The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Book Reviews

My book reviews. Fiction, non-fiction and mainly business literature. These are all excellent books, ’cause I never review the books I don’t like.

  • Book review: Rational Mysticism

    John Horgans book Rational Mysticism breaks new ground because it is written by a man who is clearly a sceptic but who seems to want to believe in something beyond rationality – yet doesn’t want it so much that he forgets to ask the tough questions. And the strong side of this book is precisely the questions. What is mysticism? What are spiritual experiences, what causes them, why should we seek them and what do they signify? Are mystical experiences triggerede by hallucinogenic drugs as reald or “valid” as those triggered by meditation or prayer? All good questions to which the book offers no one set of answers but rather an examination of many different viewpoints.

    Each chapter of the book describes Horgans encounter with one aspect of mysticism, eg. drug related experiences, meditations, prayer, etc. He’s talked to many of the prominent people in the field, such as Ken Wilber, Huston Smith, Stanislav Grof and Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD. He allows each of these people to present their viewpoints on mysticism while offering his own thinking also.

    One of the main questions examined in the book is that of the perennial philosophy. Here’s a quote from the book:
    The perennial philosophy holds that the world’s great spiritual traditions, in spite of their obvious differences, express the same fundamental truth about the nature of reality, a truth that can be directly apprehended during a mystical experience. Implicit in the perennial philosophy is the notion that mytical perceptions transcend time, place, culture, and individual identity. Just as a farmer in first-century China and a website designer in twenty-first-century New York City see the same moon when they look skyward, so will they glimpse the same truth in the depths of a mystical vision.

    Do we each see our own little world in our mystical experiences or do we look at the same world only differently. This difference is crucial because it seems to me, that mystical experiences would somehow be truer and more real, if they were not just individual “fantasies” but new ways of seeing our world.

    The book is very well-written, highly entertaining and well researched and I recommend it to anyone interested in a view of mysticism that transcends the cool scepticism of the scientist types and the blind willingess to believe of the new-age generation.

  • Book review: Tao Te Ching

    I’m not really sure that it makes sense to review this book. I’ve read it and enjoyed it, but there is absolutely no way I can convey what it’s about or why you should read this book. It is wise, poetic, enigmatic and enlightening. It is also vague, frustrating, weird and confusing.

    Tao means the way. Te means power. Ching means classic. The title Tao Te Ching is usually translated as The Classic Book About The Way And The Power Of The Way. But as the very first chapter says:
    The way you can go
    isn’t the real way
    The Name you can name
    isn’t the real name

    In our western culture ideas should be communicated clearly and efficiently. And here’s a book that teems with paradox and poetry. A book where the central theme is not-doing; a concept that is certainly not practiced often in our up-and-at-them culture.

    Little is known about the Tao Te Ching, except that it’s around 2500 years old, chinese and was probably written by Lao Tzu who may have been a contemporary of Confucius. The translation I’ve read is by Ursula K Le Guin, who knows no chinese, but who has brought her life-long appreciation of the work and her background as a succesful author into the translation. She acknowledges, that her version is anything but a literal translation. Since the original work is poetic, a literal translation may capture the words but not the power of the original work. A poetic translation such as the one she’s attempted, will not match word-for-word but may come closer to the spirit of the original. I think she has done a fine job, and whenever I’ve been able to compare her version to others, hers is more to my taste.

    Tao Te Ching has been translated lots of times, and many of the translations are available on the net.

  • Book review: Eats, shoots & leaves

    A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

    “Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

    “I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”

    The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

    “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

    Basically, it ought to be impossible to write an entertaining book on punctuation, but Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss is a wonderful, short read, full of practical tips on placing those pesky commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops as well as lots of amusing anecdotes.

    The book is especially funny when the author describes her horror at seeing public examples of erroneuos punctuation, such as the move title Two Weeks Notice (should be Two Weeks’ Notice). She has actually picketed a movie theater showing the movie, armed with a large apostrophe on a stick which she held up to correct the title.

    An amusing and interesting read: what more could you ask for.

  • Book review: Synchronicity

    Synchronicity, the inner path of leadership by Joseph Jaworski is the story of his own transformation as a leader. From his earlier life (as he calls it) as a trial lawyer to his quest of identifying and promoting better leadership.

    His transformation began, as it often happens, with a personal tragedy. Until his wife left him, he had been living what must have seemed on the surface a perfect life. He had a high-payed, challenging job, a nice home, a wife and a kid. But when it all came tumbling down, he realized that he hadn’t really been living. His life felt two-dimensional.

    He has since then been through an amazing transformation which is described in the book in a no-nonsense, down-to-earth manner. He’s met, worked with and learned from people like David Bohm, Peter Senge and Arie deGeus, and the lessons are passed on in the book.

    And mostly, it’s about openness. About realizing that everything in the world is connected. That ultimately the border we perceive between “self” and “not-self” is an illusion. It’s about not trying to control life, but letting life flow through you.

    Jaworski argues that when you live life in this way, it feels like the world is constantly conspiring to help you along, and I can’t help but agree. I’ve taken a very similar approach to my work on the “Happy at work” project, and highly skilled and wonderfully nice people are constantly coming out of the woodwork to help. It’s a great feeling to be reliant on the world to help you, and to see that the world does.

    The book is an easy and enjoyable read, and the story of Jaworskis gradual unfolding from slave to a job to servant of a purpose is well told and very inspiring. I recommend it highly.

  • Book review: Non zero

    About half a year ago I posted some really big questions. Questions that may too big for an answer, but which must never the less lie at the foundation of any world view. Non zero by Robert Wright (bearing the somewhat grandiose subtitle “The logic of human destiny”) is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read, AND it tackles two of those questions in a thorough and readable way.

    The question it examines is this: Is the evolution we see all around inevitable or just a random development?

    The book is in three parts, with part one examining the evolution of human culture. Is it safe to say, that humankind has evolved in the direction of higher complexity? Clearly, Wright finds this notion obvious, but he still presents many detailed arguments for why this is so.

    Good reasons are necessary, because it’s long been unacceptable in academia to argue that one culture or society is better or more highly developed than any other. This is mostly beacause similar arguments were abused by fascism and imperialism (among other -isms) to argue that it’s OK for an advanced culture to conquer a less advanced one.

    Wright patiently and elaborately (and wittily) argues his case, and left no doubt in my mind that there’s been an overall continued development towards cultures of higher complexity throughout most of human history. And what’s more, societies are getting better. We may not believe that we have the perfect society today, but when we conquer other nations, we at least don’t cut of the enemy soldiers’ genitals like the ancient greeks did.

    And this is cause for great hope. A common view these days seems to be, that the world is getting worse. Crime, poverty, war, global warming, pollution, technology and much more all threaten us, and make the world unsafe and unstable.

    But looking back at human history, Wright argues that it is precisely these kind of influences that have driven the evolution towards higher complexity. The main factor has been non zero cooperation. This is taken from the notion of zero sum versus non zero sum games. A zero sum game is one in which I have to loose in order for you to win. Tennis and chess are zero sum games. A non zero sum game can have many winners (or many losers). Business is a non zero sum game since if we do business we can both gain.

    Wright argues that “non zero sumness” can be found everywhere even in situations that look decicededly zero sum. An example is war. War is very much a zero sum game, but it sparks lot of non zero sum situations around ir. When threatened by war, a nation might choose to band together with it’s neighbours, so that they can defend themselves together. Thus these nations become closely linked in a non zero relation, creating a higher level of complexity and development. Not only war but any external threat may cause non zero sum cooperation among groups of people.

    Technology is maybe the most powerful driver of human culture. Every time we gain a new technology, we gain new ways of playing non zero sum games. Wright examines some of these technologies in detail, and I found the discussion of how money as a technology has enabled many new kinds of cooperation especially interesting. Interestingly, the internet is shaping up to be the ultimate medium of non zero interaction.

    The really interesting consequence here is that Wright sees hope even in the extreme pace of technological progress and in war and other external threats. Not that war is a good thing, but war inevitably sparks new non zero relations.

    The second part of the book looks at the evolution of life, and once again seeks to establish that there is a constant, overall development towards life of a higher and higher complexity. One again, non zero cooperation can be seen as the driving force, and can be the explanation for many of symbiotic relations we see. Even on cellular level, it looks as if cells are actually a collective of several different life forms, who are working together for mutual gain. Non zero sumness built into every single cell of every single life form.

    The third part of the book is short, and is dedicated to the question of “now that we’ve established that there IS a direction to both the development of human culture and of life itself, can we say anything about the purpose of this development?”

    Wright has no answer, except to point out, that the notion that there might be a purpose can not be ruled out scientifically. It’s not a ridiculous notion.

    The ideas put forth in this book are crucial for all of us and are examined in a way that is both extremely well researched and thorough AND extremely entertaining. And the conlusion is that cooperation pays. That it is better to work together than against each other. That in the end, the person or culture that understands the best how to play non zero sum games will win. And that is a message of great hope. I can’t recommend this book highly enough!!

    Interestingly, another book, The fifth miracle by Paul Davies, also examines evolution and arrives at the conclusion that there is no fixed direction to evolution. The issue is till very much open, and I recognize that it’s completely a matter of belief when I say that I’m with Robert Wright on this one. It feels to me as if the world is developing towards a higher level of complexity and beauty.

  • Book review: The web of life

    The web of life by Fritjof Capra is an important book. In a well structured and readable manner, he takes on some of the largest questions related to life, and manages to do so in a clear and understandable way, that removes none of the majesty of the topic under discussion: Life.

    From systems theory, the Gaia hypothesis and complexity theory to evolution, autopoiesis and the strange phenomenon we call a mind (which in his thinking is a process, not a thing), Capra describes the main theories needed for a totally new understanding of life. This is heady reading, and it has certainly influenced my thinking in the area.

    Here’s one of my favourite quotes from the book:
    The recognition of symbiosis as a major evolutionary force has profound philosophical implications. All larger organisms, including ourselves, are living testimonies to the fact that destructive practices do not work in the long run. In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.

    Brilliant. Capra is talking about the creation and evolution of life, but the same theme occurs in many of the books I’ve been reading lately, namely that the world is not a struggle for survival and that the strategy that will get you the farthest is one of cooperation and co-creation. As Piet Hein put it:
    Co-existence
    or no existence.

    I belive that totally and deeply. Another property that I’m thinking about more and more is robustness – the fact that complex systems can withstand extreme external influences and yet retain their essential structures. This stands in sharp contrast to some human-manufactured systems, which fail if just one little thing goes wrong- as when a space shuttle blows up because of a faulty O-ring.

    This book has many lessons to teach us, and will stand up to many re-readings. Parts of it are complex and not easily accessible, but it is well worth the effort. I recommend it highly!

  • Book review: The story factor

    I believe, that the ability to tell a good story is one of the most important tools available to leaders (and remember: We’re all leaders). Stories have the ability to bring a point across without forcing the issue. Where rational arguments fail, stories can contain boths sides of a dilemma and can illuminate an interesting paradox without having to solve it. You might argue that stories open, where facts close.

    “The story factor” by Annette Simmons is the best book on storytelling that I’ve read. It contains all the reasons why stories are good tools as well as a list of situations where you can use stories effectively (and how). Finally there’s a lot of info on how to find the good stories and how to tell them. And of course the book itself contains loads of stories, most of which are highly entertaining, and useful for many situations.

    As an example, here’s a story that I heard recently, and immediately incorporated into the “happy at work” workshops. It’s the story of the ostrich who learned to fly. Normally ostriches can’t, and this ostrich wanted to share his new knowledge with all the other ostriches, so he arranged a flying conference in Africa. Other ostriches walked in from all over Africa, and over the course of a couple of days, he taught all of them to fly. Then on the last day, he stood and watched, as all the ostriches walked home.

    I use this story to illustrate the gap between learning and action, and it illustrates the point in a funny and interesting way, without browbeating people about how difficult it is to translate learning into doing. It sets the stage perfectly for the “planning the future” part of the workshop.

    Compared to one of the seminal works on storytelling, Stephen Denning’s “The Springboard”, Annette Simmons’ book is much more useful and contains more tips that will get you started as a storyteller. If you’re at all interested in the potential and practice of storytelling, this is the book for you.

  • Book review: Gesundheit!

    I just finished reading Gesundheit! by Patch Adams, and it left me totally high. I saw the movie Patch Adams starring Robin Williams a while ago, but I never realized that there was a real doctor by that name, striving to create a totally revolutionary hospital – the Gesundheit Institute.

    Patch Adams is mostly known for introducing humour in the treatment of his patients, but this book reveals that his philosophy goes way beyond that. It is about the whole person. This is hardly a new notion, but it is certainly waaaay different from how medicine is practiced in most places today. For example, when a new patient arrived, rather than conducting an interview in an office, Patch would take that person fishing or for a walk in the woods, depending on what that patient enjoys doing. The interview would cover symptoms and medical history but would also include talking about the persons hopes and dreams, spirituality, upbringing and much more.

    Some parts of the book that really stuck in my mind are:
    * Fun death. Why does dying need to be an unpleasant experience? Sure you want to postpone it as long as possible, but is it impossible to create an environment in which dying is as much a part of life as everything else, and is appreciated as such? Patch writes at one point that “Dying is that process a few minutes before death when the brain is deprived of oxygen; everything else is living”.

    * A description of a hypothetical patient og the Gesundheit Institute, a 37 year old man with an ulcer. The treatment would consist of he and his family staying at the institute for a week or ten days. While he gets treated, the family can enjoy the nature and generally have fun.

    * Patch on greed: “Greed is one of society’s worst malignancies, and it appears to have metastasized to every corner of the earth… Certainly one of greeds most devastating symptoms is cynicism… We believe that a society must care for its population enough to take care of its need.”

    * On loneliness: “I remember an eleven-year old girl who had a huge bony tumor of the face with one eye floating out in the mass. Most people found it difficult to be with her because of her appearance. Her pain was not in the dying but in the loneliness of being a person others could not bear to see. She and I played an joked and enjoyed her life away.”

    Patch is still working to raise the funds that will allow him to build the institute, and I’m simply flabbergasted that he hasn’t yet succeeded. Having read the book, it is obvious to me that his way of practicing medicine is not only better for the patient, it is also better for the medical staff (who suffer hard from burnout today) and (incredibly) more efficient and cheaper than todays bloated health care system. If I ever get sick, I certainly want to be treated the Gesundheit way!

  • Book review: The DaVinci Code

    It seems like Dan Brown is trying to develop a new format: The ultra-condensed thriller. The action in his last book, Deception Point, took place over 48 hours, and most of the story in The Da Vinci Code unfolds over only 12 hours. Considering this, Brown still manages to pack an enormous amount of action into such a short time span. The book takes off within the first few pages, and it simply doesn’t let up until the (quite satisfying) conclusion. The action drives you forward, and there’s always a new event or question that you’re just burning to discover the explanation for.

    Robert Langdon (a symbologist who was also the protagonist of Angels and Demons) becomes involved in a case of murder and gruesome self-mutilation at the Louvre, and to clear himself of blame, he must find clues in the bible, in ancient organizations such as the catholic church and the Priory of Sion and in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, whose art never quite is what it seems.

    The book works wonderfully as a thriller, but it works on another level as well: The alternative view on historical facts like bible history and the art of Leonardo da Vinci is extremely thought provoking. The book would work fine without it, it’s just that it adds a wonderful depth and believability that is rarely seen in a thriller. This is one of the best suspense novelse I’ve ever read, and I recommend it highly!

  • Book review: The answer to how is yes

    The title of Peter Blocks latest book reads a little strange at first: “The answer to how is yes“, but in it he makes a very important point, one that every decision maker, project worker, consultant, change agent or just plain anybody who works for anything that matters should know: That sometimes “how?” isn’t the important question, and that asking “How?” can actually be a defense against getting an effort started, a defense against change.

    What every important project needs is less focus on “How?” and more focus on “Yes!”, on the affirmation that this (whatever “this” is) is a worthwhile pursuit. That affirmation strengthens the will to do it, whereas continually asking “how?” saps your strength. Saying yes focuses on the goal you want to achieve, asking how focuses on all the obstacles.
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