Posts

, , , ,

238. Gardens of Water

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Terra McKinnish

Author:  Alan Drew

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign

288 pages, published February 5, 2008

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

In a small town outside Istanbul, Sinan Basioglu, a devout Kurdish Muslim, and his wife, Nilüfer, are preparing to celebrate their nine-year-old son Ismail’s coming-of-age ceremony. Their fifteen-year-old daughter, İrem, resents the attention given by her parents to Ismail.   In contrast, when she came of age, there was no celebration.  Instead, she had to start wearing a hijab and stay hidden away from boys.  After a massive earthquake destroys their home, Sinan focuses all of his attention on finding Ismail, ignoring the plight of his wife and daughter.  Miraculously, Ismail is saved by the expatriate wife of a Marcus, a missionary from America who lives in the same building.  Marcus’ wife dies in the earthquake, leaving behind Dylan, her teenage son who has secretly been developing a relationship with Irem.  The Basioglu family has lost everything and are forced to live as refugees in a Christian Missionary camp run by Marcus.  Sinan struggles with his inability to support his family, the Christian influence of the camp and the pulling away of his daughter as she secretly falls in love with Dylan.

 

Quotes 

“Our children are not ours. That’s our mistake. We think they are. It seems so for a while—a few brief years—but they aren’t. They never were.”

 

“It’s all a gift. All of life is a gift.”

 

“Instead, he stared at every woman he saw in hijab, his anger flaring when he saw a fundamentalist, dressed in black from head to toe, as if she were already dead. It was one thing to be humble and modest, but it seemed to Sinan that the abaya revealed men’s disgust with women, as though men thought God had made a mistake and they needed to hide it. Sinan would never make his wife and daughter wear such a thing; he would never allow them to be so blotted out of existence.”

 

“He was a Kurd and the world would tell him he was nothing. He was poor and the world would give him nothing. He was a Muslim and the world would ignore him, and being ignored was like being dead. The boy had his name and his name was everything. Take away his name and the boy had no future, no honor, no respect, no reason to look in a mirror and see his own perfection. “Ouch, Baba! You’re doing it too hard.” Ismail’s skin was red from the scrubbing. He stopped and told the boy to rinse off. What if Irem did something that denied her entry to Heaven? Skin was only the container of the soul, but the soul was a fragile membrane—it could easily be ripped and once it was, there was no sewing it back together. To kill her before she destroyed that, she would remain innocent, she would enter Paradise as a child, as clean as the day she was born. And Ismail wouldn’t have to feel less than anyone in this world, ever.”

 

“I never gave a damn about independence, anyway. All I really wanted to do was farm. Didn’t care if the land was called Kurdistan or Turkey or Iraq. But the stupid PKK and the military won’t leave you alone; you’re everyone’s enemy if you just want to be left alone. You’ve got to pick a side.” He tossed his cigarette down in disgust. “Is there anywhere in the world you can just be left alone?”

 

My Take

Gardens of Water was an intriguing read that explored universal themes such as the relationships between parents and children, the conflict between the new world and the old, and the strain between tradition and personal freedom.  I didn’t know that much about Islam and felt that I learned a bit about the religion after reading this book, especially the conflict between traditional Islam and the modern world.

 

/by
, , , , , , ,

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Katy Fassett

Author:  Bill Browder

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, History, Foreign, Politics, Business

380 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Red Notice is a real-life political thriller memoir written by American businessman Bill Browder who made multi-millions investing in Russia in the early days after the Berlin Wall came down.  After the Russians started to target Browder and his Hermitage Fund, his attorney Sergei Magnitsky was ruthlessly jailed and murdered by the Kremlin.  Browder then led an effort to expose the corruption inside Russia and obtain justice for Sergei.

 

Quotes 

“Seventy years of communism had destroyed the work ethic of an entire nation. Millions of Russians had been sent to the gulags for showing the slightest hint of personal initiative. The Soviets severely penalized independent thinkers, so the natural self-preservation reaction was to do as little as possible and hope that nobody would notice you.”

 

“I arrived in the late afternoon at Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport. I stared out of my window as the plane taxied to the terminal and was astonished to see the burned-out carcass of an Aeroflot passenger plane lying on the side of the runway. I had no idea how it had gotten there. Apparently it was too much of a bother for the airport authorities to have it moved. Welcome to Russia.”

 

“There’s a famous Russian proverb about this type of behavior. One day, a poor villager happens upon a magic talking fish that is ready to grant him a single wish. Overjoyed, the villager weighs his options: “Maybe a castle? Or even better—a thousand bars of gold? Why not a ship to sail the world?” As the villager is about to make his decision, the fish interrupts him to say that there is one important caveat: whatever the villager gets, his neighbor will receive two of the same. Without skipping a beat, the villager says, “In that case, please poke one of my eyes out.”

 

“After Khodorkovsky was found guilty, most of Russia’s oligarchs went one by one to Putin and said, ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, what can I do to make sure I won’t end up sitting in a cage?’ I wasn’t there, so I’m only speculating, but I imagine Putin’s response was something like this: ‘Fifty per cent.”

 

“The imagination is a horrible thing when it’s preoccupied with exactly how someone might try to kill you.”

 

“This whole exercise was teaching me that Russian business culture is closer to that of a prison yard than anything else. In prison, all you have is your reputation. Your position is hard-earned and it is not relinquished easily. When someone is crossing the yard coming for you, you cannot stand idly by. You have to kill him before he kills you. If you don’t, and if you manage to survive the attack, you’ll be deemed weak and before you know it, you will have lost your respect and become someone’s bitch. This is the calculus that every oligarch and every Russian politician goes through every day.”

 

“While Putin expected a bad reaction from the United States, he had no idea what kind of hornet’s nest he’d stirred up in his own country. One can criticize Russians for many things, but their love of children isn’t one of them. Russia is one of the only countries in the world where you can take a screaming child into a fancy restaurant and no one will give you a second look. Russians simply adore children.”

 

“Early in this book, I said that the feeling I got from buying a Polish stock that went up ten times was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career. But the feeling I had on that balcony in Brussels with Sergei’s widow and son, as we watched the largest lawmaking body in Europe recognize and condemn the injustices suffered by Sergei and his family, felt orders of magnitude better than any financial success I’ve ever had. If finding a ten bagger in the stock market was a highlight of my life before, there is no feeling as satisfying as getting some measure of justice in a highly unjust world.”

 

“This was not what they wanted to hear because ever since Barack Obama had become president in 2009, the main policy of the US government toward Russia had been one of appeasement.”

 

My Take

Author Bill Browder knows how to tell a compelling tale and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audio version of Red Notice.  The first half of the book takes you through his interesting childhood.  His Grandfather ran for President of the United States representing the Communist Party and his parents were both Socialists.  Browder rebelled by going into business with the aim of making as much money as possible.  He was able to do this by capitalizing on unique opportunities in Eastern Europe and then Russia.  During the second half of the book, the Russian government turned on Browder and killed his attorney, the idealistic Sergei Magnitsky.  Browder then recounts his pursuit of justice against Vladimir Putin and his henchmen in honor of Sergei.  A captivating read from start to finish.

 

/by
, , , ,

228. The Alchemist

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Paul Coelho

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Foreign, Happiness

197 pages, published May 1, 1993

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Paulo Coelho’s extremely popular master work tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

 

Quotes 

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

 

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

 

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

 

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

 

“I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.”

 

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

 

“Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.”

 

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”

 

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

 

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.”

 

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

 

“I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”

 

“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.”

 

“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”

 

“There is only one way to learn. It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”

 

“It is said that all people who are happy have God within them.”

 

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”

 

“If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

 

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

 

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

 

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”

 

“If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work towards getting it.”

 

My Take

Like The Richest Man in Babylon, The Alchemist is falls into a category of allegorical books that I usually enjoy reading.  Through the simple tale of boy on a quest to find his treasure and fulfill his destiny, The Alchemist imparts numerous pearls of wisdom about life, love, dreams, fear, hope and happiness.  I highly recommend the audio version which is perfectly narrated by the wonderful Jeremy Irons.

 

/by
, ,

225. Little Fires Everywhere

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Celeste Ng

Genre:  Fiction

352 pages, published September 12, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Little Fires Everywhere opens with the revelation that Isabelle, the youngest of four children in the Richardson family of Shaker Heights, Ohio has burned down the family home.  As the story unwinds, we learn that even in a picture perfect family and community, things are not always as ideal as they seem.  This revelation is laid bare after the arrival of Mia Warren, an artist and single mother to teenage daughter Pearl, who lives life completely on her own terms, with little regard for the consequences.

 

Quotes 

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”

 

“Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn’t, you might burn the world to the ground.”

 

“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”

 

“To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all at the same time. You could see it every time you looked at her: layered in her face was the baby she’d been and the child she’d become and the adult she would grow up to be, and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image. It made your head spin. It was a place you could take refuge, if you knew how to get in. And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again.”

 

“Anger is Fear’s Bodyguard.”

 

“One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules… was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”

 

“It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?”

 

“The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.”

 

“I’ll tell you a secret. A lot of times, parents are not the best at seeing their children clearly.”

 

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can’t imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you’ve got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you’d choose.”

 

“Most communities just happen; the best are planned.”

 

“All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never – could never – set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration.”

 

“All up and down the street the houses looked like any others—but inside them were people who might be happy, or taking refuge, or steeling themselves to go out into the world, searching for something better. So many lives she would never know about, unfolding behind those doors.”

 

“The firemen said there were little fires everywhere,” Lexie said. “Multiple points of origin. Possible use of accelerant. Not an accident.”

 

My Take

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, I had high expectations for Little Fires Everywhere.  I was not disappointed.  Ng, who has a great talent for character development and dialogue, is a wonderful storyteller who also makes you think.  In Little Fires Everywhere, I was left reflecting on relationships between mothers and daughters and the value and cost of a perfectly planned life.  Highly recommended.

/by
, , , ,

224. Celine

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Blair Norman

Author:  Peter Heller

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

352 pages, published March 7, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Celine tells the story of Celine, a private investigator with a blue blood background who specializes in reuniting families.  After she is approached by Gabriela, a young woman who asks for help in finding out what happened to her missing father, Celine is drawn into a new mystery and a shadowy past.

 

Quotes 

“No: Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet.”

 

“A road trip frees the mind, revitalizes the spirit, and infuses the body with Dr Pepper and teriyaki jerky.”

 

“There might not be a measure of happiness left in a life, but there could be beauty and grace and endless love.”

 

“Pursuing fun is exhausting. Having fun is just fun. Much more relaxing just to do your work, don’t you think? I mean if you enjoy it.”

 

“Happiness was not a word that seemed to apply anymore, when she had lost so many close to her. There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys– of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain.”

 

“The most indisputable beauty may be the one that people cannot ever touch. That God exists up there somehow, in the peaks and remote lakes and the sharp wind. Who knows why that picture stirs joy. It speaks directly to our impermanence and our smallness.”

 

“When we are most scared is the time to summon our clearest concentration and move forward, not back.”

 

“Dusk was moving over the water with a stillness that turned half the world to glass. The wall of mountains had gone to shadow as had the reflections at their feet. In the stillness the rings of rising trout appeared like raindrops. Slowly, in silence, the dark water tilted away from the remaining daylight.”

 

My Take

I went back and forth as to whether to give Celine 3 ½ stars or 4.  I ultimately decided on 4 based on the two things:   the finely drawn character portraits (especially of Celine) painted by author Peter Heller and his beautiful descriptions of the natural world.  The mystery at the center of this book is what weighed on the side of 3 ½.  I found the plot a bit thin and uninteresting.  However, I still really enjoyed this book and can recommend it.  Also, if you like Heller’s writing style, check out The Dog Stars, which is a great dystopian read.

 

/by
, , ,

222. Five-Carat Soul

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  James McBride

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories

320 pages, published September 26, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Winner of the U.S. National Book Award, Five-Carat Soul is a selection of short stories which focus on different African-American experiences. The stories feature a purgatory where a boxer and the other souls must make a case for themselves, a poor Pennsylvania neighborhood called The Bottom, telepathic zoo animals, a zealous toy collector and an eavesdropping Abraham Lincoln.

 

Quotes 

“The sadder the story, the more valuable the toy. That is a human element and it’s one that no painting has. The specific history of sorrow or joy in a child’s life, when determining the price, means the sky’s the limit.”

 

..an innocent child paying for generations of stolen trains, stolen cars, stolen land, stolen horses, stolen history, stolen people arriving at a strange land inside a merchant…                      

 

“Most cars drove through there because the drivers is either from The Bottom and wanna get home – or they ain’t from The Bottom and wanna get home in one piece.”

 

My Take

I really enjoyed all of the stories in Five-Carat Soul, especially the first one which delves into the arcane field of toy collecting. McBride, a masterful writer, draws the reader in with rich details into the various worlds he creates.  I listened to the audio version of this book and highly recommend it.  There are different narrators for each story and the voice work is excellent.

 

/by
, , ,

217. Code Name Verity

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Nancy Sissom

Author:  Elizabeth Wein

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

353 pages, published May 15, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

On October 11th, 1943, a British plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. It is piloted by English Maddie (code name Kitty Hawk) after her best friend and spy Scotswoman Julie (code name Kitty Hawk), parachuted out.  Verity is arrested by the Gestapo and she’s given the choice of revealing her mission or face a painful execution. Through her confession, Julie tells the story of her friendship with Maddie and how she came to enter France as a spy for Britain.

 

Quotes 

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can’t believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant.

But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”

 

“KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!”

 

“It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, ‘You stupid ass, just wait a minute,’ and she’ll open her eyes! ‘Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!’ But they always do.”

 

“A whore, we’ve established that, filthy, it goes without saying, but whatever else the hell I am, I AM NOT ENGLISH.”

 

“People are complicated. There is so much more to everybody than you realize. You see someone in school everyday, or at work, in the canteen, and you share a cigarette of a coffee with them, and you talk about the weather or last night’s air raid. But you don’t talk so much about what was the nastiest thing you ever said to your mother, or how you pretended to be David Balfour, the hero of Kidnapped, for the whole of the year when you were 13, or what you imagine yourself doing with the pilot who looks like Leslie Howard if you were alone in his bunk after a dance.”

 

“What’s strange about the whole thing is that although it’s riddled with nonsense, altogether it’s true – Julie’s told our story, mine and hers, our friendship, so truthfully. It is us. We even had the same dream at the same time. How could we have had the same dream at the same time? How can something so wonderful and mysterious be true? But it is.

 

And this, even more wonderful and mysterious, is also true: when I read it, when I read what Julie’s written, she is instantly alive again, whole and undamaged. With her words in my mind while I’m reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She’s right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can’t be landed, stuck in the climb – alive, alive, ALIVE.”

 

“Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.”

 

My Take

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audio version of Code Name Verity (which had terrific voice work) and felt transported to World War II era England and France.  While the story is crackling good, what really appealed to me was wonderful, fully drawn characters of Julie and Maddie and the development of their signature friendship.  I’ve read a lot of books in the past two years that take place during World War II, but this is one of the best (see also The Nightingale).

 

/by
, , ,

216. State of Wonder

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Julie Horowitz

Author:  Ann Patchett

Genre:  Fiction, Foreign

353 pages, published June 7, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

State of Wonder chronicles the journey of Dr. Marina Singh into the insect-infested Amazon jungle in attempt to find out what happened to her longtime professional colleague Anders Eckman.  Anders, who was sent to Brazil by his pharmaceutical company employer to track down Dr. Annick Swenson, is presumed dead after contracting a mysterious illness.  Marina must find Dr. Swenson, who was her professor in medical school, and report on the status Dr. Swenson’s research on a drug that will allow women to maintain lifelong fertility.  Along the way, Marina will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice.

 

Quotes 

“Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”

 

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.”

 

“Everyone knows everything eventually.”

 

“No one tells the truth to people they don’t actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.”

 

“In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.”

 

“There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.”

 

“It is said the siesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.”

 

“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. That is how one respects indigenous people. If you pay any attention at all you’ll realize that you could never convert them to your way of life anyway. They are an intractable race. Any progress you advance to them will be undone before your back is turned. You might as well come down here to unbend the river. The point, then, is to observe the life they themselves have put in place and learn from it.”

 

“Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one’s partner on both the left and the right.”

“Questions are for the benefit of every student, not just the one raising his hand. If you don’t have the starch to stand up in class and admit what you don’t understand, then I don’t have the time to explain it to you. If you don’t have a policy against nonsense you can wind up with a dozen timid little rabbits lined up in the hall outside your office, all waiting to whisper the same imbecilic question in your ear.”

 

My Take

This was my second time reading State of Wonder (by the wonderful novelist Ann Patchett), although this time I listened to the audio version.  With respect to this book, I must say that Gretchen Rubin’s axiom “the best reading is re-reading,” certainly is true.  The voice work by Hope Davis (an actress that I have always liked) brings State of Wonder to life in a way that I didn’t get with the book.  This time around, I particularly enjoyed the character of Dr. Annick Swenson, an extremely self-confident, domineering woman who charts her own path with little regard to the impact on others. She has most of the best lines of the book and it was a treat to once again visit the Amazon jungle in my second reading of State of Wonder.

 

/by
, , ,

205. Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Author:   Scott Adams

Recommended by:   Scot Reader

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Psychology, Humor

304 pages, published November 16, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

From author Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, Win Bigly is an analysis of the strategies Donald Trump used to persuade voters to elect the most unconventional candidate in the history of the presidency.  Scott Adams, a trained hypnotist and a lifelong student of persuasion, was one of the earliest public figures to predict Trump’s win, doing so a week after Nate Silver put Trump’s odds at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog. The mainstream media regarded Trump as a novelty and a sideshow. But Adams recognized that Trump was a master persuader.  The book isn’t about whether Trump is good or bad.  Rather, Win Bigly explores the “how” of persuasion.

 

Quotes 

“We humans like to think we are creatures of reason. We aren’t. The reality is that we make our decisions first and rationalize them later….Your illusion of being a rational person is supported by the fact that sometimes you do act rationally.”

 

“On August 13, 2015, I predicted in my blog that Donald Trump had a 98 percent chance of winning the presidency based on his persuasion skills. A week earlier, the most respected political forecaster in the United States—Nate Silver—had put Trump’s odds of winning the Republican nomination at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog.”

 

“Trump’s unexpected win created a persuasion bomb that no one knew how to defuse. The anti-Trumpers were locked into their Hitler movie, and confirmation bias would keep them there. It was a terrible situation for a country. And it was an enormous challenge for Trump, the Master Persuader.”

 

“A good general rule is that people are more influenced by visual persuasion, emotion, repetition, and simplicity than they are by details and facts.”

 

“When you identify as part of a group, your opinions tend to be biased toward the group consensus.”

 

“People are more influenced by the direction of things than the current state.”

 

“Humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors. If you want someone’s cooperation in the future, do something for that person today.”

 

“The things that you think about the most will irrationally rise in importance in your mind.”

 

“Persuasion is effective even when the subject recognizes the technique. Everyone knows that stores list prices at $9.99 because $10.00 sounds like too much. It still works.”

 

“Unfortunately, most people believe that analogies are one of the best ways to persuade. That fact goes far in explaining why it seems that every debate on the Internet ends with a Hitler analogy. The phenomenon is so common it has its own name: Godwin’s law. But I doubt many people have changed an opinion just because a stranger on the Internet compared them to Hitler. A direct attack usually just hardens people into their current opinions.”

 

“I have no reason to believe humans evolved with the capability to understand their reality. That capability was not important to survival. When it comes to evolution, any illusion that keeps us alive long enough to procreate is good enough.”

 

“The grand illusion of life is that our minds have the capacity to understand reality. But human minds didn’t evolve to understand reality. We didn’t need that capability. A clear view of reality wasn’t necessary for our survival. Evolution cares only that you survive long enough to procreate. And that’s a low bar. The result is that each of us is, in effect, living in our own little movie that our brain has cooked up for us to explain our experiences”

 

“The common worldview, shared by most humans, is that there is one objective reality, and we humans can understand that reality through a rigorous application of facts and reason. This view of the world imagines that some people have already achieved a fact-based type of enlightenment that is compatible with science and logic, and they are trying to help the rest of us see the world the “right” way. As far as I can tell, most people share that interpretation of the world. The only wrinkle with that worldview is that we all think we are the enlightened ones. And we assume the people who disagree with us just need better facts, and perhaps better brains, in order to agree with us. That filter on life makes most of us happy—”

 

“The worst thing your brain could do is reinterpret your reality into a whole new movie with each new bit of information. That would be exhausting and without benefit. Instead, your brain takes the path of least resistance and instantly interprets your observations to fit your existing worldview. It’s just easier.”

 

“PERSUASION TIP 9 Display confidence (either real or faked) to improve your persuasiveness. You have to believe yourself, or at least appear as if you do, in order to get anyone else to believe.”

 

My Take

If you want to understand how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, I suggest that you read Win, Bigly.  Scott Adams presciently predicted Trump’s win and does a masterful job explaining in this book how it happened.  He does so in an easy to read, informative, witty and humorous style.  You also learn a lot about the subject of persuasion.  A very quick, easy and fun read.

/by
, , , ,

199. The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mel Robbins

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self Improvement, Psychology

267 pages, published February 28, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In The 5 Second Rule, author Mel Robbins recounts how she was trapped in a downward spiral so much so that she had trouble even getting out of bed in the morning.  Her entire world shifted when she discovered the 5 second rule.  The secret isn’t knowing what to do—it’s knowing how to make yourself do it.  Basically, when you first think about doing something you should (or shouldn’t), you count backwards from 5 (5-4-3-2-1) and then immediately take action.  For example, when you alarm goes off in the morning, you cant backwards from 5 and then immediately take action to get out of bed.  If you find yourself about to reach for a cookie, you count backwards from 5 and then stop yourself from taking it.

Robbins explains how the power of a “push moment” (i.e. counting backwards from 5) can help us do the things we want to do and stay away from the things we want to avoid.   By following the rule, Robbins believes that you will:  become more confident, break the habits of procrastination and self-doubt, beat fear and uncertainty, stop worrying and feel happier and share your ideas with courage.

 

Quotes 

“Hesitation is the kiss of death. You might hesitate for a just nanosecond, but that’s all it takes. That one small hesitation triggers a mental system that’s designed to stop you. And it happens in less than—you guessed it—five seconds.”

 

“The 5 Second Rule:  The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you.”

 

“Anytime there’s something you know you should do, but you feel uncertain, afraid, or overwhelmed…just take control by counting backwards 5- 4- 3- 2- 1. That’ll quiet your mind. Then, move when you get to “1.”

 

“You change your life one five-second decision at a time.”

 

“We are all so afraid of uncertainty that we want a guarantee before we even try. We want evidence that if we take a risk we will “get the girl” Its a numbers game. To play any game, you have to start. To win, you need to keep going. If you want to make your dreams come true, get ready for the long game.

Life is not a one and done sort of deal. You’ve got to work for what you want.

Picasso created nearly 100 masterpieces in his lifetime. But what most people don’t know is that he created a total of more then 50,000 works of art. .. Thats two pieces of art a day. Success is a numbers game. You are not going to win if you keep telling yourself to wait. The more often that you choose courage, the more likely you’ll succeed.”

 

“Your feelings don’t matter. The only thing that matters is what you DO.”

 

“When it comes to goals, dreams, and changing your life, your inner wisdom is a genius. Your goal-related impulses, urges, and instincts are there to guide you. You need to learn to bet on them.”

“This is where the #5SecondRule comes into play—you don’t have to want to do it, you just have to push yourself to do it.”

 

“locus of control.” The more that you believe that you are in control of your life, your actions and your future, the happier and more successful you’ll be.”

 

“I owe my morning routine to Duke University professor Dan Ariely. According to Ariely, the first two to three hours of the day are the best hours for your brain, once you fully wake up. So, if you pop out of bed at 6 a.m., your peak thinking and productivity window is 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. And so on.”

 

“I was the problem and in five seconds, I could push myself and become the solution.”

 

“There’s one thing that is guaranteed to increase your feelings of control over your life: a bias toward action.”

 

“If you have one of those impulses that are pulling you, if you don’t marry it with an action within 5 seconds, you pull the emergency break and kill the idea.”

 

“That’s an instinct reminding you of the goal. That’s your inner wisdom, and it’s important to pay attention to it, no matter how small or silly that instinct may seem.”

 

“Life is gritty and hard and then suddenly it is brilliant and amazing.”

 

“pushing yourself to take simple actions creates a chain reaction in your confidence and your productivity.”

 

“You can’t control how you feel. But you can always choose how you act.”

 

“I have a hard time finding the balance between not beating myself up when it doesn’t happen as fast as I’d like it to, and not wasting time while I wait for it to happen.”

 

“Start before you’re ready.  Don’t prepare, begin.”       

 

“Passion is not a thing, it’s a state of mind.”

 

My Take

I was skeptical when I first started reading this book.  How could five seconds be such a life changer?  However, author Mel Robbins provides some convincing examples of the rule at work.   Basically, the rule is a spur to action.  How much of our lives are just lazed away?  After finishing the book, I tried out the rule and it does work.  The only problem for me is remembering to use it in the first place.  When I do, I see results.

 

/by