when related to studying). I don't procrastinate that much compared with them but it's still an interesting subject to read about. That said, some of those people are students rather than employees in a 9 to 5 office job, so I don't know how relevant the information might be.

[julie]

Brian

I hope the book helps your procrastination problem . I'm just the opposite of that,whatever the word may be . If I know something needs done, I do it immediately. I think the word may be IMPATIENT . If I have something scheduled ahead of time, it bugs me til I get it done. I like looking ahead and not having anything scheduled that isn't yet completed .Weird, isn't it ?

I can't think of anything I procrastinate about ,even things I DREAD doing, I'd rather do them so I don't have to think about it anymore .

[~Andrea~]

Julie I wish I was like that! Brian, that book sounds really interesting. Procrastination is my nemesis, I'm always doing it!

[Athena]

If I know something needs done, I do it immediately. I think the word may be IMPATIENT . If I have something scheduled ahead of time, it bugs me til I get it done. I like looking ahead and not having anything scheduled that isn't yet completed .Weird, isn't it ?

I'm the same!

[Brian.]

I managed to finish Making Habits, Breaking Habits by Jeremy Dean today. I cant say that I enjoyed the book all that much, it took me much longer to read through than I had hoped. I'll try to post up a more thorough review tonight when i finish work.

[Brian.]

Making Habits, Breaking Habits by Jeremy Dean




Synopsis
Say you want to start going to the gym or practicing a musical instrument. How long should it take before you stop having to force it and start doing it automatically?
 

The surprising answers are found in "Making Habits, Breaking Habits, " a leading psychologist's popular examination of one of the most powerful and underappreciated processes in the brain. Although people like to think that they are in control, the vast majority of human behavior occurs without any decision-making or conscious thought. Drawing on hundreds of fascinating studies, psychologist Jeremy Dean busts the myths to finally explain why seemingly easy habits, like eating an apple a day, can be surprisingly difficult to form, and how to take charge of your brain's natural "autopilot" to make any change stick. Witty and intriguing, "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" shows how behavior occurs more than just a product of what you think. It "is" possible to bend your habits to your will--and be happier, more creative, and more productive.
(Taken from Goodreads)


My Thoughts

I read a review about this book in a science magazine I read occasionally and thought that it sounded interesting and could be helpful to me. My local library system didn't have it so I did some book hunting (I didn't need much of an excuse for this) and found a copy.

 

Sadly, I have to say that my optimism for the book was misplaced. I can't quite put my finger on why I found this book difficult to get through but the writing style didn't capture me. In the reviews etc I read about the book beforehand  some had it labelled as a self-help book, others as a popular science book. I thought that this was just poor reviewing but having read the book I can see why this happened. This book falls between both categories whilst not really fitting into either at the same time.

 

From a popular science point of view there just isn't enough of the science. There are some interesting facts presented however, for example, people often say (myself included) that it takes 21 days for a habit to form. It turns out that this number was come to by a writer and has been accepted as fact without any scientific basis. There is a decent amount of psychology presented but it felt massively dumbed down and very repetitive.

 

For a self-help point of view the suggestions put forward to help with habits was poorly presented and lacked detail. There was almost nothing that was new to me and a lot of it again was repetitive in nature. One of the suggestions to help was using 'mindfulness'. This is a subject I know well with my experiences with Buddhism and the explanation in this book was very poor. I imagine someone new to the subject would be left a bit underwhelmed and confused.

 

I didn't hate this book but it was only ok. It has received some decent reviews so perhaps it just didn't work for me.

2/5 (It was ok).

[Brian.]

Boomerang by Michael Lewis




Synopsis
The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.
(Taken from Goodreads)

My Thoughts
Whilst returning a book to the library I decided to take a poke around for anything that would catch my fancy and I noticed this in the small but well stocked 'politics and economics' section. I have previously read The Blind Side and The Big Short and enjoyed both greatly.

 

Boomerang is a strange mix of travel, political and economic writing which I felt was a bit of a departure from the other books I have read by Lewis. As usual his writing style is light and relaxed with a good dose of humour throw in for good measure. Lewis always manages to get across topics of vast seriousness and magnitude in an easy way which is no simple feat. It's only once you start to take in the heart of the issue that you realise just how serious it all is.

 

There are a few gripes I had throughout the book however. The first one is that Lewis likes to present the nations involved in a very simplistic way. For example, the Greeks are lazy and always on the take, the Germans are efficient with an evil undercurrent and the Icelandics are simplistic idiots who didn't understand what they were doing. The Americans get off very lightly, this could for 1 of 2 reasons. The first is that he views the rest of the world to blame, the second and the most likely is that they were dealt with in The Big Short and it didn't need repeating.

 

The other main gripe that I had was that the book felt like a collection of writings rather than a book. I later found out that it is based around a load of articles that Lewis had written for a newspaper. Once I found this out it completely fitted what I felt, a bit more work could have gone into the book and I would liked to have seen chapters on the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

 

Despite these issues this is a very good read even if it doesn't reach the heights of The Big Short or The Blind Side.

4/5 (I really liked it).

Edited March 30, 2013 by Brian.

[vodkafan]

The Procrastination Equation by Dr Piers Steel

 

 

 

Synopsis

For those who surf the Web instead of finishing overdue assignments, who always say diets start tomorrow, who stay up late watching TV to put off going to sleep, The Procrastination Equation explains why we do what we do — or in this case don't — and why in Western societies we're in the midst of an escalating procrastination epidemic.

 

Dr. Piers Steel takes on the myths and misunderstandings behind procrastination and motivation — showing us how procrastination affects our lives, health, careers and happiness and what we can do about it. With accessible prose and the benefits of new scientific research, he provides insight into why we procrastinate even though the result is that we are less happy, healthy, even wealthy. Who procrastinates and why? How many ways, big and small, do we procrastinate? How can we stop doing it? The reasons are part cultural, part psychological, part biological. And, with a million new ways to distract ourselves in the digitized world — all of which feed on our built-in impulsiveness — more of us are potentially damaging ourselves by putting things off. But Steel not only analyzes the factors that weigh us down but the things that motivate us — including understanding the value of procrastination.

(Taken from Goodreads)

 

 

My Thoughts

I seem to be struggling to get into any fiction at the moment so I have found myself dipping into bit of non-fiction on various subjects. Whilst waiting for an Opticians appointment the other day I went into the library to use up an hour and this book caught my eye. I thought that I would give it 30 minutes and if it interested me I would take it out. Well, it caught my attention and so I borrowed it with the hope that it would help improve my procrastination levels a bit.

 

Initially I found the book fascinating. This is down to that fact that the first sections of the book deal with the psychology behind why we procrastinate. It turns out that to some extent we are hard-wired to and that our ancestors were also guilty of it. The not so good news is that modern life makes it so much easier to procrastinate due to the myriad of distractions available to us

 

Dr Steel then introduces 3 characters who are different types of procrastinators and says that most of us will have traits of all 3 but will find 1 of these characters is more like us than the others. By carrying out a simple question and answer task a score indicates which one we fit most with. I turned out to a very time specific procrastinator (unless a task needs doing immediately I tend to put it off). This seems about right to me but I read all the information on all 3 types out of interest.

 

This is where the book starts to slide a bit in my opinion. A lot of the advice is duplicated and ranges from being fairly useful to really unhelpful. One of the things that he says is that people who procrastinate heavily have lower levels of fitness than those who don't. I could have told you that before reading the book. His solution to this is telling you to exercise more and eat a healthier diet. Procrastinators in general know what they should be doing but its getting the motivation to do it which is the hard part so this piece of advice is wasted.

 

There is some great advice however, and there are loads and loads of different pointers which I guess you could mix and match to suit your individual case. One piece of advice that I know works for me is to just start a task by agreeing to do the first part of it. For example if I knew I should go for a run but I didn't feel like it I would put my running gear on. By doing that first step the next step feels much more agreeable and I always ended up outside running.

 

A lot of the book is based on the assumption that you work in an office environment (9-5) and what to improve your career prospects. This is a particular bugbear of mine. Almost every book that I have read that could fall under the umbrella of 'self-help' or 'self-improvement' makes this assumption. Health and fitness books also tend to make the same assumption and as a result those who don't fit into this criteria can find the advice ill fitting.

 

From a personal stand point, there are 2 things which help kick my ass into action. Both are covered in this book but not in much depth and neither is developed upon. If you are still reading up to this point I will share my wisdom (or lack of) with you. For an entire week make a note of what you spend your time doing. I accounted for my time in 15 minute chunks and at the end of the week I ended up with 7 sheets of paper covered in data. Then I assigned everything I did into 1 of 3 categories; Essential (sleep, hygiene, etc), Useful (work, studying, etc) and Wasted (watching TV, Internet time, etc). Once I had added all the time spent doing these things up I was embarrassed by the amount of time I spent in the Wasted category. I am not a new person as a result of this experiment but it has made me far more aware if time I am wasting and revealed a few time leaks that I was unaware of.

 

The second of these is that to make changes in your life you need to change them gradually. If you want to eat healthily for example, there is little point in going from bad eating to perfect diet in an instant. Statistics show that you will keep this up for 3-5 days and then slip back into your old ways. A better approach is to slowly change your habits. It takes about 21 days for a habit to start forming so making very small changes one a week or fortnight is a much better approach. This makes the whole thing seem much more effortless and is an approach advocated by many high level sports coaches.

 

All in all I would say that this is a very interesting book but I doubt that many people will take the advice on board to the extent that this book thinks you will.

 

I hope my waffling hasn't sent anyone to sleep

 

2/5 (It was OK).

 

Sounds interesting Brian. I have just spent 6 whole weeks procrastinating. I achieved practically nothing except going to work and coming home again.  I just allowed myself to get into a  state of mental stagnation.

[Brian.]

Sounds interesting Brian. I have just spent 6 whole weeks procrastinating. I achieved practically nothing except going to work and coming home again.  I just allowed myself to get into a  state of mental stagnation.

 

I know that feeling well, its easy to slip into and very difficult to get out of at times.

 

My current read is Cantata 140 (The Crack in Space) by Philip K. Dick, its pretty good so far and I should finish it today as long as work isn't too busy.

[vodkafan]

I know that feeling well, its easy to slip into and very difficult to get out of at times.

 

My current read is Cantata 140 (The Crack in Space) by Philip K. Dick, its pretty good so far and I should finish it today as long as work isn't too busy.

 

I haven't read that one . Is it typical Dick? He usually is good for getting you thinking out the box

[Brian.]

I couldn't say if it is typical Dick or not as it's the first of his books that I have ever read. It has got me thinking outside the box already as it deals with a lot of social issues that still apply as much today as they did in the 60's when it was written.

[Brian.]

Cantata-140 (The Crack in Space) by Philip K. Dick




Synopsis
In The Crack in Space, a repairman discovers that a hole in a faulty Jifi-scuttler leads to a parallel world. Jim Briskin, campaigning to be the 1st black president of the USA, thinks alter-Earth is the solution to the chronic overpopulation that has seventy million people cryogenically frozen. Tito Cravelli, a shadowy private detective, wants to know why Dr Lurton Sands is hiding his mistress on the planet. Billionaire mutant George Walt wants to make the empty world all his own. But when the other earth turns out to be inhabited, everything changes.
Winner of both the Hugo & John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere sf writer of his day, & the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges & Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly & hilariously familiar in our society & ourselves.
(Taken from Goodreads)

 

My Thoughts

This was one of the books I picked up during my last visit to my library. It caught my eye as I walked past the Fantasy & Sci-fi section, a section that I rarely venture into. I have a strange relationship with Sci-fi, I love watching it but the bug hasn't translated to my reading for some reason. The few Sci-fi titles that I have read have all been entertaining but I still haven't found the book that makes me really sit up and say 'wow'.

 

I was a little worried when I started this book that it would be a sequel and I would miss out on not having the back story. From what I can make out having finished the book is that some of the characters do feature in other books but I didn't really feel like I should have read the others first. There were a lot of characters in the opening chapters and I did find myself flicking back in the initial stages checking who certain people were. This was short lived though and by a quarter of the way through the book I had settled with the characters and the world in which the inhabit. One thing that I did have difficultly visualizing though was the Jifi-scuttler.

 

A huge theme in the book is race and it is introduced very early. Initially I was put off but the term 'cols' used to describe anyone who wasn't white in the American future. I always try to accept that certain language was acceptable when a given book was written (1966 in this case). It became apparent very quickly though that this term is used to demonstrate that prejudice still existed in this world and that it was wrong. Another thing that struck me is that as the time this book was written a black presidential candidate would have been unthinkable. Of course, today we have Obama as the president of America but it is still a very powerful aspect of the book.

 

The writing is very easy on the mind, the pace just about right and the story is a great one. The fact that Dick manages to get so many social issues into one story is a testament to the talent he clearly had. There are so many issues that it would have been easy for them to all feel crow-barred into the story but they don't. They fit naturally and are presented really well.

 

This was a very entertaining read, I look forward to reading more Philip K. Dick.

4/5 (I really liked it).

[Athena]

I recently bought a Philip K. Dick book (Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?), I've not read anything by him before. I'm glad to hear/read you liked this one .

Edited April 4, 2013 by Athena

[Brian.]

Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef




Synopsis
Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power.

But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In "Son of Hamas," Mosab Yousef--now called "Joseph"--reveals new information about the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to "love your enemies" is the only way to peace in the Middle East.
(Taken from Goodreads)


My Thoughts

This is the third of the four books I borrowed from the library and it is one that I haven't heard of before. This surprised me because I often read military memoirs of various types. I have read quite a few books about the IDF, Mossad and Shin Bet but none about Hamas so I was looking forward to this a lot.

 

The book starts with a quick account of Yousef's early life and it becomes obvious very quickly how much he admires his father. There isn't a huge amount of depth in this part of the book but this is a good thing in my opinion. I often feel like that some books use early life accounts to pad out the pages when in reality all I want to read about is the good stuff.

 

The next major incident that involves Yousef is his arrest by the IDF. At this point he talks about his anger towards Israel but somehow it just doesn't sound convincing. I am sure that he was very angry at the time but he doesn't manage to put this into words.

 

Everything that follows and his involvement with Shin Bet is fascinating and its a minor miracle that they managed to hide his activities so well. After a while he probably had more access to Hamas information than anyone else and yet was also the most useful information course for Israel. This part of the book was the best part in my opinion and I would happily have read a book with only this info in it.

 

The main reason that I have given this book 3 stars is the preachy nature of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. He dismisses pretty much everything that he previously believed and then really labours the point that Christianity is the only religion which is right. This really started to annoy me after a while. I find religion a really interesting subject and they all tend to have good and bad points. This is an opinion that Yousef does not seem to share sadly.

 

Another aspect which I didn't like is that he is very quick to condemn everything that Hamas was involved in whilst never questioning the validity of Israeli actions. Terrorism and death is horrible but he condemns deaths caused by Hamas whilst not applying the same standards to Israeli action which ended with the deaths of innocent people.

 

3/5 (I liked it).

[vodkafan]

That was a good review Brian. It made me want to read this myself.  The way you talk about his conversion,  on one level does not surprise me at all. Religious people are often very black and white . He is merely swapping one extreme ideology for another almost the same, just a different name.

[bookmonkey]

That sounds interesting Brian.  I'll have to add it to my list, and it's made me want to look for other books on this sort of topic.

[Devi]

I recently bought a Philip K. Dick book (Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?), I've not read anything by him before. I'm glad to hear/read you liked this one .

I've read this book, and enjoyed it a lot. It was my first Philip K. Dick book.

[Athena]

I'm glad to hear it!

[Brian.]

That was a good review Brian. It made me want to read this myself.  The way you talk about his conversion,  on one level does not surprise me at all. Religious people are often very black and white . He is merely swapping one extreme ideology for another almost the same, just a different name.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I guess what you are saying about him being very black and white makes a lot of sense. He can't change the way it is but it's a shame that he isn't a bit more balanced with his opinions because it would have made it a much better book. It was good reading a book from a different angle (not the usual IDF angle) and something I forgot to stick in the review is that the infighting in Hamas he talks about ti something I wasn't even aware of.

[~Andrea~]

That was a good review Brian. It made me want to read this myself.  The way you talk about his conversion,  on one level does not surprise me at all. Religious people are often very black and white . He is merely swapping one extreme ideology for another almost the same, just a different name.

Are you really saying that Hamas the terrorist organisation and Christianity are both extreme ideologies of the same ilk? Sounds like you have some black and white views of your own

[Mac]

Nice review, Brian. I'm tempted by this book and have realised I haven't really read anything on the differences between Islam and Christianity (mainly due to my considerable distrust of anything religious) even though I find the subject of theology very interesting. I need to buck my ideas up!

 

Cheers!

[Brian.]

Are you really saying that Hamas the terrorist organisation and Christianity are both extreme ideologies of the same ilk? Sounds like you have some black and white views of your own

 

I don't want to take the words out of his mouth but I think VF was meaning that he swapped extreme Muslim views for extreme Christian views.

 

Nice review, Brian. I'm tempted by this book and have realised I haven't really read anything on the differences between Islam and Christianity (mainly due to my considerable distrust of anything religious) even though I find the subject of theology very interesting. I need to buck my ideas up!

 

Cheers!

 

I have a similar distrust to a certain extent but I find religion so interesting that I read a lot about it. Some of it is fascinating so dive right in. How are you enjoying The Savage Altar?

[~Andrea~]

I don't want to take the words out of his mouth but I think VF was meaning that he swapped extreme Muslim views for extreme Christian views.

Well I didn't think his Christian views were that extreme, certainly not as extreme as being in Hamas.