loopyker’s #CBR4 Review #07: Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

I’ve watched exactly one full episode of Katie – the Katie Couric show.   I heard that Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess was going to be on an episode, so I had to watch it. Brené Brown happened to be the main guest on the same show and she made such an impression on me that I immediately convinced my boyfriend to buy me her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead.

So, I took a little break from my usual fiction books to read this research-based, self-help type of book. It took me a little longer than usual to get through it – not because I wasn’t interested, but because I had to keep stopping to make notes on post-its and discuss things that I found interesting with my boyfriend. He hasn’t read the book himself yet, but he probably knows what half of it says already from me! So, this book just had to jump the queue in my ever growing, waiting-to-be-reviewed book list.

I think virtually everyone can see themselves and others in at least parts of this book somewhere. I found meaning in so many sections of it, that I did something I’ve never done before – I bought it for someone else before I even finished reading it (two people actually, with the help of my boyfriend). I also recommended it to others – and still do.

This isn’t a touchy-feely self-help book. Brené Brown is always referring to her research, in a way that the scientific mind in me appreciates, but she still makes it very accessible to non-researchers by relating it to every-day people and situations, including many from her own life. For a short version of her style and some of the topics covered in Daring Greatly, check out the video of her very popular 2010 TEDxHouston talk, The Power of Vulnerability , which she performed before writing this book.

review continued at Loopy Ker’s Life

Fofo’s #CBR4 Review #30: Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

Target: Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You

Profile: Non-fiction, Sociology, Neuroscience

I added Everything Bad to my reading list shortly after finishing Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.  I was looking for a counterpoint to Postman’s arguments and the internet was fairly aggressive in promoting the dichotomy between the two books.  In practice, that comparison doesn’t really hold up, in spite of Johnson’s insistence that it does.  But where Postman has centuries of history and sociological evidence to back up his ideas, Jonson has a handful of examples from the top half of the 2000s, and a mountain of conjecture.

Steven Johnson’s core concept is the ‘Sleeper Curve,’ a theory which posits that there are significant  cognitive benefits to our increasingly complex popular culture.  Johnson never formally defines the Sleeper Curve anywhere in the book, but the general shape of the theory is fairly obvious.  Everything Bad primarily wants to prove that we are getting smarter because our media is getting more complex and deeper.  The book is split into three sections: first, contrasting historical television programing and computer gaming with the present entertainment markets; second, providing scientific evidence that we are getting smarter; and finally, a shorter section addressing the content versus raw complexity issue.

Read the rest of the review…

Fofo’s #CBR4 Review #23: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

Target: Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Profile: Non-fiction, Epistemology, Sociology

Non-fiction is never easy to review.  An informed author should be an authority on the subjects he or she is writing about, so it can be difficult to confront the author’s logic unless the reviewer is an expert too.  The problem is magnified with time.  Even if I were an authority on epistemology and education today, would those perspectives really be able to critique the ideas put forth thirty years ago?  I may be able to analyze writing style and form, but a critique of content is difficult at best and always extremely subjective.

Still, after reading Amusing Ourselves to Death, I cannot help but disagree with a few of Postman’s arguments.  Some of what he is saying has been made obsolete by time, but a few of his attacks on our television culture are just wrong or ill-formed.  There is an extremely valid criticism of the modern news broadcast here, but a few pieces of Postman’s argument are contradictory or flawed enough to bring the whole book into question.

Read the rest of the review…

Fofo’s blog moved!  Check out the new website – Deconstructive Criticism

CommanderStrikeher’s #CBR 4 Review #9: World War Z by Max Brooks

I loved this book. I didn’t think that I would. I am sick to death of zombie-mania. This isn’t a zombie book. Well, it isn’t just a zombie book, and there are certainly a few, “Run, Bitch, Run!” moments, but it is so much more. From a sociological standpoint, I felt that this book realistically captured what would happen if a world-wide epidemic broke out. This book was smart. Seriously.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is the story of how the Zombie epidemic began in rural China and how it spread across the world. Different governments denied or covered up the existence of the epidemic until it was too late. Instead of just telling the story from one perspective, the author uses several dozen different points of view, so it’s almost like reading a short story anthology. There are narrators from every viewpoint one can think of: government officials, scummy businessmen, army soldiers, and chubby internet nerds. My only complaint is that some of the stories were just too short. As soon as I got attached to a character, their segment was over.

Brooks seriously considered all of the possible differences in fighting an army of re-animated corpses. For one thing, they don’t feel fear, so fear-based weapons are useless. As are smoke bombs, and to an extent, nuclear weapons. The most fascinating aspect, however, was the different governmental reactions to events. North Korea disappeared. They pulled all of their citizens into underground bunkers, including many who were probably infected. One narrator stated that there are probably millions of North Korean zombies just waiting to come out and re-infect the world. Creepy.

5/5 Stars.