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Book categories
Now that I’m up to more than 40 book reviews on this site, I’ve changed the book reviews page so that it groups the books in categories, the categories being:
Fiction
Improving work
Learning
Open Space
Philosophy
Psychology
Science
Various non-fictionThis should make it easier to find a specific book or a book an a certain topic, even though I have to say that some of them were quite difficult to categorize.
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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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Guru meditation
Following my tradition of taking weird courses, I took a meditation course last weekend, and for the first time ever I actually had a feeling that I was meditating rather than just sitting with my eyes closed. So I’m going to meditate twice daily for a time, just to see how it works for me.
Pop quiz: Which popular home computer signalled system crashes with the error message “Guru meditation”?
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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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Obituary
One of the exercises we did at the DSN course I took last weekend, was to write our own obituaries. This sounds kinda morbid, but the point is to realize that one day you’ll die, and thus be able to focus more on what’s really important to you.
So here’s what I’d like my obit to be.
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Nowhere to hide
Lars points to a very funny piece about the Open Space session i hosted in april for Collaboraid.
I had no idea that I do “power hand gestures”, but I kinda like the sound of it.
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Happiness for free agents
The newly started network for free agents have asked me to speak at their first seminar on september 4th. I’ll be talking about happiness at work, and how free agents can get it.
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Quote
Money makes life easier in all the obvious ways. There’s definitely some things in it. But it does not bring you happiness, in no way shape or form. It can hurt people too. You know, if you don’t have a clear idea of who you are and what you are, and why you’re here. So money can be deadly. It can divide people. And it can make people very greedy. It can have many different effects on people. You can have money and just be really thankful, and do positive things. Or you can have money and waste it all, and die of an overdose. You know, because you don’t know who you are.
– Jennifer Aniston
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