SPOILER ALERT

If you haven’t read the book yet, I do go into the ending in this piece so if you don’t want to know how Uglies ends, move along now.

Uglies is the first book in a four book series by Scott Westerfeld. It takes us into the future where society as we know it has disentegrated and our society as we live today is referred to as The Rusties.

Within this new world there are several divides. Ugly town, Pretty Town and the authoritative City which also encompasses Special Circumstances, a secret service of the new world.

The premise of the book is that when everyone turns sixteen they are given an operation which transforms them into a Pretty, someone who is of perfect dimension, based on their biology, so everyone is different, yet the same as they are given the exact proportions of what is determined to be pretty by the order of the City surgeons.

We meet Tally gate crashing a Pretty party to visit her newly Pretty childhood friend Peris. He has settled into life in Read more »

For a little book, this is packed full of gold nuggets and at times it feels like Seth Godin is just downloading his brain, which is actually priceless.

Tribes looks at the development of groups, especially niche groups which forms tribes – with or without you – and the value that is apparent in taking a leadership role of these groups.

Godin contends that people are desperate to believe in the elusive ’something’ whether it’s animal welfare, software, tattoos, or orchids. But with this desperation, the despair is the collective sigh of all going nowhere believing in the one thing. This is where leadership enters the Tribes equation.

Godin looks at what makes a leader as opposed to a follower, what core values are needed and why so many don’t take up the challenge and why, it is essential that someone step up to the plate. He challenges our core fears of failure, apathy, discontent, the status quo and why all these fears need to be challenged and conquered – immediately.

Some of the core ideas include Leadership is Not Management, and with this, managers are not necessarily leaders. He cites examples of a single memo that changed the course of a company, written by an employee who rose to lead the Read more »

Malcolm Gladwell sets out to prove two arguments in The Outliers:-

1. There is no such thing as an overnight success and
2. Stars are born AND made.

Throughout The Outliers, Gladwell looks at several case studies including The Beatles, Bill Gates, New York lawyer Joe Flom and others.

Gladwell argues that it is possible to take a successful person and predict their history in terms of where and when they were born, who their parents were in terms of cultural identity, and what type of school they attended.

While looking at successful Canadian hockey players, it was discovered that the best were born at a specific time of year. With other case studies, Gladwell succeeds in building the case that it definitely depends on when you were born as to whether you will be successful or not, in a range of endeavours.

He then goes on to examine the importance of cultural heritages including Jewish immigration and the ensuing rag trade boom, and the significance of rice fields on success in mathematics and other academic enterprises.

Gladwell’s signature and most coined argument from The Outliers is the 10,000 hour rule. Using a collection of studies he suggests and proves that one will only be an outstanding success at anything once they have achieved 10,000 hours of practice and execution of their speciality.

Gladwell builds compelling arguments and makes one stand back and think about the nature of success. The information he provides and the argument he makes allows us to understand success retrospectively and to some extent predictively.

Cliff notes really don’t do this work any justice and it is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in the pathology of success.

I had some reservations about this at the start, given that it’s about a man who meets god at the site where his daughter was murdered but I was prepared to see how the author handled it and apparently it’s a best seller.
The first third of the book, as already mentioned, is really well written and detailed the events surrounding the death of the daughter well. She gets abducted from a campsite by a known pedophile and is later slain at The Shack and her body is never recovered.

Thencomes the interesting part, when Mack, father of Missy, finds a note from god in his letterbox asking him to meet him at The Shack. Although he feels it might be a trap by the killer or he may be losing his mind, his curiosity wins and he goes.

After tearing the shack apart in a fit of grief and rage when god isn’t there, he attempts to leave only to be met by a ‘miracle’. The snow melts, the shack returns to its original state and is surrounded by green fields with wild flowers and singing birds.

Then in comes ‘god’ A black woman Elouisa, a guy called Jeshua and another woman called Sarayu. Some interesting theology based conversaton ensues and I began to have hope until ” We created you to share….Adam chose to go it on his own, as we knew he would, and everything got messed up”

I read another ten pages and decided it’s not worth my time. I was OK to go along with the ‘god’ theory but the creationist stuff is just too much to swallow for me. I was raised a catholic so don’t leave disparaging comments or try to convert me. I have an open mind in all things but please, Adam? I was hoping for something more insightful.

Next on the list is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which I abandoned to finish The Shack.

This is quite a small book, relatively speaking, but a deceptively long read. Written by WM. Paul Young, it’s the story of a man who returns to the scene of the murder of his young daughter, called there by ‘God’.
I’m just at the interesting part now, about a third of the way through, after the gruelling first part detailed the circumstances of the death of the daughter.

Full cliff notes tomorrow (insomnia still reigns).