Very Well Read

I bought this book for my sister for Christmas. Stumbling across it in a bookstore one day, I saw the tagline on the cover:

How to win a catfight, drink someone under the table, choke a man with your bare thighs, and dozens of other TV and movie skills. [emphasis added]

... and I knew I had to buy this book for my sis.

Being the curious type, and having bought this book months before Christmas, I just may have flipped through [translation: read] this book before I wrapped it up. Overall, I have to say I was a wee bit disappointed. Although I did learn how to choke a man with my bare thighs, and that may come in handy someday.

Worick, Jennifer & Borgenicht, Joe. The Action Herione's Handbook. New York: Quirk Books, 2003.

Labels: fluff, how to, nonfiction

A while back, I read Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. I'm sure I kept notes of stuff I found interesting, but I have no idea where those notes are*. Until I find them, here's an interview of Jared Diamond by Stephen Colbert.



*I also read his other book, Collapse, and have no idea where those notes are either.

Labels: nonfiction

For some reason, I've been hearing about this book a lot lately. I mean, a lot. Like every second person I talked to mentioned it. So I decided to check it out. After waiting for a while (being 27th on the waiting list at VPL), I got the book and, quite honestly, I couldn't put it down. I didn't find it to be very well written (far too repetitive for my liking), but for some reason I found the book fascinating. Now, I don't agree with some of the things he says... most notably, his views on taxes. Basically, he feels that taxes just penalize the poor & middle class, because the rich hire expensive accountants to get them out of paying taxes and the government wastes the tax money you give them anyway. But to me, this means that we should be fixing our tax system so that the rich pay their fair share and to eliminate government waste, making sure that tax money goes to the things it's meant to go to. Things like education, research and health care are, in my opinion, far too important to be run by corporate interests. But I did find many of the things that he says in this book thought-provoking. I definitely like the idea of having my money work for me rather than working for my money (but that could be because I work for very, very little money!). I also like the idea of working to learn things and the recommendation to never stopping learning.
Some of the quotations I liked from this book were:

• "Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn" - I thought this really reflects a great attitude... we can always learn from our "mistakes," right?
  

• "Money is an illusion" - This is a good one to keep in mind should I ever get around to investing... I think it would help with the fear of losing money on an investment... you shouldn't really be investing money that you can't afford to lose.
  

• "... history repeats itself because we do not learn from history. We only memorize historical dates and names, not the lesson." - This one made me think of science. I often say that (or complain about, really) we don't really teach kids science, we teach them the history of science. We have them memorize facts as if they are, and always were, set in stone, but we rarely teach them about the process of science, which is really what science is all about. Science is far more exciting than knowing that there are 206 bones in the human body and the atomic mass of calcium is 40.078 amu.
  

• "Most people never see these opportunities because they are looking for money and security, so that's all they get. The moment you see on opportunity, you will see them for the rest of your life." - This one made me think of my sister. My sister is truly an entrepreneur... she sees business opportunities all over the place. I hope to ride her coat-tails as she builds her empire.
  

Labels: nonfiction