Books and Me

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 Zoe Wybrant (2015) I've been dreading writing a review of this book  for the reason that I really, really don't want to say anything harsh about it.  The author dares to expose her inner soul and in doing so,  provides an abundance of source material that will be very revealing to anyone who encounters the problem of profound and persistent dissatisfaction with appearance.  She also describes the solutions that worked for her in overcoming the problem.  You don't feel right to say anything critical in the face of such honesty and bravery and really most of the problems are just carping.  Zoe isn't really a writer which means that the profundity of some of her assertions may easily be missed which could be a huge shame.  I had to reread the book to pick up on and ram in the take-home messages.  A good editor would have been handy as the content in raw form is all there. Rating 4/10

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

by Jonas Salzgeber (2019) This should be required reading for everyone on the planet.  It is a gem - a perfect summation of a perfect moral philosophy.  For many of my generation who, somewhere along the line, have lost their religious faith and with it have lost the nuggets of moral wisdom that were buried amongst the rubbish, this is what we have been waiting for. Most of the atheism of the generation of Dawkins and Hitchens was about the repudiation of theism and whilst we could agree whole-heartedly with that, we were left high and dry as regards to how to live our lives without a god of some description telling us what to do. And yet it was here all along!  The Stoics had worked it all out well before Christianity came on the scene, and it is infuriating that on account of the fact that Stoicism sounds all rather miserable and stiff upper lip, I had never thought to look it up before.  But miserablist it really isn't and in this regard, it mis-sells it...

By Jesper Juul (2012) Phew - that was a struggle.  In fact I don't know how I got to the end of this incoherent ramble . Perhaps it was the fact that just as a stopped clock will tell the right time twice a day, the author did get things right occasionally and it was mildly entertaining to seek out these fleeting moments, but more realistically it was probably because the whole thing was mercifully short.  The book didn't present a coherent strategy for parenting with "no", despite seemingly promising to do so on the cover.  Really, there are far better books out there on how to live happily with one's children, and this book definitely suffered for such comparisons, not least because I was simultaneously reading one of these better ones. (Review to follow shortly). 1/10

by Dr. Michael Mosley  (2017) The fact that this is my third Michael Mosley book so far this year is a pretty strong clue that I am a dedicated fan of this doctor-turned-journalist. He churns out these books on similar subjects and I read them all avidly.  This is yet  another  book primarily on the microbiome and the latest (as of 2017) ways to improve it, which of course is predominantly through diet (a lot of tasty though often meat based recipes are provided), but also through fasting, exercise, getting a good night's sleep and minimising stress. It might seem like reinventing the wheel, given all the other stuff I have read on this subject in the recent past, but actually, I am constantly grateful for the revision as well as the updates. For example, it is easy to fall off the fasting wagon and a little reminder of why it is worth it, particularly when coupled with the advantages of  HIIT,  is always a good thing.   And of course the ...

                                                                     by Sue Lloyd-Roberts and Sarah Morris (2016) This was not an easy read.  Yes, one is broadly familiar with most of the forms of savagery that are meted out on women, (a knowledge for which we most likely have to thank the likes of Sue and her fellow journalists), but the sheer horror of these atrocities is brought home by the reporting of the stories of the individuals who underwent these experiences.  It doesn't start out gently either.  We jump straight in with female genital mutilation, from whence we proceed to the appalling grief of Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, then on to the wash house persecution of "fallen" women in Ireland and so on, unrelentingly, until we reach the last chapter on the UK's gender pay gap (com...

by Brene Brown (2018) This  book is both a quickish reiteration of themes from Brown's previous books and an extension into the application of those themes to leadership.  Perhaps because it was my first Brene Brown book, I couldn't read it in the flight time that Brene prescribed.  I had to linger over the ideas primarily because it could be quite dense but also because of some key parts of the language which somehow remained obscure to me.   For example,  I finished the book still not being entirely sure I that I know what a "rumble" is. The meaning seemed to mutate a bit depending on context, so I sketched it in as I went along.  These a quibbles though.  The main message of the importance of being aware of one's vulnerability, facing it honestly and dealing with the resulting shame in a way that avoids the noxious pitfalls shame generates is utterly obvious, helpful and healing. You also end up feeling that the world badly needs a ...

by Rick Wilson (2018) This is an eviscerating account of the idiocy that is the Trump presidency.  Trump is skewered with perfectly targeted prose, along with all those who, one way or another, aided and abetted his election and continue to believe in him. Despite the richness and laser-like accuracy of the character assassinations, it is all a bit relentless and hopeless and could have done with a bit of editing as it does get repetitive.  Let's face it, there isn't much suspense.  You know how disastrous it all is right from the off - it's in the title after all, and it is therefore rather hard to stick with it through the close examination of the respective failings of a whole bundle of Trumpian lackeys, many of whom are not terribly familiar to us this side of the pond.  However, a curiosity about the vocabulary kept me going for quite a bit: for a Brit like me, it is was an education and I am now up on  "doofy" "chickenhawk","pudknock...

by Heather T. Forbes (2010)  Phew, therapy that makes sense!  It sees the problems for what it really are and offers utterly wonderful, compassionate solutions.  It's a peculiar experience - when you finish this book, it all seems so obvious but that's probably because the explanations of the underlying causes of trauma-related behaviour are so right and real that it gives you the impression that it must have been staring you in the face all along. However, clearly this has been a difficult nut to crack and a good chunk of this book describes other nominally therapeutic strategies that are actually no help at all and indeed are often sources of even more trauma for the family. If your young person has been traumatised by something, including past therapy, read this utterly sensible, kind book. Rating: 9/10

by Charlotte Watts with Natalie Savona (2018) It's tricky reading a book on nutrition when it isn't the first by any means!     You can't help noticing the conflicting advice and you spend the whole time checking Google Scholar in the hope of achieving some sort of settlement on this issue at hand. Take milk thistle for starters.  We hear from Charlotte and Natalie that "milk thistle has a long traditional (and well researched) use for liver support" and they recommend a daily dose. And to a degree, they haven't exactly misrepresented the facts.   According to Google Scholar, there is indeed a welter of research on milk thistle  though a summary of all these studies, some of which were placebo controlled, concludes with the statement that the "c linical efficacy of milk thistle is not clearly established." Then there's the matter of whether or not to skip breakfast.  Michael Moseley, in his time restricted eating book , suggests that ...

By Lisa Damour (2017) It's hard to give an one size fits all rating to a book which is mostly superb but which also contains a few suggestions that are neither easy to implement or to accept, so it is necessary to break it down a bit in this review.  On the very large plus side, the analysis of the problem of raising girls in the First World is spot on, although in this regard, there is probably more to be said about the recent surge in anxiety in young women and indeed Lisa has just written a book on this exact subject  which is due for release in the near future.  On the downside, scattered amongst the often extremely sensible suggestions, there are a few strategies that simply won't work for empowered teens who have grown up with huge spades of confidence in their young years but who suddenly face the brick wall of puberty in the modern, nominally comfortable world we mostly live in nowadays. You do have to wonder if a good old dose of the Blitz wou...

By Tim Harford (2011) This is a superb examination of the problem solving nature of experimentation, failure and learning. It is an argument in favor of the approach that works -  local knowledge, autonomy, an initial safe space coupled with an iterative, experimental process and an ability to respond appropriately to failure. It is also a powerful argument against centralisation, standardisation and a supposedly rational, top-down method that is impervious to critique. The author illustrates his argument with the most lucidly described examples from a range of fields such as military history, oil rig disasters and economics and in the process, he manages to shed light on the driest of subjects.  This is a double win: not only do you have a firm grasp on how evolution works in every field of experience, but you might also end up finally having a handle on  the significance of sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps. A desert island book on a big subject. ...

by Jem Friar (2017) I have to say I am a complete sucker for books where the author has clearly spent his time selecting and collating a load of primary sources and packaging them all into a lovely, readable, presentable, entertaining product, rather than them bothering to come up with any devastatingly new ideas themselves and this is pretty much what happens here .  OK, you can argue for a degree of creativity on the part of the author in managing all this selecting, collating and packaging, so I won't feel too bad giving this lovely, readable, presentable, entertaining book a high rating. Somehow also, I don't seem to be tiring of reading books about positive psychology.  This year alone, I seem to have read quite a few and whilst a lot of the information in  "Choosing Happier " is familiar, there are other ideas I hadn't encountered before.  All in all, from personal experience of a vast range of moods including a general sense of happiness and cont...

by Mark Kurlansky (2006) This is a frustrating read, primarily because the author is very much the historian and not a writer or ethicist.  To be fair, he does do what the title suggests, but unless you are gripped by a wide range of historical detail that is touched on quickly and is therefore difficult to retain, you are not likely to draw many useful lessons from history from the bulk of this book.  The moral and practical lessons would have been better drawn from fewer or more thematically bunched historical examples and with much more explication.  The author does try to save the day in the very last chapter which is a bullet point list of the lessons about non-violence that he has drawn from history but these really should have been better explained into the previous chapters and not simply appended out of context.  Further, the stark nature of the list makes it easier to question many of his conclusions as it implies a form of historicism that the s...

By Matthew Syed (2016) This book has proved to be the most essential read so far this year.  Matthew Syed explains his ideas about human error, learning from failure, marginal gains, creativity and the neurology of a fixed versus a growth mindset using the most vivid and poignant examples from a variety of fields including aviation, medicine, cycling, Formula One and manufacturing.  Syed combines all the best thinking from various sources, including the likes of Karl Popper and Carol Dweck, to produce a thoroughly convincing argument about how we should reform so many of our institutions and work places.  I only wish he could have applied his arguments to the education system as that is more than overdue for the same treatment, but perhaps that is another book all of its own. Rating 10/10

By Tom Sharpe (1971) For those with an exaggerated deference for the ruling classes, this satirical novel should prove the most powerful antidote - far more powerful than non-fiction works such as "The Establishment".   This because there are things you can say in fiction that are completely unsayable in factual books, but that really get to the nub of reality nonetheless.  You might be tempted to assume that most of the situations and characters in Riotous Assembly are hyperbolic, but actually humans are indeed awful.  Take, for example, the first few chapters of Matthew Syed's "Black Box Thinking" which demonstrate very clearly, albeit in far more measured tones, that humans, when given power and prestige, are indeed utterly ridiculous to the point of being stupid and pernicious to the nth degree.  Tom Sharpe actually isn't stretching a point very far. It is also riotous good fun and very funny in places. Rating 7/10

By Dr. Giles Yeo (2018) This is a thoroughly useful book, describing what we currently know about how genes influence obesity.  It also makes it quite clear that we still need to know a lot more but, as far as it goes, it is very handy to know where we're at at the moment, at the very least so that we don't continue to make bad dietary choices.  And making a mess of dietary choices we clearly do!  Giles does his best to sort the wheat from the chaff with the best arguments and explanations to date: various cleanses, the GOOP madness, gluten free diets and many others come under the spot light and shrivel under the scrutiny. The only quibble: the tone is somehow a bit wobbly, as if English isn't actually the author's first language, or as if he would far rather be writing a scientific paper and dumbing down is desperately counter-intuitive.  However, the effect is endearing rather than annoying and certainly doesn't detract from the "must read" natur...

by Rod Liddle (2014). True to form, Rod continues to entertain and infuriate by turns .  Actually, if I'm honest, he never does manage to infuriate me, but regular headlines, including one  today , demonstrate that he does successfully irritate a large number of people.  The thing is, unlike the likes of Katy Hopkins, I suspect that being vexatious isn't Rod's entire raison d'etre.  Instead he primarily wants to say it as it is even when what it is he has to say completely unsayable in this day and age.  You have to respect that, even on the few occasions when you suspect that he might also be wrong.   And of course on the entertainment front, he is quite often very funny, turning out perfectly pitched, humorous ridicule annoyingly easily, which is always admirable. The stand out unsayable, the elephant that has occupied my particular room ever since I floundered around for most of my youth as my mother worked her socks off as a doctor, was the...

by Nick Littlehales (2016) I have to admit that at 3 am in the morning and after the first few chapters, I was just about to throw this book out the window as I simply wasn't sleeping. Nothing the book suggested was helping which wasn't a huge surprise as it hadn't told me anything that I hadn't already tried, but just when I was about to give up, it came good and offered up a couple of gems that made it all worthwhile. Even though the last few chapters became tedious again, being either reiteration of what he'd said earlier, just plain common sense or marketing of his sleep kits, I have slept more in the past few days since reading the middle of the book, so I reckon it is worth a punt to see if there is something you might have forgotten. Rating 5/10

by Owen Jones (2014) In this book , Owen Jones sets out to expose the way in which the wealthy and the powerful protect their interests at the expense of the rest of us and to this end, he produces a wealth of pretty convincing evidence.  Admittedly he sometimes puts slightly more contentious assertions into the mouths of his interviewees, and leaves these assertions hanging without any serious discussion, but all in all the welter of first hand testimony and argument leave one in little doubt that he has a pretty strong case. Of course, events have rather taken over since 2014, but Jones in describing the immediate history, goes a long way to explain the current confusions of, for example, Brexit and the rise of populist politics, elucidating as he does the ambivalent nature of the Establishment's relationship to Europe and shining a light on quite why so much of the electorate are so utterly fed up with the previously indistinguishable political parties. I'd say his ...

By Edward Bullmore (2018) This is a persuasive and exciting read, so exciting in fact, that it's extremely hard not to skip to the end to see how things turn out, but it is worth resisting the urge as there are so many gems along the way.  The author, a professor of Neuroscience and Head of Psychiatry at Cambridge University, is clearly attuned to explaining things in simple language whilst at the same time somehow managing not to seem patronising, and you learn such a lot along the way that you don't mind that you are reading an "Immunology and Medical History for Dummies". In the course of discussing his central hypothesis, (that depression may be caused by inflammation), we find out not only about macrophages, lymphocytes, microglial cells, cytokines, anti-TNF antibodies and the vagal nerve, but he also untangles the theories of Descartes and covers Celsus, Paracelsus, Hippocrates and Darwin to boot, and all this encased in a gripping narrative of med...

by Dr. Michael Mosley (2018) True to the scientific method, Michael moves where the evidence takes him with this book  and updates his  5:2 Fast Diet book of 2014 .  The thing is, I have been enjoying the results from the 2014 version, having relatively easily lost a reasonable amount of weight (5kg and down to my target BMI of 19) following its prescriptions, so I was worrying that the update involving a significant revision would leave me confused and in a bit of dilemma as to what to do next. As it happens, it simply opened up the options, which turned out to be useful since a friend has recently challenged me to actually do that 5k parkrun  that I have long talked about but have not actually trained for in any shape or form, having been focusing more on HIIT and walking the dogs and certainly not doing the paced jogging that my version of a park run would entail. When I did start to try to do longer runs on fast days of only 400 cals (sadly that is a qua...

By Grant J. Smits (2018) This book leaves you feeling as if you have just been yelled at for an hour (it's a quick read) by someone who channels the energy of a very enthusiastic trainer along with a dose of sanctimony and disapproval of a Dr. Phil, all bundled together with the conviction of a cult leader.  The exhortatory street style could make it easy to dismiss, but actually the content pretty much sums up the current consensus on how to lose weight, whilst also usefully dismissing some of the more outlandish and exploitative methods that do the rounds.  Of course, the science around all this sort of stuff remains rule of thumb and is an on-going argument, so it would be very dangerous to think this is the last word on anything, and there are at least a couple of issues where the author appears to be behind the times on the current consensus: ie: his assertion that people need not worry too much about micro-nutrients and can solve the problem by simply popping ...

by Hiroaki Tanaka and Magdalena Jackowska (2016) In stark contrast to the current trend for intense interval training, this book offers a very gentle introduction to achieving cardio vascular fitness, weight-loss and a host of other useful physical and mental outcomes.  Given the slow burn approach, this method would involve greater time commitment than interval training, but at the outset at least, is almost certainly less painful and the eventual results seem pretty impressive if the numerous testimonies are to be believed.  If nothing else, the book is likely to ensure that you are getting your running posture right, and it offers a number of other useful parameters for calculating whether you are doing the requisite amount of work.  Having owned a Fitbit for about three weeks now, I've found jogging/running to be the quickest way to raise the heart beat to fat burn, cardio and finally peak levels, and although this method suggests that you only take your heart...

by Richard L. Currier (2015) This is a massive book in terms of scope, being a review of the whole of human history.  Much of the contents will, of course, be familiar to people with a passing knowledge of history, but for the rest of us, it is a concise, thoroughly useful romp through all the key elements that one really should actually already know but somehow don't.  It would make a visit to the British Museum or the Ashmolean for more interesting, and dinner parties with informed guests far less intimidating. Despite the authorial voice being almost non-existent, reading as the book does almost like a collaborative effort of a Wikipedia page, it manages to hold the reader's attention through a spattering of rich historical anecdote and often rather astonishing answers to enormous questions about the nature and form of humanity. When the author does reference himself, it is all the more startling for its rarity. Questions answered include why humans became so mu...

            by Kevin Horsley and Louis Fourie  (2018) Of all the books on positive psychology that have been reviewed in this blog so far, this book contains by far the most straightforward description of the happy state of mind and is by far the most transparent in describing the sort of behaviours that contribute to this way of being.  There is no equivocation about the exact nature of happiness and there's no discussion of how difficult it is for people to predict what will make them happy .   Instead the authors just get about describing the features of a broadly happy life-style; for example, the authors explain that it takes work to be happy, but by implication, that this is happy work.  They particularly stress that happiness is a creation borne of an approach where a person seeks to solve problems rather than to dwell on them. Overall this book is an invigorating, quick read, and is pretty convincing in that thos...

by Tobias Harwood  (2019) Continuing to be happily surprised by books for which I had very low expectations, this unprepossessing little number turned out to contain a welter of insights which the author had gleaned from a thematic analysis of interviews with people who had achieved unusual feats in their various fields. Common traits did emerge which all seemed to make a great deal of sense. An easy read and pretty inspirational, and proceeds of sale are apparently going to a charity. Rating: 8/10

By Henry Marsh (2014) This is, as many of the endorsements in and on the book jacket suggest, a searingly honest account of consultant life in a major British hospital and as such, is probably a pretty essential read if you want to get inside the mind of many a doctor.  My problem with this is that I already know several people so startlingly like Henry Marsh, and having worked in the NHS myself, I didn't learn anything new and will be in a tiny minority in giving it less than a 10/10.  The narrative nonetheless flowed pretty seamlessly, is well written and kept one sufficiently engaged, so that it can be easily read in a couple of sittings. Rating: 7/10

by Chad W. Hall (2015) Short and sweet, this book lays out eight simple principles for helping other people. These principles chime almost completely with other well argued learning theories, such as unschooling doctrine  and indeed the strategies here could well prove a useful adjunct to unschooling practice. The brevity is actually hugely useful: the author doesn't stint on explanations, but instead cuts to the chase and the book therefore works well as an aide memoire, particularly when one is in the  potentially stressful improv that is a coaching scenario. Pleasantly surprised! 8/10

by Max Tegmark (2017) This book, in being huge in scope and purpose and in the beautifully constructed nature of the arguments, is reminiscent of a  book  written by another physicist David Deutsch.    Whilst tackling fundamental theories of the universe, neither author can let go of an argument without tying up all the related explanations into a near perfectly constructed crystal ball, so that even when, as frequently happens, many questions remain unanswered, you feel you know precisely the measure of where humanity is at with the frayed ends. The book is by turns, vertiginously terrifying, pragmatic and finally almost consoling.  One of the most chilling moments stems from Max's argument about the possibility of intelligent life in the observable universe. His is not a conventional take, but it is worth considering because it is by no means impossible, and if he is right, it places a huge burden upon mankind to get things right if the universe is to ...

by Michael K. Simpson (2014) Probably for very poor reasons - such as a potentially irrational aversion to words such as "coaching" and "transformation", I had low expectations of this book, but it turned out these were unfounded. The ethos described in the book frequently chimes pretty closely with ideas I have espoused for almost two decades now, albeit enacted in a slightly different context and described in completely different language. Simpson's coaching is mentoring for the 21st century.  It involves building a trusting relationship, offering a space for building clarity and constructive action plans without resorting to punitive measures or micromanagement.  All of this of makes great good sense to unschoolers and autonomous home educators and indeed, it may prove useful addition to unschooling theory. Rating: 7/10

by Scott Douglas (2017) In this book, Scott Douglas, (a name which feels uncomfortably tautological and therefore somehow unreal, but hey ho, is probably just American) describes in 100 succinct points the broad consensus as to how to get fit and healthy as of 2017.  Most of the advice still seems to make great good sense.  I particularly enjoyed the first point about "choice architecture" - a pleasingly broad opener which just feels as if it must be true.  Less obviously in the next point, Scott suggests that one should take on quite a few habit changing behaviours all at once. This doesn't seem as intuitive, and in fact, I'm sure I've read elsewhere that this is precisely what you shouldn't do.  However, within very recent personal experience of doing precisely as he suggests and actually finding it extremely motivating and easy to do, I would have to concede that this advice does seem spot on. The problem for this sort of book, it seems to me, is t...

By Lucy Crehan (2018) Subtitled "The Secrets Behind the Success of the World's Education Superpowers", Crehan visited five of the top performing countries in the PISA checklist: Finland, Singapore, Japan, China and Canada.    Despite the superficial differences in education policy in the above countries, there are indeed lessons to be drawn from the exercise.  For example:  you can't build problem solving excellence in a vacuum - you need the expertise in the content.   All of the above systems, one way or another, help young people to build that expertise and the related problem solving ability. In the last chapter, the author derives five key lessons from what she has seen.  Broadly speaking, the greater the respect for the neuroscience and the culture in which children are raised, the more successful the schooling. It turns out the author has had some advisory role in the Department for Education in the UK, but sadly as yet, the dep...