Books and Me

By Gary Klein (2017) For reasons that now completely escape me, I started out skeptically with this book  but somewhere in the course of it, I have been completely persuaded and have just finished it in a flurry of committed appreciation.  This is probably partially because it is a less depressing read than many of the behavioural economics books I have been reading lately, but more constructively it is also because I now feel I have a bit more of a handle on how to generate new ideas more easily and often. The author approaches the matter of how insights are generated through naturalistic research - taking 120 examples of moments where insights have occurred in real life rather than from experiments in a laboratory, and as a result, he generates a richness of understanding that more controlled testing would and has missed. In the process, Klein provides a very welcome corrective to the heuristics and biases movement which is often lab based and which is often terr...

Dr Vee Freir (2016) It seems I am becoming a complete sucker for secondary sources.  They often come just so much more neatly packaged than the primary sources which can be a labour of love in comparison. And so it is with this offering.  There is almost nothing here that you won't have encountered before, but it is presented so succinctly and clearly and yet with such a profusion of useful suggestions that then get rammed into memory through such repeated exposure, that really you can't complain. The author advises picking and choosing from the fifty suggestions on offer as some will work better than others for different people. Most of strategies I do already, but I did highlight twelve others that seem easy to incorporate without completely devoting one's time to stress management. These included leveling the chin in order to improve breathing and improving posture and shoulder pain by picturing removing a vividly imagined rucksack. Rating 6/10

by Mihaly Csikzentmihaly (2002) This is a book of two halves: the first a classic description of a how to live well in more or less any situation; the second, a rather protracted description of how to apply the lessons of the first half to every other possible scenario.  During this second half, I felt rather like a dinner guest trapped by a loquacious guest who, whilst they may be extremely clever, has had one too many and simply didn't know when to stop.  Ironically, I simply couldn't get into the flow of reading this second half however hard I tried, but that shouldn't stop one taking heed of the very important messages of the first half. Rating 6/10 Related links:  https://positivepsychology.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/

By James Clear (2018) The author really does live up to his name with this superbly clear book .  The secret is in the structure.  He creates an unforgettable scaffold upon which to hang the ideas, so that they are not only beautifully signalled, obvious and graspable, but are also memorable and actionable. I can see why he garners so many 5 star ratings on Amazon.   Get this book!  Rating 10/10

by Katie Hurley (2019) With news that 9/10 teens are worried about their mental health, and that a third state that they feel helpless, sad and or fearful frequently and this problem far outstripping any help that is offered by others, these sorts of work books would seem to have a big and important function. This one does the job efficiently enough. There isn't anything you won't already have read before in other places, but it puts all the strategies in one neat place succinctly and clearly, and even if you don't have any mood disorder, often seems to offer very sensible strategies for life. Whether a teen would actually engage with it in the first place, let alone actually benefit from it, is another matter altogether. Rating 6/10

by Jennie Marie Battistin (2019) One of the biggest problems with selling mindfulness to teens, in my experience, is that it just sounds hokey.  Why should they bother with it? It doesn't sound as if it would work and there are better things to be doing with one's time.  Plus, don't try to whitewash problems.  If there is an issue, solve it directly.  Don't try to make the poor victim just accept that this is how things are whilst deluding themselves that everything is hunky dory.   And the awful thing is, they may have a point.  I mean, there are quite a few recent studies out there which suggest that mindfulness is not all it's been cracked up to be.  And yes, perhaps mindfulness is occasionally used coercively as a cover for appallingly stressful situations. I remember an example of this in the NHS a while back: nurses who were working on desperately understaffed wards being taught mindfulness in nursing school in order to manage their a...

by Meik Wiking  (2016) The author of this book attributes the fact that the Danes regularly top world happiness charts to the fact that they take Hygge or Danish cosiness of the soul seriously in many areas of life.  It is not just that cosy feeling when you sit around a roaring fire with friends and candles as a storm rages outside, you can apply hygge to meals, Christmas, skiing, pretty much any social occasion.   Of course, the Danes also do have generous government support, pretty reasonable GDP, a generally trusting population, and a great work/life balance.  These things probably help, but hygge does sound like a lovely idea and I've gone out and bought candles as a result. Rating 6/10

by Thibaut Meurisse (2019) This is yet another of those books that takes a lot of its material from primary sources and reworks them into a succinct package so that it is pretty straightforward to extract and retain the take home messages whilst not worrying about the history of the explanations or the intricacies of the arguments, and really, for that we should be grateful - it's a quick and punchy read with a bundle of good ideas on the issue of motivation, even if it didn't solve the problem of how to magic motivation out of thin air, recommending instead that one act on whatever minute morsel of motivation one already has.  The only other quibble: the author consistently addresses the reader directly as "you" and as I personally don't have any issues with a lack of motivation just now at least, I kept feeling the urge to shout "Hey look, not a problem mate!".  However,  if the reader is stuck in a rut, this probably wouldn't be a probl...

by Chip and Dan Heath (2011) You have to love this  simply because it proffers such a plethora of sensible sounding solutions to the problem of how to implement change and it does this with so many vivid examples, and within such well organised framework that you really won't forget the broad outline of the ideas, from which is it possible to recall the finer details and therefore will be able to actually use what you've read.  It is, as with the "Asshole Survival Guide", a must read in that it would make the world a better place. OK, at some points, you may begin to wonder if some of the research might not have survived the replication crisis .  Carol Dweck is quoted with reverence and questions were hanging over her "Growth Mindset" argument, but I see that as of August 2019, a large study has confirmed that it does work, and even if the effects were small, were still significant.  Research aside (!), intuitively, every change-facilitating method i...

by Katherine Andler (2013) This is a twenty minute read at most, but extremely helpful nonetheless.  As it happens, I am simultaneously reading three other  books  on related subjects, one of which mentioned EMDR therapy for PTSD and anxiety in early chapter, and frankly, I couldn't wait to know more about the technique that seemed to promise so much and so went in search of something that could explain it a bit more. Andler's short tract didn't let me down.  She explains EMDR succinctly and memorably and provides useful links to youtube and further reading at the back.  I tried the technique on myself using a minor source of anxiety along with  this video , and OK, so I am hardly terribly traumatised and have worked on my stuff with various tools over the years, (CBT, mindfulness, yoga, attachment theory etc) but, let's face it, sources of at least some level of trauma are ever present, so it wasn't terribly difficult to think something up....

by Patrick King (2018) The wonderful thing about reading widely is that you end up reading books you otherwise wouldn't on the basis that it is only one book among many and nothing much hangs on it being a bad 'un, but then, joy of joys, finding that it is a total gem!  This worked for The Little Book of Stoicism , and it has worked for this one too.  Thankfully for both books, the messages are compatible - essentially - control what you can control, don't make your self assessment dependent upon factors that are outside of your control, be good enough for yourself and don't attempt to manipulate others for your own purposes.  Both books bulge with rational, life-improving, relatively easily actionable advice. Both leave you with clear messages that you won't forget in a hurry.  Highly recommended. Rating 9/10

By Tabatha Chansard (2019) There is nothing new here, but the book is nonetheless an efficient, well-written summary of evidenced-based approaches for tackling teen anxiety, along with exercises designed to encourage the reader to implement the theory.  I'm sure these approaches work, but the teen has to believe it possible and to engage with the suggestions fully.  This might be difficult.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Rating 6/10

by Ant Middleton (2019) This is far less of a description of military tactics or history and far more a refreshingly different take on the self-help genre.  Channelling your demons and putting them to good aggressive use is not the sort of thing you come across in your average self-improvement read, but actually, if you try hard, the two approaches often aren't completely inconsistent. "First Man In" simply broadens the scope of available solutions and behaviours. Take timing, for example:  when you've read a whole bundle of books on how to avoid procrastinating, it is interesting to come across the concept of "intelligent waiting". "First Man In" is pacily written, an easy read, and is, or at least you hope it is, an insight into the minds of elite soldiers.  Not that you ever feel certain of the veracity of this insight, mind you!  Nothing is ever quite what it seems in this world and the skirting over the tours in Afghanistan makes...

by Daniel Pink (2018) For someone utterly terrified by the concept of selling, I was, by the end of the book , brought into the idea that, one way or another, we are all selling pretty much all the time, so I had better bite the bullet and get better at it.   Given that my previous knowledge is next to zero, I was completely sold on 100% of the suggestions which came neatly chunked and presented with persuasive anecdotes in a way that clearly suggests that Pink has imbibed his own messages.  Reviews elsewhere suggest that the research (which is amply referenced) may either be stretched for the purposes of the argument or may not be rigorous in the first place, but frankly I didn't care.  Any suggestions are welcome and all seem broadly sensible.  The sheer volume of ideas, even though they are clearly sorted in a well constructed system, does mean that unless one has a pretty good memory, one will have to revisit the book to mug up on the finer de...

Daniel Goleman (2014) The subject of this book - focus - really is the launch pad for emotional intelligence and a successfully Stoic way of being.   Get this right and you have the foundations for building that essential freedom between stimulus and response , which means that you can choose how you react.  Other forms of focus are described too, but of course, once that initial self focus, along with self insight are triggered, one can much more easily actively choose to focus in these ways too.  Methods for increasing ones powers of focus are described.  With even only a little practice, if coupled with an understanding of what to aim for,  one can radically improve emotional and attentional outcomes. These skills should be taught to all children everywhere.  Lessons in attentional control, self awareness and relaxation are taught in classes in Singapore and look what happens to their PISA scores !   I will have to go back to Lucy Cr...

by Amy Morin (2019) While most of this makes great good sense, is well researched and referenced, the format made reading it sequentially a teensy bit tedious and unmemorable.  It is probably best to dip into it, and finding the chapter that is relevant for the moment as it is otherwise pretty difficult to retain all 13 things one must do in order to stay mentally strong. Rating 6/10. 

by Peter Hollins (2019) Well this turned out to be unexpectedly useful.  It's difficult not to assume that you might not get much out of a book if it starts off with the omnipresent Phineas Gage ,  but actually in this instance, after Phineas, there was plenty of information that was completely new to me, most of which was constructive and what's more, most of which chimed very well with my go-to books on how to improve one's mental health, ie: "The Little Book of Stoicism" and "The Chimp Paradox ".  So now we have the complete package, the philosophical take (Stoicism), the psychiatric approach (The Chimp/human paradigm) and now the layman's guide to the neuroscientific angle. It is, for example, satisfying to marry up the powerful chimp versus feeble human paradigm (from the Chimp Paradox) with the neuroscience as described by Hollins when he describes huge proportions of the brain as being swamped with powerful reward-seeking dopamine, wi...

by  Prof Steve Peters (2012) This book on its own could well be a life-changing read, but when read in conjunction with "The Little Book of Stoicism" , you really do have the whole package - ie: both the psychiatric and the philosophical take on how to live well.    "The Little Book of Stoicism" will give you the broad view, ramming the key messages home through the force of rigorously convincing argument, so you really can't forget what to do, even in the heat of the moment and the ethical heft it adds makes the whole exercise seem worth doing. "The Chimp Paradox" describes exactly the same mental model but approaches the subject from a psychiatric point of view.  It is underpinned by the same Stoic idea that one should be realistic about the limits of ones control, and that one should learn to accept the things one cannot control. All the methods for dealing with the chimp brain are prefaced by this knowledge. It is not in the least sur...

by Matt Haig (2015) This is a brave, honest, utterly engaging, at times searingly painful and finally uplifting account of one man's struggle with anxiety and depression.  He manages to make the experience very real at times, which is often a hard thing to convey to those who are broadly happy.  Despite some uncomfortable reading, it is worth the effort to engage with it as there are useful lessons to be learned even for those who have never had a tinge of the black dog, since Matt not only comes up with some very sensible suggestions as to how to get well again but also describes the unexpected value of the experience.  My only quibble: he doesn't prescribe a Stoic philosophy, veering instead towards Buddhist doctrine, yoga and a more classic version of mindfulness than The Little Book of Stoicism prescribed, but this is easily rectifiable as there is nothing that cannot easily be tweaked to bring it in line with the healing nature of stoicism.  Read the...

by Heidi Farrelly (2018) Sometimes it's very hard to get past first impressions and the cover of this book certainly didn't make this easy. On the other hand, it sometimes really isn't worth the effort and first impressions turn out to be spot on, which was most definitely the case in this instance. I did wonder if this book suffered in my estimations from being read at the same time as two other far better books on the same sort of subject, but that aside, the lack of over-arching deep principle on which to hang the poorly researched, poorly referenced, completely common-place advice made the whole thing instantly forgettable and frequently contradictory.  Rating 3/10