What I Just Read

Uneven book with certain useful discussions of the neuropsychology of creativity and insight. Competently written with short chapters, some pithier and better focused than others. Drawbacks:  * the book is filled with unreplicated "studies show science" (admittedly unavoidable in any soft science like psychology),  * many of the insights from the authors border on common knowledge, and  * the book loses the thread at times (for example from Chapter 8 onward the book becomes unfocused and unrigorous, and the authors lapse into speculative leaps far outside their circle of competence).  Readers who want to increase their ability to generate ideas and insights would be better served reading Don Norman's tremendously useful book  The Design of Everyday Things .   The Eureka Factor  can be safely skimmed, or skipped.  Notes:  Preface 1) Good one sentence summary of the book: "Our goal is to explain what insights are, how they arise, and what the s...

"There are old traders and bold traders, but no old, bold traders." --Old stock market saying  Recommended for anyone curious about what it's like to trade, or anyone interested in psychological aspects of investing. If you're not an active trader but considering it, this book will teach you quite a lot about what it might be like for you, and what problems and challenges you're likely to face. I am not an active trader, not by a long shot: most of my investments are for holding periods of years or even decades, and this book helped me see, clearly, why short term trading is absolutely not in my wheelhouse and not something I would do well. This could be a valuable insight for you too. In some ways this book is more about learning how to learn than about stock trading, and one of Steenbarger's fundamental ideas is understanding the importance of meta-cognition: knowing your level of self-knowledge (of your skills, your strengths, your weaknesses, your blind...

Expansive, richly-detailed fantasy novel by a first-time author (who happens to be a friend of mine!). A coming of age story, part one of a trilogy, set against a grand backdrop: a brewing military and religious conflict, triggered by a blasphemous false flag event, that sets off shifting and unsettled alliances among a wide range of peoples. The main character, Dayraven, young but yet old in soul, captivates the reader on a few levels: he has a powerful gift that he can't control, he's deeply unsure of himself, and he has a seemingly impossible hero's journey in front of him.  Author Philip Chase creates a textured Norse/Anglo-Saxon-inspired world, featuring multiple cultures, nuanced geopolitics, even an interesting linguistic history, and he tells his story with a mirthful writing style and a flair for turning a phrase. And everything in The Way of Edan is expertly described and accurate, right down to the most specific aspects of dress and weaponry.  The story carrie...

It's quite a distinct pleasure to read Le Carré, but it's certainly not fiction for the Adderall era. The pacing is  far  different from most modern fiction: there's no cliffhanger or plot twist every ten pages to hold the reader's attention. Instead, his stories take their time and gradually envelop the reader. Single and Single has an intricate plot, with several characters and threads that the author gradually weaves together, and then, over a bare few pages at the end, accelerates into a rapid resolution. It's not his best novel, however, and if you're looking for peak Le Carré try his earlier novels  Our Game and  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , both excellent.

Quite a good novel, it grows on you. Mournful in a subtle way, as it offers the impressions of an older man looking back on his life: processing his mistakes, his regrets, his what-ifs, his missed opportunities.  Sometimes a book finds you at just the right stage of life where it makes sense for you to read it. This book somehow found me at a stage of my life where I'm thinking through these things too, and it made for a disconcerting--and at times saddening--reading experience. Yet the book  still  engrossed me in a strange, captivating way. Finally, a warning: This novel is not built for the attention span of the post-modern reader. You won't find gripping plot twists every twenty pages to hold your attention, and the pacing is stately, even slow. Note also that this is volume one of an eleven (!!) volume series, a gigantic fictional memoir spanning main character Lewis Eliot's life across much of the 20th century. This first volume deals with his childhood up to his ...