Review: How to Get Paid for What You Know: Turning Your Knowledge, Passion, and Experience into an Online Income Stream in Your Spare Time

How to Get Paid for What You Know: Turning Your Knowledge, Passion, and Experience into an Online Income Stream in Your Spare Time by Graham Cochrane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I took copious notes, especially toward the end (the first part is mostly about convincing you you can do it, and why you should do it, and how to pick your topic, etc.). 

I feel like I shouldn't rate it until I've applied the notes, so we'll see. I'll give it 4 stars for now, since I've been in the game for a bit and his advice seems solid (plus he's done this before). If his methods work for me, I'll increase it to 5. 

I'm curious about Kajabi too. I'm hoping it's as good as he claims, and he wasn't just pushing it in order to get the commission. I'm using Thinkific for now and the prices seem comparable. 

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Review: Il prete rosso

Il prete rosso by Togni Giuseppina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Part history of Val Verzasca, part family history and saga of the descendants of a certain priest. But mostly a story of various people from the valley over the past 5 centuries. This book was excellent, made me want to visit Val Verzasca again (I've been up and down the valley, from Lavertezzo to Corippo to Sonogno, but never paid much attention), and I look forward to ready more by this author. 

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Review: The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years

The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years by Emily Oster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, it's great actually getting to hear about some of the research behind anecdotal how-tos and random theories. This one didn't have as much as some of the previous books, simply because it often isn't there (as was made plain in the book), but it was still quite useful. 

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Review: A Death in Tokyo

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great murder mystery. I didn't see it coming, and it wrapped up quite nicely in the end. 

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Review: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting premise and refreshing point of view. How do studies of economics, anthropology, psychology, culture, etc. differ if we consider "Western" points of view to be an extreme, not shared by most of the world? This book (quite convincingly) argues that this is the case. I don't know enough to confirm or refute his main thesis, but I did find many of his experiments very interesting, especially stuff like the Ultimatum game with indigenous tribes in South America. I find the whole "WEIRD" nomenclature a bit click-baity, but there you go. 

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Review: Dire quasi la stessa cosa: Esperienze di traduzione

Dire quasi la stessa cosa: Esperienze di traduzione by Umberto Eco
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent collection of essays. Many of these were repeats for me, since they were featured (in English) in "Mouse or Rat". Still, either one of these books should be required reading for any literary translator. 

The arguments about how people who speak different languages view words differently depending on masculine and feminine (Sun is masculine in Italian, Spanish and French, while moon is feminine, but this is the opposite in German, so when Hoffman said The sun invited the moon to dinner, the imagery is very different. Likewise, Ingmar Bergman's death might seem weird to an Italian/Spanish/French speaker, since death is feminine in those languages (and seen as the feminine "sweet death" in ancient literature). Although sometimes this talk veers a bit too much into Sapir-Whorf territory. 

Also interesting is Sol Worth's quote "Pictures can't say ain't". In other words, people can interpret a piece of art to be anything they wish it to be. When Magritte wanted to specify it wasn't a pipe he literally had to write it. 

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Review: The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want.

The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want. by Elaine Pofeldt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a re-read for me. It would be a great (and sorely needed) book, but it's just a collection of case studies. Even a final chapter with conclusions and tentative guidelines would've been excellent. Seems like a missed opportunity. Too bad. 

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Review: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You pretty much need to be an archaeologist to follow along with most of this book. 

The initial part is fascinating, but the author then decides he wants to prove he left no stone unturned. 

I don’t doubt that archaeological knowledge is needed in order to get to the bottom of PIE and its origins. In fact, I fully support his thesis and linguistic historians and archaeologists should work in tandem on this. 

Having said that, it doesn’t really make for the most entertaining book. I’m sure he did his homework (the chapter on horses, their teeth, and whether they were domesticated is nuts), but this read more like a thesis than a book. 

I also thought it was curious how, after stating that PIE didn’t expand due to conquests (he said it was more like franchises), he then claims that the language of conquerors pretty much always prevails. This may we true, but we know of at least one glaring exception throughout time. The territory of what we now call China was conquered by the Mongols, and then later by the Manchus. However neither of their languages even left a dent in modern Chinese. Shouldn’t we at least acknowledge something similar may have occurred with the spread of PIE?

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