Review: Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu

Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu by A.L. Sadler
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This book was fascinating and an excellent insight into Tokugawa Ieyasu (and also plenty about Oda Obunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi).

I confess the tone felt odd. The author uses many original sources, but tends to quote them verbatim, rather than try to suss out fact from fiction, so it often reads like a story rather than history.

I also expected the Imjin war in Korea to feature much more.


Still, excellent read for anyone interested in this fascinating character or the time period in Japan.


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Review: IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon

IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon by James W. Cortada
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an almost impossible task from the beginning. In essence it is the biography of a company that is not only extremely old, but is still ongoing and that (apparently) does not grant outsiders access to its historical records.

Still, pretty much all of this was new to me, and I found the story of its ups and downs throughout the years, and the people involved, to be eye-opening and very interesting.


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Review: Foster

Foster by Claire Keegan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a short good read and I *think* it had a really sweet/bittersweet ending.


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Review: $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No by Alex Hormozi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I took copious notes, which I have started using in my business. I'm giving it 5 stars for now because I found it jam packed with useful advice, much of which was different and quite relevant to me. Of course, we'll see how it goes when I apply it.

In essence this seemed to be about as useful as information can be considering it doesn't focus on any one particular type of business. If I'm able to apply it well and it starts paying dividends, I will definitely be checking out his other books.

Some of my personal notes (they may not make sense without the book as reference):

Lower time delay and you raise perceived likelihood of achievement and effort required. 

Find every problem you can for the customer. The more problems, the better because you can solve more of them.

The longer you wait to make your offer, the more Demand you create, and the more you can charge

Create scarcity to increase demand. Urgency to increase demand. Bonuses to increase demand.

Offer something for limited slots (e.g. Sold out soon). Offer again the following month.

Scarcity:

Only accepting x clients. (An exclusive seminar. Then personal zoom call or email for a premium)

Urgency: I had a client just drop out, so there’s space on Monday.  Let’s get you started on this discount we have going on now. 

Never raise the price without letting people know first. 

Arbitrage opportunity: This is an opportunity. Most people don’t know about so jumping right now to find out about it.

Never ever offer discounts, only offer bonus add-ons. Always explain the bonus in detail and the bonus to be equal or even more valuable than the main offer. 

This will increase the perceived value of the main offer. I will add on XYZ bonus if you purchase today because I reward action takers. 

Great templates and tools and downloadable or anything that takes a while to create but is worth a lot. Offer these as a bonus. Use every webinar and similar as bonuses as well.

Guarantee: they f you don’t get value, your money back. The only way not to get help is not to buy (Or something like: as long as you updated your information as per the instructions, etc. If you have no results, then either money back or I will work with you until you find a job)

Or give no guarantee and say all sales are final because you show proprietary boxes. That also shows confidence.

Find a good way to track for guarantees. Make sure they followed steps you laid out.

Naming: 

      Rhyming, alliteration

Attention

Discrimination 

Purpose

Timing 

Method

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Review: Interrelated Issues in Korean, East Asian and World Literature

Interrelated Issues in Korean, East Asian and World Literature by Dong-il Cho
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A collection of essays/writings by the same author. This is a great topic, but unfortunately he doesn't seem to go very far with it. The essays (understandably) repeat many points, but between tackling literature in East Asia, worldwide, exploring various genres, and spending some time seemingly badmouthing a Eurocentric viewpoint of literature, he can only go so much in depth. He seems to be at his strongest exploring interrelated issues between Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese (and possibly Ryukyu) literature, and I would have loved to see this explored more in-depth.

Still, some quite interesting points, at least for me. Especially the topics of different types of epics, oral literature and the reasons they aren't prevalent in certain areas, and females in literature in East Asia.


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Review: The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World

The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by Adrian Wooldridge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very interesting look at the history of "meritocracy" and its inevitable "aristocratic" outcome. I can't say I really agreed with his conclusions after all the analysis, but it was still an interesting read. You see how having a "meritocracy" will lead to able people coming to power (if done right), but then they will find a way to consolidate power/wealth/etc. for their families, leading to another aristocracy.

Also, in the conclusions, emulating Singapore's education style is fine, but flaunting that they only dedicate 8% of their focus on humanities seems to be a grave mistake. We are seeing the consequences of much of this now, with silicon valley bros who make fun of humanities suddenly "discovering" some new eternal truth that we've all known about for millennia (I'm not a humanities major by a long shot, having studied business and econ, but I absolutely recognize its merits).

Also, his concluding paragraph on how "the West" can keep ahead of "Asia" is all a bit too jingoistic for me.

Still, read it for the good theory and information from the past.



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Review: Sharenthood: Why We Should Think before We Talk about Our Kids Online

Sharenthood: Why We Should Think before We Talk about Our Kids Online by Leah A. Plunkett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This mainly brings up questions we will all have in the coming years. I'm not sure how much new material was added. In fact, it would have been interesting to take it further, and see if parents end up trying to "game" the social media system by carefully calibrating their kids' social media presence so that when they are applying for college or a job it shows them in the best light possible from birth. I'm sure this is already happening somewhere.

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Review: Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is probably the definitive biography of Beethoven, at least until anything new is uncovered. Many parts went way too much into detail for me, analyzing his pieces of music movement by movement. But the story of his life was at times tragic and depressing, but always fascinating, including the snippets about his mysterious lover.

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Review: The Confessions of Lady Nijō

The Confessions of Lady Nijō by Lady Nijō
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is probably better quality than most other diaries or memoirs of Heian Japan, although it does read more like a novel written in later years made to sound like a diary (which it apparently is). 

I must confess, while at the outset I felt bad for the lack of control she had over her life, and gave allowances due to her age, I couldn't really sympathize with her. She doesn't seem to care for her kids, whom she has to give away and doesn't seem to give much thought to (even stating so herself at one point). In fact, after she is kicked out of the emperor's entourage, she doesn't seem to want to reconnect with any of her children. I may be missing some of the restrictions/customs of the time, but it still seems a tad harsh not even to mention your own kids after a while. 

After the 9-year-jump she seems to be more grounded, although still very materialistic (especially for a nun). 

Still, some very interesting information, and I really did find it interesting following her travels in her later years. 

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Review: London and the Seventeenth Century: The Making of the World's Greatest City

London and the Seventeenth Century: The Making of the World's Greatest City by Margarette Lincoln
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An excellent book that delivers exactly what is promised. Moreover, despite being a pretty big book, it is jam-packed with information. I particularly liked the story about coffee shop and how it affected news being circulated, as well as how the King Charles debacle came to be (maybe British people learn this in school, but much of it was unknown to me). Also, they shipped 400 prostitutes to Barbados? Did they really think that would end prostitution?



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