Books

This slim little book packs quite a punch. While its principal focus is on the mind of Ivan Ilyich as he dies of an injury there seems to me to be two fundemental themes. Firstly it examines deaths effects on both the individual who is dying and those who are around them. But secondly, and I feel more importantly, it delves into the dehumanizing effects of the decorum, civility and general lifestyle of the upwardly mobile. While the book is set in the 1800s the same critique can and has been made about modern life.

Full of interesting information thought it tries to be too many things at once. Half of the book is dedicated to the mathematical history of the number and the other the debunking its place as an aesthetic standard in the world of art and architecture. Had Livio chosen one of the two subjects as a theses and simply presented the other as background material it might have made for a stronger book.

I came across a number of references to this book while reading the Scientific American Mind special edition recently. There is no better way to get a sense of the amazing complexity of the workings of the brain then to come to understand how it breaks down. I was fascinated from beginning to end and bothered my wife incesently with anecdotes from the book.

Man alive. Funny, sad, pathetic, scary, all wrapped up into one. I am grateful to David Sedaris for writing about his life experiences because it saves me the trouble of having them. I have heard him read his material on a number of occasions. It invariably leaves me in stitches. Reading his work is a slightly different situation however. His writing is compelling, and without his voice reminding me that these are his stories I tend to invest myself more than perhaps I should.

I was led to this book by an article in the recent Scientific American Mind special edition derived from the material in the book. This book is a fantastic scholarly introduction to the psychological methods and tactics used by people to exert influence on others. While this book is a potent weapon in the hands of a marketer or confidence trickster it is clearly aimed at improving the resistant ability of the mark. Each major chapter ends with a cogent discussion of techniques for spotting and defusing attempts to apply the techniques.

This book has hatched in me a desire to spend some time negotiating the sale of cars at a dealership in an effort to see if I can turn some of their standard tactics back on them. If I do carry something like this out I will be sure to detail it in my log.

I was warned that there would be nothing in this book that I didn't already know. This assertion came first from the psychologist hired by the investors at our company to provide counseling to the members of the management teams and other groups employed by their holdings. This warning was echoed by a friend of mine at work who, concerned with the frequency of friction in the workplace, decided to read the book to see if it lent any insight. Finally, and most surprisingly, this sentiment was echoed very early in the text of the book itself.

While this is in fact true, nothing I read struck me as novel, the presentation of it was superb. Some times what you need is to hear what you already know from someone else. And as in this case, many new connections between the bits of information you already had can be presented in such a way as to provide a fresh insight from which you can learn a great deal more. I oftain found myself struck with the bolt of ureka that comes from a profound new juxtaposition of previously understood facts and ideas.

All in all a great book which I will likely read again soon.

This great book was recommended to me by Eric Dodson, the president of onShore Devel. It was recommended to him by a total stranger on the street. I began reading it not two months after I started working for Mercury Markets and once I started I was engrossed. The book traces the emergence of risk management as a science from the Renaissance mathematics of gambling to the mind-boggling complexity of current financial markets.