Animal Wise

My origional and expanded review is located on PsychCentral.

How smart are animals? We know that dolphins are smart, but did you know that some ants are incredibly smart and teach each other new routes? Elephants can remember the voices of fellow elephants years after they've died and elephants can recognize another elephant from their skeleton alone.

Read more ...

Reinventing the Meal

The original review I wrote for this book is located at PsychCentral. This review is a bit different. The PsychCentral review has the zombie perspective.

Reinventing the Meal: How Mindfulness Can Help You Slow Down, Savor the Moment, and Reconnect with the Ritual of Eating.

Read more ...

Beyond Bullet Points

John, a super smart client of mine, asks me to make him graphs and charts. He sends me the whole PowerPoint presentation for context, and I look through them. While I like John's industry (and have great respect for it) and think he's a fine fellow, I would dread to sit in on one of his presentations.

Read more ...

Righteous Mind

A Ted video captured me a few years ago.

Read more ...

Business planning books

When I saw the theme for IVAA's summer newsletter, Business Planning 2010, I thought "I don't know anything about this topic. Maybe I should skip this month." As I thought about it, I came up with the idea of comparing the different books on creating business plans. So, I logged in to the library and put just about all the business plan books on hold and started reading.

Read more ...

Switch

It's all about training the elephant.

Read more ...

Destructive math

Recommended at a conference.

Read more ...

The Non-Designers Design Book

The Non Designer's Design Book is an excellent read for anyone who does desktop publishing but hasn't had any graphic art classes. The content is broken down into simple, easy-to-read chunks with plenty of examples. It's easy to get without an instructor. While some design fundamentals seem obvious, the author, RobinWilliams, explains the why, whether you just do some business letters for your clients or you design newsletters. There's value to be gleaned from this book.

Read more ...

Escaping the Endless Adolescence

The gist of this book is that adolescence has increased in time from a few years to decades. Kids know it, and they don't like it. Along with John Gatto, the authors posit (with research backing them up) that meaningful work can turn around even the most difficult teen.

Read more ...

The Psychopath Test

Except for a few names in psychiatry history, I don't think I learned much from this Jon Ronson book. Despite that, the book was an enjoyable read. I got through it in a day, which is pretty good for me and non-fiction. 

Read more ...

Executive Function & Child Development

My origional, expanded review of this book is on PsychCentral.

A husband/wife team, Marcie and Daniel Yeager, both therapists, wrote this book.

Read more ...

The Richest Man in Babylon

Before leaving my dad's house, my sisters and I were required to read several books and regurgitate the story, or the lessons in the book, to him. One of the books was George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon. The book is educational and contains much good advice. It's a great book for young adults, or for anyone who hasn't taken an interest in personal finance before.

Read more ...

Getting paid to read

A few years ago I read books for a website, psychcentral.com, wrote reviews, and got paid. It was a great arrangement. I like to read. I like to write. I like to learn new things. And, getting the free book in the mail with someone waiting on me for a review was enticement to not get distracted by all those science fiction and smut books.

Read more ...

The Secret Language of Business

I had a conversation with peers about how virtually we work, and this led to me an interest in body language in business. So, I went to the library and got a book.

Read more ...

Language Intelligence

I recently read Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga, written by Joseph J Romm.

The book talks about rhetoric and politicians. Abraham Lincoln schooled himself in rhetoric. He studied Shakespeare and the Bible, along with actual books on rhetoric. He memorized great speeches and took them apart. Lincoln taught himself to be good at rhetoric, and he was.

Read more ...

Why School?

Education and educational theory interests me, so I occasionally read books on school, learning, psychology, curriculum design, and homeschooling. When I saw a short TED ebook called Why School?, I bought it straight away.

Read more ...

Made To Stick

Chip and Dan Heath, brothers, wrote this book together after they realized they both maintained a lifelong interest in figuring out how to make ideas stick, or how to teach. They combined their years of research, experience, and other people's research into a simple formula. This simple formula correlates to an idea's stickiness and can be used to create and find ideas that will stay around. The formula, S + U + C + C + E + S + S, is explained with many examples, scenarios, and stories that drive their points across.

Read more ...

Why we believe in god(s)

Religion is a by-product of evolutionary psychological adaptations. I read the text of the book first and then read the forward and preface. Low and behold, the book is also a video.   In fact, he made the video first and just expanded it a bit for the book. Whilst my family did not read the book, they did watch the video.

Read more ...

Real Food

Confirmed: the grocery store is a war zone.

Read more ...