Review: Pages from the Goncourt Journals

Pages from the Goncourt Journals by Edmond de Goncourt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The ultimate gossip rag of the second half of the 19th century Parisian literary circles. The brothers (and later just Edmond) Concourt dish it out and namedrop over the decades, talking about Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola, Gautier, Daudet, Degas, Rodin, Saint-Beuve, Mdme George Sand, Victor Hugo, Dumas, etc. etc. And if you don’t recognize some of those names don’t worry. It doesn’t detract from the gossip and the pettiness, which makes this book great.

I bookmarked several excellent anecdotes, including:
the empress taking several paintings out “on loan” from the Louvre to hang on her walls, wishing to impress the Queen of England, but having the Queen recognize them from the Louvre (p. 120)
The story of Prince Napoleon drinking holy water by mistake on his wedding night and getting sick (p. 142, 5 November 1862)
The Chinese envoy saying “You are young, you Westerners. You hardly have any history to speak of” (p. 195 , 9 November 1871)
The initial impressions of Degas (p. 206 ,13 February 1874)
The fact that Balzac did not wish to ejaculate since he was afraid of losing cerebral matter. (p. 216, 3 June 1875)
Manet had an “ugly, cracked voice” (p. 239)
His outrage that someone had quit a job via the new contraption called a Telephone! (p. 269)
His impressions of Oscar Wilde (p. 285)

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Review: The Eighth Life

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an epic in every sense. Over 900 pages taking us through over 100 years of Georgian history through the story of a family. It has everything you would imagine. At times it felt like it was trying to do too much in one novel, but by and large it was an enthralling look into life in Georgia throughout the years, and how this all affects younger people who didn’t live through it themselves.

The was also the feeling that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes, both in terms of historical events as well as in terms of the family. This at times made it confusing in that certain family members or acquaintances started getting mixed up in my head.

I would still give it 5 stars.


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Review: Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids

Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids by Matthias Doepke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quite a fascinating look at parenting and the numbers behind the phenomena.

Why are there so many helicopter parents today compared to the 70s and 80s? And why were parents so permissive then? And why did the baby boom even occur? It is quite evident when looking at the data. The rise in inequality will likely exacerbate the helicopter mom/ tiger mom mentality. But at the same time, as we saw in the past, when middle class people try to get ahead, they end up acting very differently from the leisure class (I wish they had discussed the implications of this latest one a bit further).

Highly recommended.

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Review: Heaven's Wind

Heaven's Wind by Angus Turvill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An interesting collection of short stories, mostly by authors I've never read before.


The Otter, by Kuniko Mukoda
This was probably my favorite. Short, poignant, and a tad shocking

Ball, by Natsuko Kuroda
I'm not really sure I fully understood this one, but it was enjoyable

Summer Blanket, by Kaori Ekuni
I liked this one. The Ambience and premise were nice. Almost like the beginning of a longer book.


The Child Over There, Mitsuyo Kakuta
A tad disturbing, but also interesting. This veered into surrealism but I'm not sure it got there.


Planting, by Atsuko Matsuda
This is a re-read for me. I don't think I like it any more the second time around. Nowhere near as good as some of her other stuff.


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Review: The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream

The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream by Michael Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was better than I expected it to be. A refreshing re-read through the vast history of China. Now I want to read more about the Song dynasty, and I've added Xu Xiake's journal to my wishlist.

I especially found it interesting how the author was able to find a family to represent most major epochs and events throughout history and trace their story, all the way to the present, where the descendants (35th generation!) still tell the history and have old family documents.

Some people are commenting that the author was biased, but I found it quite objective, even regarding Xi Jinping and his origins, as well as his methods in office.

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Review: The Noh Mask Murder

The Noh Mask Murder by Akimitsu Takagi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This seemed a tad contrived, but in the end it more than made up for some artificial situations by being quite original and clever.


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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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