Howling out loud! » Books

I will be getting a new book to read!

Alpha Wolf — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:08:26 +0000

By Paolo Bacigalupi

It has been way too long. I have the book ‘Against all Enemies’ that I have to write a review on and ‘The Beauty Myth’ that I am in the middle of reading.

I received a birthday gift of one $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. I look forward to picking up the book ‘The Windup Girl‘ tomorrow and continuing my reading and reviewing.

Still have not finished any new books

Alpha Wolf — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:54:10 +0000

I am pretty darn close to finishing ‘A Contract with the Earth’ and ‘Against all Enemies’. I figure sometime this week I will have reviews written and I will continue reading more books.

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.

Personal News – Books, Books and more Books!

Alpha Wolf — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:51:37 +0000

Ok, not so many books…

As anyone who has read my last post, I finally finished “Wolf Totem: A Novel” two days ago. I savored all 500+ pages of this amazing book, and was one of the many readers who swallowed their tears and their howls of mourning at the end.

I finished one book, so I started another. This book, ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell’ appears to be much lighter fare and has already proved to be entertaining. Only 60 pages in. It has very dry humor, but I certainly appreciate the style of writing. I look forward to reading this book completely.

Also, I ordered ‘The Bell Jar’ and ‘Wordpress Theme Design’ from Barnes & Noble! ‘The Bell Jar’ came highly recommended and look forward to reading more and more excellent books. Hopefully I will also learn how to make this blog look super cool in no time at all! The B&N reviews gave this book at least 4 stars so I figure I should learn a decent amount from it.

Other than that, not much good news in the last two days. Except that I am writing here more often. Hopefully it will become a habit.