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: Small world

    It is hardly news anymore, but there is a definite shift going on in science. Where the focus used to be almost exlusively on reductionism ie. an effort to understand the world by looking at ever smaller pieces and trying to understand them separately, now more and more attention is spent on the relations between objects.

    Mark Buchanans book small world, uncovering nature’s hidden networks covers one part of this “new” science namely the discoveries in networks that have come very recently in many different areas. So what exactly is the common theme between the internet, fireflies in Thailand, neurons in our brains and the social networks that we’re all part of?
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  • Book review: The tipping point

    Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push – in just the right place – it can be tipped.

    This is how Malcolm Gladwell ends his book The tipping point, subtitled “how little things can make a big difference”. Throughout the book Gladwell examines the circumstances in which large scale change can be brought about by a small effort. From the explosive succes og Hush Puppies (a brand of shoes) to a wave of suicides that plagued Micronesia. From the success of Sesame Street to a syphilis epidemic in Boston in the 90’s.

    Gladwell argues that this sort of change is much more common than we usually acknowledge, and that it is possible because of three factors, the three rules of the tipping point.
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  • Book review: Summerland

    Michael Chabon is a writer with a talent for writing fantastic stories based squarely in everyday life and american popular culture. This was obvious in his masterpiece “The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay” which had it’s roots in the golden age of american comics, but it finds a new, wonderful expression in Summerland, which is a childrens book in the same way as the Harry Potter books – this book can be enjoyed by anyone at any age.

    The story is a true adventure, in which a number of children and mythical beings must save the world from Coyote (the trickster god in american indian mythology). The major themes are (get this) baseball, indians and airships. And Chabon manages to create a story that is funny, believable, touching, exciting and a times very sad. Where the worlds of J.K. Rowlings and Philip Pullmans books are a little old fashioned, Chabons adventure is quite modern, giving this fairy tale a more up to date feel.

    This is an excellent book, especially for reading to someone, and I warmly recommend it. Here’s a quote from the book.

  • Book review: Man’s search for meaning

    This is a very unusual book, spanning topics rarely encountered in one and the same volume. The author, Viktor E. Frankl, was a pshychologist and he spent most of world war 2 in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. And these two backgrounds have gone into this book which is both an account of his experiences in the concentration camps, a psychological analysis of how people react under such extreme conditions and a short introduction to his psychological school called Logotherapy.

    The basic underlying theme here is meaning (logos in greek). Frankl argues, that what made some people endure the trials of the concentration camps, while many others gave up, was their ability to see meaning in their suffering. And in general, Frankl sees the drive to discover meaning as our most basic need, and he believes that many psychological problems (from neuroses to alcoholism) stem from a lack of meaning in peoples lives.
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  • Book review: The inner game of work

    I discovered Inner Skiing about 15 years ago, and enjoyed it immensely. That book describes how the inner game principles pioneered by Timothy Gallwey can be used to create better learning conditions for skiers. Gallwey originally used it for teaching tennis, and the method basically consists of teaching not by telling people what to do, but simply by helping them direct their attention to different aspects of what they want to learn.

    In this book, subtitled Overcoming mental obstacles for maximum performance, Timothy Gallwey applies the same principles to work. How can we create the best learning conditions at work and what advantages would this give us?
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  • Book review: Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix

    I just finished reading the order of the phoenix by J.K. Rowling in 3 days, which should tell you something about how exciting it is. This book fully lives up to the promise of the previous books.
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  • Book review: Crossings

    This book by Richard A. Heckler, subtitled “A New Psychology of the Unexpected”, is about change in a big way. It’s about those events that have the powert to totally transform your life. The events can be big or small, trivial or life-threatening, mystical or practical, but they fundamentally alter the people to whom they happen.

    The strongest feature of the book is quite simply actual stories of this happening. Told partially in the words of the people involved and partially by the author, these stories are downright gripping. From Karl, a former drug dealer turned minister, to Rebecca who discovers her strengths and leadership abilities on board a small boat close to sinking in a ferocious storm.
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  • Book review: Freedom and accountability at work

    Can the business world learn anything from existential philosophy? Do concepts such as freedom, good and evil, accountability and anxiety have any meaning in a corporate setting?

    After reading this book by Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block, I have no doubt whatsoever that the answer is a resounding yes. The subtitle “Applying philosophical insight to the real world” is beautifully realized throughout the book.
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  • Book review: Pattern recognition

    William Gibsons new book held a strange attraction for me, one I find it very difficult to explain.

    We all know that Gibson has come a long way since the days of Neuromancer and the two followups, and pattern recognition is the logical conclusion to the direction his latest books have been taking. But at the same time, he also revisits themes and ideas from his cyberpunk books, especially from Count Zero.
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  • Book review: What should I do with my life?

    Good question, huh? What exactly should you do with your life? Where is that one job that will make your life eternally happy and remove all doubt about whether you’ve made the right choice?

    Well, Po Bronson has talked to a lot of people who have faced that very question, and he has some good news and some bad news for us in this book.
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