Friday, December 28, 2018

Review: The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby's First Year

The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby's First Year The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby's First Year by Alice Callahan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We have yet to tackle many of the issues mentioned in the book (solid foods, full night's rest, etc.), so I might change my rating slightly later on, but for now I'd say this is the perfect follow up to Emily Oster's "Expecting Better". Once again, the information given here is based on studies, and most of the information seems to be quite solid.

The book deals with nutrition, sleep, health, etc. So don't expect advice on getting your baby to crawl/walk/keep quiet in public/etc.

As a side note, I found it sad that an entire chapter and so many of the appendices had to be dedicated to vaccines, which you'd think would be an obvious choice.

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Thursday, December 27, 2018

Review: Hanging Devils

Hanging Devils Hanging Devils by He Jiahong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first detective mystery from Mainland China. Not bad for the first in a series. Some parts did seem a bit simplistic, but I found some of the details of how the Chinese justice system works different and refreshing. The description of the town in Heilongjiang, life in that area, and the Orochen people, were all interesting as well.



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Monday, December 24, 2018

Review: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is probably the seminal book on happiness, and could very likely be a great book for people who need more of it in their life.

I did think it dragged on in certain parts, trying to relate "flow" to any and every circumstance imaginable, but there were plenty of takeaways. I guess my Kindle highlights are linked here so I can defer to them.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Review: In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite interesting. As the first of its kind it sometimes doesn't feel as polished as a modern version of this would be, and at other times it seems more contrived. Sometimes the dialog is clearly changed in order to sound more like a work of fiction (e.g. direct dialog quotes from dialog that wouldn't be remembered verbatim, a few too many coincidences, etc.), and at other times some extra information is added that seems not to pertain to the story directly. I must admit I liked it a lot though, and I think it has aged quite well. Including being a glimpse into life in Western Kansas in the 1950s. His deep deep dive into this case and the people involved in it pays off.

I also get the impression that this was a book that was needed when it came out; when crime, criminals and the circumstances surrounding criminal activity were viewed very differently.



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Friday, December 14, 2018

Review: Translating Culture - Late-Victorian Literature into Chinese

Translating Culture - Late-Victorian Literature into Chinese Translating Culture - Late-Victorian Literature into Chinese by Isaac Yue
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, this was probably beyond my pay grade. The subject seemed a tad esoteric, and I guess it is, but it's pretty fascinating regardless. It reminded me of Tim Parks' "Translating Style", although that was for IT-EN, which is my language combination. This one dealt with late Victorian literature and the translations of some select works into Chinese. As with Tim Parks' book, I think that even someone with little or no knowledge of Chinese will get quite a bit out of this, since it is a very thorough analysis of what was going on in Late Victorian literature, and how it affected the authors. I especially enjoyed "New Women Novels and their Translations" and "Dandyism and Witticism: The importance of being Oscar Wilde in the Context of Translation".



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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Review: The anthology of taiwan indigenous literature - Short Stories

The anthology of taiwan indigenous literature - Short Stories The anthology of taiwan indigenous literature - Short Stories by Cheng Fang Ming
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First of all, I should mention that this book is available for free here: https://alilin.apc.gov.tw/files/ebook...

I only found this out when I was googling one of the authors.

Anyway, for some reason I enjoyed this so much more than Part 1. I found almost every story to be of higher quality and more enjoyable. If you want to read a sample of Taiwan indigenous literature, this is probably the best bet.

Also, an oddity: three different stories feature a character called Watan. Two are by the same author, but none of them seems to be related to the others. I guess it's a very common Atayal name.

I didn't understand "Scarlet Earth" at all, so if anyone else has read it maybe they can explain it to me.


4.5 stars. Might revise this to a 5 later on.

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Sunday, December 09, 2018

Review: The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't think there's anything earth shattering here, but then again it might be because I ready many business books of this type. By and large, 10x means what it sounds like. He's less of the Tim Ferriss type of "find hacks" mentality, and more of the Gary V "hustle your ass off" mentality. I do like the way he puts it. Someone might think that to hustle means doing an extra sales call at the end of each day, or something along those lines. But by labeling it 10X, he makes it clear you need to think bigger. So you should be up making sales calls in your PJs and maybe even hire an intern or part-timer to get a sales team going (or something like that, I'm sort of inventing here) so you can make ten times as many calls as before.

I saw he has a TV show now (The Turnaround guy), which I'm interested in checking out.


Some of my notes:
Never diminish your target
Instead increase your input
Success is your duty
Average achievements are worse than no achievements, because people feel like they're putting in the effort already.
Don't get the victim mentality. If bad things happen to you, it's your fault, even when it isn't. Just think of a way to make sure it never happens again and move on.
Competing is copying
Don't let a good recession go to waste
Go all in (unlike with poker, you don' t have a limited number of chips)
You want new problems (means you're growing and doing new things).
Don't give Fear time to grow
Trying to avoid complaints is wrong (just another way of avoiding expansion). Complaints are direct ways customers give feedback. Encourage them, and you can improve.
Don't try to get money. Try to get wealth.
It's unethical not to achieve your full potential. You're robbing others of possible well-being
Be uncomfortable

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Thursday, December 06, 2018

Review: Hoofprint of the Ox: Principles of the Chan Buddhist Path as Taught by a Modern Chinese Master

Hoofprint of the Ox: Principles of the Chan Buddhist Path as Taught by a Modern Chinese Master Hoofprint of the Ox: Principles of the Chan Buddhist Path as Taught by a Modern Chinese Master by 聖嚴法師
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up on a visit to Fagushan Nongchan Temple (法鼓山農禪寺) in Taipei, looking for an overview of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. The introduction is basically Sheng-yen's biography. The first chapter seemed to be an overview of Chan Buddhism that got way too technical for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The second chapter starts dealing with meditation, and then the other aspect of Chan Buddhism.

This is probably an excellent book if you are ready to set out and are serious about getting into Zen Buddhism. If you're just mildly interested and want to read more about it (like I was) this may be a bit much. Certain things were just too dense for me. For example, here's a sentence taken at random:

"The fourth station of mindfulness of dharmas entails taking a microscopic look at the continuum of psycho-physical experience from which concepts of self, mind and body are produced, using its constituent dharmas as the frame of reference".

It's not as bad as it may sound there, since the terminology is all explained beforehand, but it still ain't easy.

Having said that, it basically details all the aspects, history and beliefs of Chan Buddhism. The title is explained in the final chapter.


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Sunday, December 02, 2018

Review: Religion in Taiwan and China: Locality and Transmission

Religion in Taiwan and China: Locality and Transmission Religion in Taiwan and China: Locality and Transmission by Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A collection of essays and articles. Once again, these are hit or miss. However, there was something interesting in each one of these for me. I either learned about a new person (Yu Yue), or a new sect (Yi-Guan Dao, which is apparently huge in Taiwan), or about a Chinese-born Christian sect (Local Church), or Chinese Sufism, or Shamanism for the Paiwan tribe. .

The Chapters:
1) In Search of the Original Scriptures. About a Japanese and a Chinese monk who try to find original Indian Buddhists scripts, mostly via London
2) Locality and Temple Fundraising in Northern Qing China
3) Yu Yue
4) Inside and Outside the British Settlement in Shanghai
5) The Construction of Fundamentalism in I-Kuan Tao
6) The problem of Locality. About the Little Flock, or the Local Church, the Chinese-born Christian sect.
7) Singing your own song? About New Age in Taiwan. Not sure why this would be considered religious, and the author seems to be criticizing one of the founders (and probably rightly so), but pretty interesting nonetheless.
8) Rituals as Local knowledge. How Several Indigenous populations relate to Millet.
9) A resurgent Temple. All about Fengtian temple in Xingang, Jiayi.
10) Decline and Revitalization of Shamanic traditions in Paiwan village. Relates it to Shamanism in Siberia and Korea. Also discusses how Christianity (and the Japanese and the KMT government) relegated these traditions and tried to get rid of them.
11) City of Saint. About Sufism in China. Quite fascinatin
12) Rivers and Lakes. About Diviners (fortune tellers, Feng shui experts, etc.)

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Saturday, December 01, 2018

Review: Pompeii

Pompeii Pompeii by Robert Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was excellent. Pompeii and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius is something we've all heard about. I thought I had heard quite a bit about it, and I also went to visit Pompeii several years ago, and yet it wasn't until reading this book that I felt I got a real sense of what it must have been like to go through this ordeal. I've heard it said that A Tale of Two Cities does a better job than any history book of conveying what it was like to go through the French Revolution, and I suspect this is its equivalent for Pompeii and its inhabitants.

I also enjoyed the angle, and how the observations started from the changes in the water supply and aqueducts.

The (love) story in itself was a tad simplistic, but there were many other reasons to enjoy this book. The story was almost just an excuse to tell all the rest.

Also (SPOILER AHEAD) it seemed to be a bit of a stretch how Attilius manages to be on Mt. Vesuvius when the eruption starts, passes through Herculaneum and then Misenum, and the gets to Pompeii for the final pyroclastic surge (and obviously survives).

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