Howling out loud! » Book Reviews

Upgrading My Hammer

Alpha Wolf — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:43:15 +0000

Yesterday I decided to visit Seth Godin’s Blog, and was particularly entranced by the blog entry Hammer Time. It got me thinking about what my ‘Hammer’ is and how I can use it to have fun and generate revenue.

My Hammer, or what I want my Hammer to be, is a resourse of High Quality book reviews as a resource. I would like to earn a little extra revenue by people purchasing books through this blog. So I took a look at what I have on the blog now.

I came to the conclusion that I need to step up a lot of things on this blog. The first thing is to learn to write much better reviews. So I went all googly and found a few webpages that decided to write about how to write a good book review. The first one I stumbled into after my search was How to Write a Good Book Review. A community website based in UK that I never heard of before, and it had great advice on how to write a good book review.

I plan on incorporating some of these ideas into my writing. The next step is to plan out how my site is going to generate revenue, and lastly I have to use every tool to let as many people know that my site exists and that they really want to go here, read my reviews and use the links to by books!

I have a long way to go, but I am determined to have fun getting there. My joy will not be found in finishing the activity but in doing it.

There will soon be a lot more book reviews

Alpha Wolf — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:30:48 +0000

It has come to my attention that there are a lot more books that I have read that I have failed to review in my own blog. There will now be a short wave of reviews, most of the books I have read a short while ago. In the future I will try to write a review right after I have read the book, as it should be.

Book Review – ‘Blink – The Power of thinking without Thinking’

Alpha Wolf — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:40:39 +0000

I recently read the book ‘Blink – The Power of Thinking without Thinking’ by Malcolm Gladwell. The book postulates the theory that people can make better decisions with only the small amount of information that can be obtained when first presented with the question or problem. The author presents many case studies, from The 2002 Millenium Challenge held by the US Armed Forces to a study on married couples and how they behave when they think they are alone. Some of the studies were very meticulous and scientific, where others were mostly anecdotal in terms of evidence. One way or another, Mr. Gladwell managed to explain how people can think without thinking, how they can create an environment that fosters that ability and how environment and other factors could cause that ability to go awry. According to Mr. Gladwell everyone has the potential to think without thinking, but experts in the field in question not only ‘thought’ faster and with better results but they also had a better shot of explaining why they decided on the course of action they took.

I thought the book was a fascinating read. I was particularly interested in the parts where Mr. Gladwell detailed how the ability to think without thinking could be short circuited and how it could be supported by environmental factors. I basically saw the whole book as an extensive scientific exercise on the Oriental concept of Zen, with a dash of Feng Shui thrown in. Obvious ironies aside, it is a very compelling book. The whole idea is so intriguing because I would love to learn how to ‘think without thinking’ effectively. It certainly would be a much more efficient use of time and resources! I also wonder if Mr. Gladwell read any books on the philosophy of Zen, or if he did in the future would he incorporate any of those writings into another printing of his book?

The bottom line? I give this book an excellent rating and would recommend this book to anyone.

Chronicles of an amateur book reviewer!

Alpha Wolf — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:58:57 +0000

A little over a week ago I made a decision that I will try and become a freelance book reviewer. After all, I love to read and I love to write so I might as well do something organized with it. I might even be able to earn some free books within a short while. If I get really good I just might even be able to make a living doing it!

I will be writing all my successes and failures here in the blog, along with other fun facts. Hopefully there will be tons of readers soon that will be scoping this out eventually.

Of course I will continue to blog about everything else going on, at least as frequently as before.