Moonwalking with Einstein

From the cover and the title, I can understand why no one would understand what the heck the book is about. If, however, you observe the tiny subtitle, "The Art and Science of Remembering Everything", you'll find this book to be a treatise on memory and its history.

While the book's main story is the chronicle of how its author, Josh Foer, became the Memory Champion of the United States, some of the more interesting parts of the book are about the history of memory. In fact, the ability to remember things particularly well has been around since ancient Greece, and in ancient cultures, a proclivity towards recall was considered one of the chief attributes of intelligence.

Today, no one cares how well you can memorize things. And Josh Foer gives a detailed account of why. If you think you'd be interested in learning how to remember everything you ever wanted, maybe check out this book.

Never Eat Alone

Here's one that I think everyone could take a quick look at-- Keith Ferazzi is the CEO of a well-known marketing firm, and the very existence of his company depends on the power of his network. So, if you've ever wanted improvement on networking skills, here's a good place to start.

Keith goes into detail in this book about the various ways you can up the power of your network, the proper way of thinking about networking, and, most importantly, keeping in contact with your network. While I think the guy sounds like a bit of a schmoozer, and someone that I would never be fast friends with, he sounds like he's mastered the social skills to creating useful business contacts, and that's worth its weight in gold.

Walden

I know what you're thinking: you're remembering back to high school when you were forced to read this book cover to cover, and after you finished, you instantly shredded and burned your copy. While I can understand where these poor high school students are coming from, I think you might want to re-visit this old classic, especially in light of today's hectic lifestyle.

Since it is a collection of essays, Walden has no narrative, which makes the lengthier passages about as interesting as watching grass grow.This, however, is part of the book's charm. The very point of Walden is to force the reader to slow down, to read about a lazier and simpler lifestyle. If you're reading the book to just get through it, or to seem like an intellectual in front of your friends, you will have a miserable time.

If one reads the book simply for its own sake, however, the true beauty of it comes out. The book is an ode to the poetry and the philosophy in every day life that we constantly miss. Thoreau hopes, desperately hopes, that maybe somebody will pick up the book and realize what they've been missing all this time. They might hear the call of the loon out behind their house, and go out to watch the morning sun rise.

In short, if you want a thriller, or a heartrending tale of despair, or even just a book that you can read to the kids at bed time, this is most definitely not the one you want. But if you ever feel the need to just sit down and clear your mind, there will never be a book more suited to such a purpose than this one.

Cold Days

"Cold Days", despite what you might expect from the name, is not a heartrending tale concerning furnace malfunctions, but, rather, is the 14th book in the fantasy series, "The Harry Dresden Files", a series which I have been reading for many years now, and have thoroughly enjoyed. And yes, you read that corrrectly: Jim Butcher has 14 books in the series, which beats out just about every other fantasy series I've known (except maybe for the Dragonlance chronicles, but since those are mass-produced by monkeys at typewriters, there is no comparison).

Like the other Dresden books, it was an extremely enjoyable mix of witty banter and fast-paced action, with a hint of mystery and obfuscation that made the big reveal at the book's denouement as enjoyable as laying out a full house in poker. Here, however, is when I am forced to stoop to criticism. Fans everywhere, be warned: Dresden, though it has held out for many years, has begun to reach the point of serialization.

What do I mean by this? Think James Bond: it's the exact same plot in a different country each time. Shark attacks are replaced by barfights, blondes are replaced by brunettes, and Sean Connery is replaced by Daniel Craig (though you can thank the lord that we'll always have the same Harry Dresden, assuming Jim Butcher doesn't die in a tragic automobile accident). The point is, Butcher has run out of new plot devices, and has been forced to reuse all his old characters without adding anything particularly shiny or new to any of them.

This does not mean I did not enjoy the book: in fact, it felt good to re-visit old themes, and appreciate how far things have come since the very first book. If you want a good read, this one is a winner, though reading the first 13 is beneficial (and, in fact, necessary). Just don't expect it to be full of fireworks as the previous books were.

Plays by Lee Blessing

I should have updated more frequently here, but as I have not, I'll give a quick rundown with this. I've been looking at a lot of plays by a very little-known playwright named Lee Blessing, and so I'll list each and give a quick rundown.

A Walk in the Woods-- This is Blessing's most well-known play. In fact, if anyone has heard of him, it would be because of this play. The play is awesome! It's about two negotiators, one from Russia, one from America, who, over a long period, try to develop agreements for arms reductions. All the scenes take place while they walk in the woods after negotiations, which explains the title. The play was great-- very thinly disguised commentary, but great despite that. Recommended for people who like plays or talk about arms reduction.

Down the Road-- This one is not one of Blessing's well-known plays. This is easily the creepiest play I have read in a long time, but I found it extremely interesting. It's about a couple who interviews a serial killer for a book about him. The play concerns how our writing of such books from the murderers perspective glamorizes serial killing and other such crimes, though, for the most part, the play leads one to see how they might not be as different from serial killers as they might think. Scarrrrryyyyy. If you'd like something to make you really think, go for this one.

Fortinbras-- This was my favorite of all of them. The play takes place right after the death scene in Hamlet, and basically discusses what happens once Fortinbras takes over. The play is hilarious for the first part, and then interesting for the second part. The play flows nicely within the two, and so I found it to be ultra awesome, and I now yearn to play Fortinbras in this production some day. If you want to laugh, read this one.

Cobb-- This play is an interesting look at the first baseball player inducted into the hall of fame, Tyler Cobb. This play is the least distinctive of all of them, since it's mostly biographical, but it manages to tell Cobb's story in a way that really engages the reader (or audience, hopefully). Read this one if you want a quick read for fun and to learn a bit about Tyler Cobb.

Theater, admittedly, is meant to be performed, not read. I think all of these, however, lend themselves to reading, so take your pick. If any of them are performed near you, though, go for it and check it out. You will enjoy.

The Anubis Gates

... Wow. Where to begin with this book?

Okay, this is a book in the fantasy genre that, in some circles, I believe, has been sourced as an inspiration for steampunk novels, which I have yet to read. Honestly, I'm not sure why, because it had little to do with steampunk, but it had a sort of science fiction element in regards to time travel, and the rest is just straight fantasy.

"Just straight fantasy", however, can barely begin to describe the scope of this book. The story is so masterful and creative that it blew my mind. The basic idea is that a bunch of Egyptian warlocks are using their magic to change the past, thereby assuring Egypt's supremacy in the world. Our hero is Brendan Doyle, a modern expert on Coleridge, who travels to the past so as to attend one of Coleridge's lectures, but by the screwy nature of fate, he gets captured and is stuck in the past. The stories collide, and all hell breaks loose.

Again, I cannot describe just how awesome the story is. The plot devices are magnificent, the writing is great, the characters are amusing and engaging, and the extranormal aspets of the story are explained well and keep consistent with themselves throughout.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is at all interested in fantasy, or history, or even a little science fiction. Seriously. READ IT!

The Power of Full Engagement

Another in my slew of self-improvement books comes "The Power of Full Engagement". This particular one focuses on the idea that one should budget their energy, not their time, so as to achieve maximum productivity.

The book was quite good, in my opinion, as it offered information that normally doesn't get tossed around in self-improvement circles as much. The only complaint I would voice against the book is that it was too long for the information imparted. The system they gave towards working on one's life, in my opinion, was quite good, but because of this, I felt the book lacked focus, considering it could have summed up the core message in about a hundred pages.

Nonetheless, I think that the book is a good primer on the subject, and I'd recommend reading it to up the simplicity of your life.

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

So I was researching into presidential candidates, and in the debate, I found that "American Exceptionalism" was mentioned multiple times. While I found basic definitions online, I found this book mentioned a few times, and thought that it might help teach me exactly what everyone was so hyped up about.

So, "American Exceptionalism" is the concept that America is a special nation, as first mentioned by de Tocqueville after a visit here. The term has transformed, until now, it refers to how America believes that it can justify its actions simply by dint of its "exceptionalism", and ignore the consequences as less exceptional nations cannot.

The book's premise is that America was founded upon principles of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and as admirable as this is, our pursuit of them in the modern day has stretched too far in three spheres: political, economic, and militaristic. The book goes through the three areas, giving the history of how we arrived at the current conditions in said area, and how we are pushing the limits of power.

The book, I thought, was very good in that it was very well-researched and made a great many points, but my difficulty with it is that I can't tell its actual purpose. The author lambasts the entirety of the U.S., and so alienates anyone he might be persuading. If the book is just to inform, it's quite interesting, but in that case, why the acerbic tone? As such, I think the book fails to accomplish whatever purpose it was intended for, but it was still a very interesting read. I recommend it to those interested in U.S. politics.

P.S. This guy has a love relationship with Reinhold Niebuhr, a well-known theologian whom I had to read last semester for my religion class.

Tales of a Female Nomad

Wow... All I can say is that this woman has lived one heck of a life. The book is essentially an autobiography of Rita Gelman, who at the age of 42 turned her life into a travel story most of us only dream of.

After she had an argument with her husband, they agreed to a two-week break from each other, and then to try marriage counseling. She took off to Mexico, where two weeks turned into two months, which turned into four months, which turned into divorce.

After that, she was free to live however she liked, so she decided to travel to all different exotic locations that she had only dreamed of visiting. For the next 14 years, she visits places such as Indonesia, Thailand, Nicaragua (during Reagan's war!), New Zealand, and more, staying with locals, and truly bonding with the communities she visits.

The book is an awesome read that anyone will enjoy. Recommended highly.

Numbers Rule Your World

I kind of found this book by accident while searching for something else at the library, but I figured, "Hey, why not try it?"

Sadly, I wasn't impressed with the book. Some moments really stood out, but most of the "aha" moments that are supposed to make a book like this shine were more of, "huh? um... isn't that obvious?" moments.

The organization of the book, which divided it into 5 chapters, with two stories per chapter that each had a core lesson in statistics, was a good idea, but was poorly executed so that I never fully understood the connections between the stories.

Overall, I felt the book was too simplistic to engage, and so I would not recommend it to close friends or family.

Vagabonding

All I gotta say is... WOW.

The book, while it is subtitled "An uncommon guide to the art of long-term world travel", is more of a philosophical text than anything, one that is certain to get one excited about traveling.

If you've ever wanted to travel (I know that seems like a broad category)... this book is definitely for you.

The Old Man and the Swamp

SO! Another souvenir from Portland.

The book, as it describes on the front cover, details, "The true story about my weird dad, a bunch of snakes, and one ridiculous road trip".

My response: meh.

The funniest parts of the book were when he described his dad, which he did quite well through various anecdotes and choice phrases. As for the road trip and snakes... that's a bit exaggerated. Honestly, most of the book was told in flash back, and so the whole book comes across as more of a biography of a dysfunctional father than it does about an event in the present.

The book lacked a bit of, "So what?", as my Latin teacher would say. Essentially, the book was almost over by the time Sellers had reached the part where I expected the story to pick up.

My verdict: Kinda funny, but not all that great.

Zen in the Martial Arts

A souvenir from Portland!

The book is a series of short vignettes that reflect lessons the author has learned in his martial arts training over the years. With each story, he then demonstrates how he applied the principle to his actual life.

If you're at all interested in zen, you would find this an interesting read. If you're also looking into martial arts, you will love the book. I recommend it highly.

Apolo Ohno-- ZERO REGRETS!!!

AW YEAH WHAT AN INSPIRING TITLE!!!

The rest of the book is OK. The problem with it is that Apolo didn't have to overcome any super-tough and challenging obstacles in his familial and emotional life to achieve his dreams. Sure, he grew up without a mom, but he never makes this out to be a super big deal. There are only really two events that try and fit the "monumental challenge" criteria:

One, he ran away from home, once, because his dad wanted him to go to a speed-skating training camp and he wanted to party.

Two, he had crappy committment, and his dad dropped him off at a cabin for nine days, where he called his dad and decided he wanted to stop being an idiot and get down to work.

Sadly, these things just make him look like kind of a crybaby, rather than a story to inspire millions. I would recommend people find more inspirational books instead of reading this. Nonetheless, the story was quite an interesting read if you want to find out about Ohno's life and accomplishments.

P.S. Apolo is indeed quite arrogant. I thought it was funny, but it really annoyed my mom, so if you're against that kind of thing, you may have trouble with this book.

Awaken the Giant Within

LOVED IT. While Tony Robbins DOES do infomercials, he apparently has some good stuff to say. Go figure.

The book is basically a breakdown of Robbins' system for taking control of your life and making your dreams come true. It gives you tons of tools for managing every aspect of your life, such as "transformation vocabulary", "global metaphors", the "Neuro-Assosociative-Conditioning model" (a mouthful) and many more.

I think an even better way of describing this book is this: it's the exact opposite of "The Power of Now", which I reviewed in an earlier post. This book is longer, more complex, and advocates a system polar to "The Power of Now". Instead of eliminating pain, as "The Power of Now" suggests, Robbins tells you to use your pain as a motivator to change your life.

I'd highly recommend the book to anyone who eats up self-improvement texts, no matter the size, shape, or form. For anyone not in love with the genre, if I were you, I don't even know if I could get motivated enough to get to the part of the book where Robbins teaches you how to get properly motivated.

Eckhart Tolle's Books

This review is one that combines "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth", two books by Eckhart Tolle that, while fantastic, were both fairly similar. Thus, my first recommendation is to read "The Power of Now" and only read "A New Earth" if you want some more emphasis on Tolle's concepts.

Tolle is a spiritual teacher that only came to prominence with these two books. Now, he is quite successful, teaching seminars as well as selling DVD's on meditation programs.

So I suppose an explanation is due. How does a self-proclaimed agnostic-bordering-on-atheist get into books about spirituality? Well, I got the recommendations from a site I stumbled upon with "StumbleUpon", and was drawn into them because the books actually appeal to atheists and agnostics, possibly even more than confirmed believers. You really have to read to understand...

The books are guides to attaining spiritual enlightenment. The books start out with Tolle's basic ideas: humans, from birth, engage in self-destructive behaviors, and are at their root, "insane" or "unconscious", to use Tolle's words. They are like this because they identify so heavily with the world of form and with their mind. So long as one is able to access "the power of the Now", they will be able to rid themselves of these basic delusions and attain inner peace.

There's a LOT more to it than that. Despite that, the books are both pretty short (less than 200 pages each) and really make each concept as simple as possible.

I would HIGHLY recommend the books. They were amazing. I, myself, am hopefully started on the journey to spiritual enlightenment... though that could take a while. For the moment, I've become more peaceful in my daily activities and have a greater appreciation for life.

Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist

This one wasn't exactly my usual cup of tea-- I usually stay away from biographies in general. I was not, however, disappointed with it in the least.

The book is a VERY complete picture of Warren Buffett's life and his various investments over the years. In fact, the book may have too much detail if you're just a casual reader who was interested in Buffett as a person. There is a good deal about his personal life, but it also deals in great part with the various statistics about his companies, profit margins for Berkshire Hathaway, etc.

I thought it was a really great read, and gave some awesome insight into Buffett that none of us would probably expect. I would recommend it to anyone who was interested in either Buffett or the realms of investment.

By the way, did you know that Buffett's investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, originally made lining for men's suits?

An Actor Prepares

First of all, this isn't what it looks like.

One would expect this to be an annoying non-fiction book about how to act in theater.

Au contraire. The book is set as a novel that illustrates the journey of one actor, and shows how one could similarly learn to act.

The reason I post this up here is because non-actors, if they are enlightened, will find deeper meaning in this book. This book teaches a way of life.
Anyway, the book's a great read, and if you're into that whole self-help/self-improvement shtick, you'll find this to be quite the interesting book.

Also, please tell me if you like shorter reviews. I feel like I use 5 words for every one word of my fellow bloggers, so I tried to shorten this one up.

Re-assess your chess

I figure this post won't be of much use to others, considering that chess seems to be mostly my own interest, but...

If you enjoy chess and you want a leg-up on your other family members, this is a key book for you. To plumb its secrets entirely will take quite a while, but by reading through at least the rudiments of it you'll have quite an head-start on most of America.

Silman's thinking technique and his list of imbalances are things of beauty. Their simplicity rivals that of Dale Carnegie, who I praised heavily for similar qualities in my last post.

This book is gonna get your game on-- I give it my blessing.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

After hearing both Lauren and one of my friends praise this book lavishly, I felt justified in taking a look at it myself.

Their praise is well-deserved: the book is a fairly quick read, very easy on the eyes, and, most importantly, VERY helpful in regards to the subject matter it addresses.

The excellent organization of the book is responsible for the first two approbations. The book is divided into several parts, with each part looking at different areas of dealing with people, namely, as a leader, as a friend, and as a casual acquaintance. Each part is further subdivided into chapters that are all very readable, and contain numerous/humorous anecdotes.

The advice itself is fantastic, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is very simple. Although every idea is expounded by a horde of the aforementioned anecdotes, each one can be distilled to a single phrase which Carnegie places at the end of each chapter. Secondly, the advice is tremendously practical. No matter if you're a businessperson or simply an interested reader, the ideas will be useful to you.

In short, I give this book my highest commendation and would suggest it to anyone and everyone. I would also suggest that everyone suggests to everyone else to read it. It would improve the world so much if we all did.