More Book Outlines

Here are a few interesting outlines to check out:

• Learned Optimism: Skip down to the the Strengths of the Maximal Self section at the bottom - interesting challenge there.


• Punished by Rewards: Scroll down to the Motivation in the Classroom section - interesting questions to ask about school there to encourage true learning.


• Creating your Best Life: Good book on goals, I liked the password/screen saver idea too.


• The Abracadabra Kid: Interesting thoughts on writing.


• Teaching Children Self Disccipline: Really interesting thoughts about how to raise kids without having to resort to authority. Sounds like Vicki would like this one.


• The First National Bank of Dad: I disagree with many of the ideas in here, but they were thought provoking nonetheless.

Book Outlines: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

I happened across an interesting web site today: the book outlines wiki. As you might imagine, it's a wiki page where people write outlines of books they read to help them remember it better, and so that other people can learn about some books out there.

I read a particularly interesting outline there for a book called Predictably Irrational, that discusses some of our irrational ways of thinking that can be (and are quite frequently) exploited to make money.

The ideas that interested me the most in the outline were as follows:

• We compare items based on what they are next to rather than their absolute value. So if you take an expensive product and put another next to it 50% even more expensive "deluxe" version next to it, suddenly the expensive product seems like a steal.


• Once we start using a product, we tend to continue using it (if it's still enjoyable) rather than considering the relative value versus other (unknown) options. I.e. going to Starbucks instead of switching to Dunkin' Donuts, eating at our favorite restaraunts, etc.


• Free products are incredibly attractive to people because there is no perceived downside. However, I imagine getting people to convert from free to paid has got to be difficult. Not to mention, to many people they equate free = crap, possibly not even worth doing. Interesting tricks: Amazon's mechanism of giving free shipping once you spend $25, or free soup at a Chinese restaurant after you spend $15. Would like to read some more on this.


• We all tend to procrastinate, but the people who are most successful with avoiding this are the ones who realize it so build mechanisms to help prevent this, such as auto-deducts from paychecks/making appointments with friends to work out/etc.


• We're quite irrational about keeping our options open. I admit I have fallen into this trap many times! I'd like to read more on this as well: The Paradox of Choice is something I'd like to check out sometime. Looks like it's in the library system here too, w00t. Another book to get from the library: Freakonomics.

Anyway - I like the book outlines site, I should start doing this for the books I read and want to remember the points from.

The Lambs of London by Paul Ackroyd

This was a short book about a young man of 17 who forges several Shakespearean documents in order to impress his father, and a young woman who lives an insignificant life who's driven to insanity. From the book jacket, this is loosely based upon a true story of a Shakespearean forgery.

To me this book was dull and didn't offer much. There was no suspense in the forgery - you knew from the beginning what was going on, and I didn't think the reason it was done (to impress his father) was very well drawn out. The life of the young woman was interesting mainly because it was so sad, but I didn't buy into her descent into insanity.

Anyway - I don't really know why this was on the 1001 books to read before you die, as it didn't really offer me any new ideas and seemed to be just a story (and a fairly boring one at that). I probably would have enjoyed this more if I was familiar with the history that this was based on.

Rating: 0/4 (horrible am sad I wasted my time on this).

1% Well-Read Challenge: The List

Went to the library and picked up the 10 books that will compose the 1% Well-Read Challenge:

* The Lambs of London by Paul Ackroyd
* Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
* The Light of the Day by Graham Swift
* The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
* Drop City by T.C. Boyle
* Islands by Dan Sleigh
* The Colour by Rose Treman
* What I Loved by Siri Husvelt
* Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
* The Master by Colm Toibin

I just found out some of these books are in the 2006 list but not the 2008 list but oh well, I'm going to read them anyway. Stay tuned for some posts!

Deepsix by Jack McDevitt

This is a story about a planet that is about to be destroyed by another planet that is due to collide into it in a few weeks. There are some ships in the vacinity to watch the event - one full of scientists and one tourists. As they're waiting for the pending collision, they notice that there are buildings on the planet, that was previously thought devoid of intelligent life. They don't have any ship-to-planet landers available, so have to send an emergency broadcast to find someone nearby to help investigate. After the investigation begins, disaster inevitably strikes, and the rest of the story is about their attempts to escape before the planets collide.

I enjoyed the book - it was pretty exciting, a good adventure story. There weren't a lot of new ideas in the book, but there was pretty good characterization. My favorite was the character of Gregory MacAllister. McDevitt invented in his character a famous writer/scholar who had interesting things to say about the human condition. Sometimes when authors invent great characters like this, they'll show other characters deeply admiring him and saying how great his works are, but never actually show the works. But here McDevitt actually shows us MacAllister's comments and writing, which were actually pretty cool! Each chapter begins with a quote from MacAllister, even before we meet his character. I actually enjoyed his character more than I did the main character.

Rating: 1/4 (entertaining throwaway read)

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Damn after reading this once again I'm eager to go travelling! :]

I took a few trips abroad back when I was in college and then afterwards - and they were a great experience. I think my heart has always been tempted to go back, but fears always held me back - mainly the fear of spending too much money, or having the dreaded "blank spot" on my resume. Vicki and I had been talking about having a long travel trip across Thailand, India, and some other countries as a long honeymoon - but that idea kind of fell to the wayside (not sure why, but most likely got scared of the expenses).

Even traveling cheaply, the expenses are high (book says $1k/month, multiplied by two for a year that is $24k!) but what is the purpose of money, anyway? The approach Potts took is you work just to fund your next trip, or to fund your life :] So his approach is work in the US and save up some money, then go spend it on a vagabonding trip... rinse/repeat. Another interesting idea from Potts was there's no point to being money-rich if you're time-free - and vagabonding is exactly that, buying yourself time to notice/enjoy the wide world around us.

The book itself wasn't all that "useful", but it was inspiring at a time where I needed a little inspiration. It had a lot of useful references to other books about travel that I'd like to check out. But one idea he had in the book that I liked about traveling was being unstructured about it - having the freedom to stay in a place for a while if you wanted to, or travel to a random town just because you hadn't heard of its name before - being open to chance.

It seems like now is the perfect time in my life for a long-term trip. I have money saved and am near a turning point in life. The only thing holding me back is the fear that the $24k spent on such a trip would be better spent on a down payment for a house. Timing-wise, I'd like to spend some time traveling (or staying in one place) in the US for a while before going anywhere, as there are a lot of interests of mine I'd like to pursue if I had the benefit of time :]

Rating: 1/4 (good for inspiration to go vagabonding)

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This book isn't on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die but I just read it so am posting my thoughts anyway!

I tend to read books for the practical applications I can use in my life, and I found Gladwell's thesis somewhat depressing. According to him, so much of success is outside of your own control - it depends on your parents, the random opportunities presented to you, and even the year and month of your birth. I saw this happen myself during the internet boom. There were many guys a few years older than me who had just graduated college and were in the "sweet spot" of being able to start Internet startups adn take advantage of that opportunity. Being a few years younger, I was still in college and had to finish due to a work obligation. I've also seen it happen in my life on the positive side - I wouldn't be where I am now without my parents and some random luck here and there completely outside of my control.

But there was a more inspiring portion of Gladwell's message as well - the idea that after expending 10,000 hours of effort into something, you become an master. I found a nice post that further breaks down those hours (i.e. 1000 hours to experienced expert). And here's my own personal breakdown:

• Weekend Hobby: 2 hours a week: 10 years to expert
• Weekday Hobby: 1 hour a day, 5 days a week: 4 years to expert, 40 years to master
• Obsessive Hobby: 2 hours a day, 7 days a week: 1.4 years to expert, 14 years to master
• Full-Time Job: 8 hours a day, 5 days a week: 0.5 years to expert, 5 years to master

That's a lot of time to become a master, eh? And a lot of years to consistently maintain the motivation. It got me thinking about the skills in life I'd like to develop:

• Programming to the master level. According to raw hours, I should be there or near there already - but programming is such a wide topic (multiple languages, plus always evolving) that this may involve more than 10,000 hours here, or perhaps it's a subject that you have to invest a certain amount per year just to keep up :]
• Game making to the master level. Don't know quite what to call this subject - but the ability to make finished games that are released to players. Involves business, programming, design. This is my dream - but have just about 10,000 hours to go on this one :]
• Ballroom Dancing. At my current pace in this I should be an expert in about 20 years as it's currently in a sub weekend hobby level :] Would be nice to upgrade this to full weekend hobby level.
• General fitness. Currently at weekday hobby level, so just have to stick with it!
• Reading. Currently somewhere below weekday hobby level, would like to increase this as I think reading gives all kinds of benefits in life.
• Wishlist. Other things I've always wanted to get good at are drumming/keyboard/martial art/shooting. Most of these require money that I don't really want to spend right now, so not sure how I should proceed on these.

Well, enough about that - back to Outliers. The third thing that really struck me about the book was the chapter on the KIPP school system - Maria's Bargain. There was a portion of the book where it described her typical day - and it was wake up, go to school, do homework, go to bed, with barely enough time to eat dinner or say hi to her Mom. I don't know quite what to make of this - because with this amount of work, she probably will have a "successful" life and make lots of money, be at the top of her career, etc. But at the same time - is she really enjoying life, is she really living? If I think back to the happiest times of my life, they haven't been at school, or at work - they've been making up a game for my friends, or spending time with my family at vacation, or just relaxing reading a book. The constant working seems robotic to me. But after reading the book, maybe my feeling this way is just due to my upbringing. Even if it is, do I want to change it?

The one thing the book didn't cover (but I wish it had) was the relationship between success and happiness (or even the definition of success). There seemed to be this unspoken assumption that the success stories he mentioned were the most admirable people on the earth and worth emulation: but I've seen many happy people that aren't considered necessarily "successful" that are just as much worth emulation. I'd like to find a book about this subject some day as well.

Rating: 1/4 (good for a few ideas it provoked, but kind of throwaway)

1% Well-Read Challenge

I came across a very interesting blog called Auxiliary Memory. I admire the author of the blog because he thinks for himself, is well educated, and is very honest about his observations, often expressing the doubts that haunt all of us that sometimes we leave unspoken.

Anyway - one of the things I came across on his blog was a link to the 1% well-read challenge. The gist of it is there's a list out there of 1,001 books to read before you die - so the challenge is to read 1% of that list (10 books) by Feb 28. This sounds like a lot of fun to me so I'm signing up, and will write my thoughts of the books I read from that list on this blog (as well as any other book I read in the meantime!)

There's not much time till Feb 28 (about 6 days per book) but let's give it a shot anyway!

P.S. This is the official list I am using for this challenge (the 2006 version of the list).